Recognizing the Absolute Detachment of Christian Knowledge-Systems (scripture, theology, history etc) from the real thing

In the past, it was a reasonably effective way to become a Christian (or a better Christian) to learn and practice Christian knowledge systems - such as theology, the history of Christianity, the Bible, doctrines, rituals etc.   

In other words, once upon a time, some generations ago; knowing-about and talking-about Christianity had some relationship to being a Christian; some correlation to the reality of actual Christian experience. 

Not any more. 

Because of changes in human consciousness; the world of knowledge systems has become detached from actual experience. Knowledge systems are now wholly abstract - that is, when they are not merely subordinated components of the over-arching totalitarian-bureaucratic system.

As of here-and-now; it does not help At All for a Christian to be knowledgeable about The Bible, theology, or history of the church - or any other knowledge system*.  

Indeed, the most knowledgeable and expert in such fields are often not-Christian or anti-Christian - and it would probably be a true generalization to state that the more adept someone is in Christian knowledge-systems, the less likely they are to be a Christian. 

That this detachment or inversion of the role of knowledge-systems is ultimately caused by changes in human consciousness, in the way that people think and behave - is evident from the fact that it affects every domain of human activity, every knowledge system. 

"Expertise" nowadays has a zero or reversed relationship with the true and original functionality of systems: 

In medicine, the higher up the ladder of expertise and status and power; the less likely it is that the person will be motivated by real-life, inter-personal, medical considerations - and at the highest levels of the medial profession, it is very probable that the net-motivation is anti-health, anti-well-being, anti-human. 

In science; the real scientific attitude (which is itself very rare) is found only at lower levels or among amateurs; and is rigorously excluded-from (or stamped-out in) professional researchers as they ascend the ladder of expertise in knowledge systems.  

This applies across the board in modern society: the most senior and expert lawyers main activity is to subvert justice; the leading journalists and media people are almost full-time engaged in manipulation and systematic dishonesty rather than informing; the highest level people in the arts subsidise and reward anti-art and calculated ugliness etc. etc.

The fact that people spend much of their lives thinking-about, communicating about symbolic-knowledge of some particular sort; does not lead-to - does not even correlate with - genuine motivation and experience of the underlying reality to which these symbol-systems supposedly refer.  

Always we find that any formerly-existing broad relationship between knowledge-about and practice-of, has now been severed.

The knowledge-system expertise is therefore a distraction at best, and actively misleading more often.   

But recognizing the absolute detachment of knowledge-systems from the real thing is probably of the greatest significance in respect to Christianity; because that is the most important subject in the world.

 

* This is how we typically find that priests are less good Christians than laity and Bishops worse than priests; why the most experts Biblical scholars - including the ordained - are the most distorted in interpretation, the most worldly, and subversive to faith... and so forth. 

Christian conversion as a loyalty-test initiation

One of the reasons that so many deeply-dissatisfied atheist-materialists are repelled from Christianity; is that Christianity means picking a church or denomination and then obeying it. 

As with a gang or cult; the prime demand is for loyalty to the institution; and this is enforced by initiation through loyalty tests. 

Typically, the covert is required to believe and affirm some things he regards as false; and (which is probably worse) must state that some bad things are good.  

There is often a honeymoon period after conversion when everything seems easy - but the loyalty tests will soon arrive!

One classic is Abraham being ordered - as a test of obedience to divine will - to sacrifice his son Isaac; so that he is faced with a choice of disobedience to God and ritual murder of his child. 

The test is that we must agree and believe that the Right Answer was to kill Isaac: that the goodness of God is axiomatic whatever God asks of us; and obedience to the incomprehensible divine will is essential, while eschewing gross evil and doing what we personally believe to be good is irrelevant. 

Well, that is the Old Testament - but there are also some stark loyalty tests in the New; such as the story of Ananias in Acts of the Apostles*. First Ananias, and then his wife, are struck dead by divine will for some combination of withholding tithes from Peter, and then lying to cover the sin. 

The episode seems to be presented as an exemplary punishment - as a warning and deterrent to others not to do this kind of thing. 

No doubt it would have been very effective at ensuring tithes got paid; but... Well, this kind of justice is more like the Forest Laws of the Normans, than the behaviour of a wholly good God whose children we are. 

What such loyalties resemble is a kind of bait and switch con practiced on the convert - who hopes and intends to buy one thing, but being induced to accepts another, and much less desirable thing. 

Or the Christian feels like a Man induced to sign a contract; who then finds himself bound by all kinds of things written in the "small print" of which he had been unaware, and would not wanted to agree-to.

Each church has its reasons for such practice; and claims that the requirements are all logically entailed and/or absolutely necessary for the integrity of the whole. Such tests are seen as a part of the process of learning what it really means to be a Christian. 

However; I have come to see these loyalty-tests as corrupting of Christians, in a process that continues and worsens. 

This process is one I regard as corrupting, because it always seems to push converts towards a conceptualization of God rooted in power not love; and a conceptualization of Christianity as derived-from the group and enforced by authority via rules and tests and practices.

It is this effect of Christian conversion (or devout practice) that is so repellent to non-Christians; and is worsened by Christians who assert that there is no alternative. 

And indeed, there is no institutional or this-worldly alternative; since the attempts at "liberalization" all lead out from Christianity and into conformist left-secularism.  

The only real alternative I can imagine is to recognize Christianity is primarily and essentially a matter between Jesus Christ and each Man individually - not bound-up vitally with any institution; and concerned primarily with what happens to each of us after death, rather than what happens during this mortal life.

Of course institutions are essential and anyway unavoidable; and of course post-mortal expectations can and should influence this moral life...

But it is a matter of what is primary, essential, and mandatory; from which the rest grows and develops. 

It is a matter of the true and necessary root of Christianity.   

* Acts. 5 [1] But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, [2] And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. [3] But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? [4] Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. [5] And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. [6] And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. [7] And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. [8] And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. [9] Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. [10] Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.  

The end of Two-Step self-interest

The Old Left in Britain was largely rooted in the self-interest of unionized skilled workers, who strove to protect their pay and conditions over the medium to long-term. 

It was accepted that, in the short-term, workers would lose-out. 

By union activity they would become less popular with employers, need to pay union dues, attend meetings, maybe embark on self-education; and if there were strikes they would lose wages. 

My point is that at this time - from the 1800s right up into the middle-1900s; ordinary people were thinking in the medium to long-term; on a timescale that encompassed years ahead. 

That is what was going-on with the rioting and resistance of groups that resisted technological changes that would tend to destroy their long-term interests; groups now generically described as "Luddites" - hand-loom weavers, for example. 

Workers would be aware of changes in laws and regulations that constituted structural threats to their future power and autonomy; and these would often be the focus of industrial disputes. 

Let's call this Two-Step self-interest. 

But we now (and increasingly over the past half-century) inhabit an era of One-Step self-interest. 

The concern is with me, here, now. Proposed change to our work and life is evaluated on the basis of what may benefit me today, tomorrow, next week, maybe next year? 

This is part of the change from an Old Leftism based around class, economics, and power; to a New Leftism based around lifestyle, personal identity, social status, self-esteem etc. 

New Leftism is a top-down ruling class project. It does not seriously seek support among working class unionized workers; but instead among the managerial and intellectual workers, among "youth" (and youth-minded) who value being "cool"; and by pandering to an expanding client class of disaffected self-conceptualized victims. 

New Leftism has coincided with and also abolished Two-Step reasoning from all public discourse.

The pursuit of basic self-interest is nowadays regarded as despicable - except among the designated victim class; who must accept subservient status and live by grace and favour of The System to retain this contingent privilege.  

There is simply no place in mainstream societal and professional public discourse for considering the medium/ long-term consequences of changes.  

Consequently (or from some other cause) people have actually become incapable of Two-Step reasoning, of evaluating their own Two-Step self-interest. 

They can, and do, look no further ahead of more widely than me/ here/ now; and become very uncomfortable or angry when anyone tries to make them consider the medium-long term consequences of proposed change. 

All that people ask, all that they can conceptualize; is that proposed change be approved officially or by their chosen "authority; and have some superficially-plausible chance of yielding One-Step self-interest - better conditions or pay, perceived chance of promotion, higher status among peers etc. 

When there are Two-Step strategizers are leading those who are blind to consequences; what happens is that multiple short-term (One-Step) benefits, will accumulate towards long-term (Two-Step) annihilation. 

It happens unwittingly, without awareness on the part of those being manipulated towards their own destruction. 

That some proposed or actual change may abolish their job, impoverish them, create environmental threats, lead to war (inter-national or civil) is simply outwith the scope of their reasoning. 

What was the normal "common sense" reasoning of ordinary working men just 100 years ago - i.e. the ability to evaluate longer term and structural consequences from their own point-of-view - now seems like merely arbitrary, or actively irresponsible, speculation! 

Irrelevant at best, but mostly negativistic, subversive, dangerous to organizational cohesion 

As a result of this cognitive deficiency, whole functional institutions - such as my personal areas of experience and interest such as academia, scientific research, medicine; and the Christian churches - have been taken-over in an incremental, step-wise fashion; and brought under external bureaucratic control. 

And, at least since the 1990s; all this happened essentially any significant awareness, opposition or resistance. 

I am not calling here for a restoration of Two-Step self-interest - this is apparently impossible: people are just incapable. 

Neither am I suggesting that it always or even usually led to long-term betterment - Luddites failed in their resistance. 

I am instead describing what happened, what used-to-be: a way of thinking and reasoning that was possible, almost automatic, for ordinary working people for many generations. 

And how it has almost disappeared. 

The livelihood of whole sectors of the population in, say, 1800; might be, often was, abolished; and the world was changed. 

But this did not happen without people being able to work-out in advance what was on the cards, and without recognizing the cause of what was happening to them. 

Nowadays; the mass of UK people are literally too stupid, stupefied even to work-out such simple Two-Step self interested logic that immigration at a rate of 800K-plus per year is the cause of housing shortages. Or to know the inevitable long-term consequence of decades of severe native sub-fertility plus mass immigration.

The nature of this stupidity has nothing to do with relative intelligence; because it is commonest among the intellectual classes. 

Neither is it explicable merely on the basis of propaganda; because the olden-days workers were subject to a very complete mind-control system via Establishment-religion, and very harsh punishments for transgression. 

But this regime could not eradicate peoples' ability to know their own long-term self-interest - even when they could not effectively defend it. 

The cause of this modern incapacity of reasoning seems to me more like a loss of basic protective instincts; perhaps at a biological, genetic, level*. 

But loss is loss; and this is a very real fact of life - something that must be taken-into-account, worked-around.  

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed Man is king. 

And in a world of where most are capable of only One-Step self-interest; the Two-Steppers will rule. 

The Two-Steppers will easily manipulate the One-Steppers without their awareness, and without resistance.

And that is the world we inhabit.

**

* Loss of the motivational primacy of the religious-spiritual perspective is also crucial. I believe that past people were able to favour the medium/long term because they genuinely expected to live after death. Once self-interest is confined to our own mortal life, then it tends to become shorter term; because the closer and more personal the benefit hoped-for, the surer and more certain it is that we personally will get it.       

Note: And this is yet another reason why there is no hope from the Christian Churches. The churches are being strategized into annihilation. Churches consist-of, and are led-by, One-Steppers; who are unwittingly manipulated - by one short-term beneficial increment after another - by a ruling class headed, ultimately, by Two-Steppers. 

Note added: The above is an example of why common sense has not just zero traction nowadays, but is actively stigmatized; and why (as I analyzed in my 2011 mini-book Thought Prison - see sidebar) there cannot be a genuine (i.e. *not* spook-generated/ manipulated fake-opposition) and effective political party based on common sense. CS just does not motivate sufficiently in the modern atheistic-materialistic mind - probably it never has. This has been repeatedly confirmed in the 15 years since, when high profile pseudo-common sense politics always turns out to be a sham - as with the current "leader of the free world", and the Brexiteers of the UK...  

Christianity remade as a religion of power, or of escape

It often seems that there have never been very many Christians in the world; because so very few people - even among the religious - seem even to want what Jesus offered: i.e. resurrected eternal life in Heaven, attainable by following him.

What the mass of religious people want most, is apparently a deity of power.

God/s whose own power is so great and irresistible, that service to the God/s can guarantee that those who serve him/them will win (eventually). 

Naturally, when such people call themselves Christian, they make "Christianity" into an instrument of power, serving a God defined in terms of power in this mortal life and world. 

An influential minority find "winning" to be no more than a temporary palliative; because these people are irresistibly-aware that evil pervades all Men, winners as well as losers; and because disease, degeneration and death make our mortal life a tragedy. 

What such people desire most deeply is escape from the tragedy that is mortal life on earth. 

Naturally, when such people call themselves Christian; they make Christianity into a religion of escape; a religion of palliation in this temporary and illusory mortal life and world; escape into complete absence of all suffering (perhaps bliss) in the next, and real, world. 

It is natural, and probably inevitable, that people will make their religion into a vehicle of what they most want; but it is confusing for those who instead want what Jesus offered.

When the overwhelming mass of Christianity actually is about power; and its "advanced" practitioners primarily desire escape - and when power or escape fill most of Christian discourse - it becomes difficult, or perhaps in practice impossible, for someone who innately wants what Jesus actually offers to recognize "Christianity" as the place he can find what he desires. 

This is why I think we are compelled to seek fundamental knowledge concerning our deepest wants in a manner that is direct and personal, intuitive and simple. 

If we do not, or cannot, find the necessary knowledge for-ourselves and validated by-ourselves - in faith that the true deity will guide the sincere searcher sufficiently for the purpose; then I see zero possibility of actually finding Jesus's offer by a process of sifting through the colossal and growing archives of public religious discourse. 

 

Note Added: The above analysis suggests why Christianity has declined, and is declining. 

If you are religious, and it is power you really want in the 21st century; then Christianity is not the place that somebody would seek a share of power. The obvious power religions are not in Christianity but in the plainly-monotheistic world religions. 

Affiliation with power might be sought by supporting or converting-to the global monotheism which has been growing so rapidly in zeal, numbers, and nations over the past century. Or else a power-seeker might seek affiliation with to the global racial monotheism that has such a disproportionately large share of world power, wealth, and influence. 

As for religions of escape: a much purer and simpler and more escape-orientated religion than Christianity can be found among the Western philosophical (and Theosophy-derived, "perennialist") versions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism. And (overlapping with these) there is a large, growing (and socially-acceptable, Establishment-supported) Oneness spirituality of the New Age. 

In sum; both for those who seek power, and those who seek escape; there are more straightforward and "effective" alternatives to be found outwith Christianity.

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

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

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

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

But mostly this does not happen. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Censorship - there is no evil

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

3. Value-inversion - evil becomes good 

1. Censorship

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

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

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

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

2. Excuses

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Value-inversion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The decline of the ideal of worship and obedient service

It is striking (to me) how the ideal values of worship and obedient service have declined to feebleness - or else to a legalism of worship and obedient service that disguises a pleasure-seeking/ fear-motivated loyal conformity to societal power. 

Worship-of and obedience-to God are the Old Testament ideal that permeate much of the Bible; including much of the New Testament such as the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. 

And this was (in most stable and effective Christian societies) transferred to a monarch (whether temporal and/or spiritual - or both) who would himself be motivated by the same ideal.  

If I think back about thirty and plus years; this broad framework of W and O was still, sometimes and somewhat but in a valued way, working for me - although on in rather specific times and places and occasions. 

What characterized such a situation was a sense of magical enchantment - a positive connection to past, place, instituion, and others present. 

But it was already clear that this ideal had not just lost its appeal to most people, most of the time; who were simply bored by such things. 

And there was indeed a reaction against it; such that an atmosphere of scornful mockery and embarrassment was becoming dominant whenever worship and obedient service was apparent or advocated - or against those who were more that way inclined. 

Also; those who most vehemently advocated that worship and obedience was a good, or essential, basis for the Good Life; were nearly-always being dishonest - they were just using this value-system for their own (and often sordid) self-gratification and benefit. 

 

Of course this decline and inversion is in some (important and valuable) ways a subtraction from life. This is why people like me fought against it. 

Yet it is also a fact of life that needs to be acknowledged; as is the requirement that something is needed to replace it as a source of motivation and enchantment -- if not of social cohesion...

Because it seems increasingly clear that appeals to (or enforcement of) social cohesion nowadays is rooted in negative and evil purposes - for instance when prepping nations and institutions for pursuit of an evil war, or an evil strategy 

In other words appeals to (de facto) worship and obedience, whether in religion or in secular life - the seeking of increased energy and motivation for societal groupings - is used for the purposes of Lawful Evil. 

This seem inevitable when the people involved have themselves and en masse rejected the reality of the Christian God and divine creation. 

How can people be corralled into pursuing a truly Good purpose, when they deny the very reality of Good purpose in the universe?     

And yet and yet... we must have something. 

If not worship and obedience then... something else: because the alternative is despair. 

And then either an obedience based on mere coping and survivalism (chosen slavery), or else here-and-now selfishness and indifference to consequences (psychopathy). 

Surely this is an unavoidable task for everyone? 

And a task where objective external assistance from a societal source cannot be expected - and where whatever "answer" we may find will inevitably be partial, temporary, and perhaps private and personal? 

For me, vital clues are the insight that God most desires of us is Not worship and obedience; but Instead a chosen, committed, and loving "friendship" type of relationship; analogous to that which forms the basis of a shared and harmonious, purposive living; and (sometimes, temporarily, and imaginably) characterizes the best of family life and marriage.    

However, the reassurance we have as Christians is that whatever we actually achieve is less important than knowing what we most need. 

Sincerely-attempting not successfully-accomplishing our ideals, is actually the basis of good-living now, and salvation to come.   

Not a war to win, but a war to destroy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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. 

Can Christianity escape from the authority of "History"?

The question of "History" - that there is an objectively-true, evidenced account of the past: of how things came to be the way they are now - is one that has been very strong since the subject of History began to emerge as a distinctive discipline, detached (supposedly!) from religious (later ideological) justifications and dishonesties. 

But the idea that true history emerges from "the evidence" turns-out to be as false as the analogous argument for the natural sciences; in both cases coherence and proof is provided by theory, and theory must come prior to evidence.

...Because without a prior theory; how would anyone decide what (from infinite perceptions etc) counted as evidence, its relative value compared with other evidence, or what a piece or collection of evidence meant? 

In mainstream culture this has left us with two false and incoherent alternatives. 

On the one hand, multiple rival blustering and categorical assertions* that This is The Truth about history - assertions that ignore the dependence on prior theory. 

And on the other side the supposedly radical "relativist" subversion that states "everything is ideology" so that objective truth has no meaning, so that truth cannot be known and is just a consequence of power - assertions that ignore their blatant self-subversion. 

For these folk; History is just a story made-up by the winners, and the discipline of History something created to reach the conclusions they have already-decided - and any other story can have equal validity.  

And that is pretty much how things stand. 

The traditionalist, orthodox, religious reactionary side wrongly assert that the evidence for their assertions is objective; and the radical, liberal, "reforming" side of religion asserts that their own take on the world is better than that of the conservatives; despite that they have previously asserted that "better" has no objective meaning and is merely a consequence of power.

Usually, people "pick a side" because they can see no alternative, and in order to join a gang; and stoutly continue to ignore the fatal weakness, the non-objectivity of their own position, its dependence on theoretical assumptions; by relentlessly focusing on the fatal weakness and non-objectivity of their opponents position. 

The choice that culture forces upon us is between "truth is what I say" and "there is no truth" - both based on circular and incoherent arguments!

What should we do when faced with two false alternatives? 

Should we do what most people do when confronted by mainstream electoral politics, or rival sports teams located in your home city: just pick a side then support it fanatically - while demonizing the opposition.

Is that really the best we can do when confronted by the most fundamental problems of our human existence? 

  

People need to recognize that the dilemma is one of our own creation, and rooted in an unexamined assumption that the truth about reality is and must-be a public consensus.

The false modern dilemma of choosing between two falsehoods, arises from our own built-in assumption that truth is either a consensus located externally and communally and with nothing to do with me - my job being only to choose to submit to it or deny it... 

Or else "truth" is nothing-but inside my head... whatever my brain happens to be telling me at this instant. 

What we need is obvious enough - we need to understand how truth both depends on me and my assumptions and thinking; and truth also is about reality, about things (entities) other than myself.

I think the distinction we need is between things existing, and knowledge about them. We must assume - and indeed are born assuming - that other entities exist. 

Doubts about the existence of reality emerge later, and indeed are large distinctive to relatively modern times (the past few centuries). 

These doubts are reinforced by the impossibility of finding "evidence" that other entities exist outside of our own thoughts about them. 

Solipsism (the belief that nothing exists outside myself) cannot be refuted in its own terms, cannot be refuted by "evidence". Solipsism is thus a pathology caused by the choice to deny what we innately know; a choice to explain everything by constructing and entering a circle of subjectivity.  

On the other side; the blustering assertions of the reality of reality, are nearly-always actually assertions about our knowledge of reality. 

For instance, religious people are not content to assume the innate understanding in the objective reality of God as another entity from "me"; but combine the innate with asserting the objectivity of their own claim for knowledge of God's (many and complex!) attributes. 

They conflate the innately understood reality of God, with knowledge of the "theological-God". Thereby re-entering the false-dilemma debate that undermines all such claims...

After which the conservative religious will usually bluster and shout his knowledge-assertions while pouring scorn on those who do not share them...

While the radical-liberal religious will usually adopt a passive aggressive strategy of undermining the possibility of any objective and universal knowledge about reality - to distract from the fact he is making his own assertions concerning reality, and is assuming these assertions are more-true than the conservative's. 

To loop back - how can we take account of History in such a situation; when we assume that there was a real history that led up to the present, but all our specific knowledge of that history is undermined by the subjective-objective distinction!

When History has become Impossible!

Especially this is a problem; in that Christianity is located in History; and happened at a particular past time and place. 

When History has become impossible in the mainstream of public discourse - this must (and does) have a profoundly subversive effect on Christianity.     

Christians can neither depend on "objective History" nor can they allow History to be wholly personal and subjective. 

When it comes to History; there is the choice of two sides for the Christian, yet both sides are lethal to Christianity. 

The answer? Well; because the insoluble problem is located in the domain of public discourse, and the phenomenon of consensus; then the Christian cannot root his religion in public discourse. 

And "cannot" means cannot - because insofar as a Christian does root religion in public discourse, his religion Will Be subverted - as we see all around us**. 

And "public discourse" includes all churches. 

My conclusion is that the historical religion of Christianity now cannot be rooted-in churches, cannot derive-from churches, cannot be "what a church says". 

And that "cannot" means cannot. 

Notes: 

*The blustering and aggressive tone characteristic of many trads is not universal; but the attempt to avoid it with an attitude of personal humility directed at the authority of the chosen-church is undermined by the fact that the church has been personally chosen, as has the attitude adopted to that church. The much more proximate bribes and threats of (for example) mainstream political, bureaucratic and media institutions will easily overcome the scruples of a would-be humble-trad Christian; by interpreting his stance of obedience as instead a personal choice - which indeed it is. The self-identified humbly-obedient therefore gets depicted as an arrogantly individual wilfully-rejecting the consensus of decent people: the social-psychological pressure from such a framing is typically way too much for a self-identified humble-trad to resist, without ceasing to be humble! The choice to obey a chosen church rather than to obey the law or corporate rules, genuinely is ultimately a personal choice - no matter how humbly chosen.   

**There is a strong and chronic and continuing tendency of Christians (as well as other religions and grouping) to assimilate-into the core agenda of atheist-materialist-totalitarianism. And the direction of this tendency - although not the speed by which it operates - applies across the board, to Christians of all denominations and churches, to traditionalists as well as liberals. Liberal Christians have no compelling reason to resist the authority of the secular Western leadership class, and typically embrace all the major totalitarian strategies - since they explicitly share a core ideology. Traditionalists also converge with mainstream atheism over time, having the role of "controlled opposition". This assimilation happens because they strive for socio-political institutional Establishment in actual context of The System; and this project intrinsically entails working-within System constraints, -from System assumptions, and -with System evidence/ facts/ procedures.  

"Elite" survivalism

I have written before about the corrupting spiritual vortex that is prepper survivalism; where low-level people (such as you and me) engage in preparing to escape survive catastrophes, to become the nucleus and leadership of future human civilization... or something. 

I have also discussed "elite" survivalism, of the super-preppers and the mega-rich multi-billionaire class - who openly discuss vastly expensive schemes of many kinds to ensure their own survival of some kind of civilizational or planetary collapse...

While mocking and excluding as "conspiracy theorists" anyone who actually joins the dots to notice what They are doing!

Why does the collapse and dystopia scenario have such a fascination for modern people, and over so many decades? 

Why do people so much enjoy reading and viewing such fictions? 

I think one answer is that it is mostly a yearning for simplification of life and reversion to an imagined earlier stage of consciousness. 

The notion seems to be that a collapse into dystopia will strip-away all our "first world problems", anxieties and scruples; by an enforced focus of attention on immediate survival. 

And that this survival imperative will also simplify morality - so that we can become completely selfish and pleasure seeking - with (what seems like) the perfect excuse that we had "no alternative". 

Survivalism also carries the double incentive of indulging our spiteful natures. 

This shows-through the survivalist fantasies - peeping through the screen of rationalizations - I mean the pleasure taken in the imagined miseries, suffering and death of "other people"; while simultaneously blaming them for their situation and congratulating "ourselves" for our superiority in avoiding it! 

The fantasy is of the survivalist looking down upon the desperate situation of the masses, or perhaps the destruction of earth itself; with a combination of noble regret and smugness - while fortified by the conviction of having been "chosen" for the responsibility to continue the legacy of the human race. 

Oh yes - the spitefulness behind all this stuff is very evident!  

The bizarre incoherence of mainstream modern life is such that this desperate personal survivalism at any price, alternates with a cultural obsession with euthanasia; painless annihilation on demand. 

I regard this as evidence of demonic capture; that people have (willingly) surrendered their fundamental life-aims to purposively evil spirits; who are sadistically "playing with" human souls, and enjoying their power to seduce and manipulate human aspirations and behaviour. 

Just as the Elite survivalists enjoy their ability to manipulate public opinions and behaviours in all kinds of self-destructive but contradictory ways - to manufacture a delusional bubble and induce the masses to to choose to inhabit it - so, in Their turn, these credulous and foolish elites are themselves being manipulated by demonic lies. 

The elite survivalists are plotting to destroy a "doomed" world and most of its "useless" people (or sometimes planning to escape from a possible or impending catastrophic natural disaster); but in practice all this survivalism will amount to wrecking the world in order to build their own spiritual prisons, soul-torture chambers, and self-execution rooms. 

Such is Modern Mankind sans God and Jesus, excluding the soul and spirits; when the highest ideology is utilitarian altruistic hedonism, in this-world. 

When human life is bounded by birth and death, and is "about" nothing more than our state of happiness (and official ethics are merely justified by supposedly enhancing alleged happiness). 

We have committed our-selves to metaphysical assumptions that have left people with nothing-but the hope of optimizing their current state of pleasure, minimizing their risks of suffering. 

Then we have refused to acknowledge this is what we have-done. 

We made ourselves a gaol, walked into it; and then forgot we built it, blinded ourselves to the open doors, and cried that we cannot possibly escape. 

 

And the outcome is that we are wide-open, credulous, and willing to embrace our own destructive manipulation by those who are more selfish and powerful than ourselves - whether these others are incarnated humans, or demonic spirits. 

Fantasies of selfish escape and survivalism - at whatever level - are just one of these many destructive and corrupting manipulations. 

Tech start-up launches "95% accurate" trainable AI-Witch-Pricker

Inspired by reading the inspiring tale of the 1650 Newcastle Witch Trials - a covertly-funded Tech start-up company have harnessed the burgeoning wonder that is AI, to develop a solar-powered, computerized, retractable witch-pricker. 

Primitive mechanical witch-prickers have, of course, been around for hundreds of years; but these were notoriously unreliable - sometimes leading to the death by execution of innocent witch-finders. 

The new device overcomes all the old problems of inconvenient bulk, infected points, bending, jamming, and snapping. 

Small enough to be concealed under a shirt or between the buttocks, sharp enough to penetrate even the toughest witch's undergarments; this state-of-the art investigative tool can be assembled anywhere by 3-D printing - and is guaranteed completely harmless to middle managers and accredited government officials.  

The soon-to-be launched apparatus has already achieved "95% accuracy" in extensive trails (performed under condition of extreme secrecy, to exclude East-Asian industrial espionage); but these numbers will surely improve with repeated usage due to an inbuilt self-learning neural network. 

Even the notorious problem of false positive results has become "a thing of the past": 

"Ancient witch-prickers tended to become quickly obsolete due to changes in religious mores and government policies; but utilizing the literally-infinite expansion of "AI" capability, users are assured that the old problem of false positives has been vanquished. 

"Our AI-WP is constantly-updating to operate in full conformity with the vacillations of dominant fashions, laws, and hostile mass media. 

"Even better, the power is cleanly and sustainably generated by renewables; either from a micro-windmill activated by large gestures of the arms; an almost-invisible-yet-ultra-sensitive photovoltaic panel responsive to bright moonlight; or, for emergencies, it can conveniently be plugged-into your EV rapid-charger for a few seconds."  

The makers have disseminated and funded an international press release; in which they describe "pre-orders of 100 million dollars, already!" 

Numbers that indicate merely the tip of an iceberg of demand.  

In order to avoid disappointment; potential purchasers are recommended to e-mail or message their bank details "while stocks last" to: prince.abudlsalami@AI.not.nigeria.  

"Stevie" (1978) - a movie about Stevie Smith

If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, and live in the UK; there are a few days left in which to watch the 1978 movie Stevie - a biography of the writer Stevie Smith; which I have found nigh impossible to get-hold-of otherwise (at an acceptable price). 

Stevie originated as a stage play; and the movie sticks pretty closely to this format - mostly taking place in one room; and mostly consisting of Stevie herself, talking to camera or else to the elderly aunt with whom she lived. Nothing much "happens": this is - necessarily - a talking movie. 

The acting of Glenda Jackson as Stevie, and Mona Washbourne as her "Lion Aunt" is absolutely first class. I have never before seen this kind of deeply loving family relationship portrayed so convincingly, affectionately, humorously, and in such detail! 

And Glenda Jackson's central performance is just superb - so engaging, so varied and consistently interesting with extremes of light and shade, and yet so well-integrated. My only criticism is that - like nearly-all actors - she sometimes doesn't speak the poems as poetry - indeed, they are sometimes spoken so prosaically as to be miss-able. 

But the main thing I took away from the movie was the emotional power with which it focused on "life" - Stevie Smith's unique, witty, bleak, and incisive insights into life... 

And death - which was her great recurrent subject. 

Stevie Smith was very odd, very eccentric, almost fey; inwardly a woman of unstable extremes. 

Superficially she strikes as very old-fashioned and traditional, one who lived a routine, hardly varying, apparently mundane middle class existence. 

And yet, in truth, she was a modern woman - albeit part-time; fundamentally an existentialist - decades before that became a fashionable pose.

Modern, but much more honest and explicit than most moderns. 

By her ultimately anti-religious, anti-spiritual (therefore modern) assumptions; Stevie had - like nearly-all modern people - painted herself into a corner of despair, from which her honesty could perceive no genuine possibility of escape. 

But rather than trying to deny or distract-herself from this terrible vision of life and of death - she confronted it head-on, again and again....

She tormented herself with death, almost; perhaps to test her own strength, or to challenge others with this "reality". Perhaps in hope of finding a flaw in her reasoning, or of being convincingly contradicted.  

Well... This is how the movie encapsulates Stevie, and does so very movingly, in a dramatically satisfying way. Thus, it has her firmly rejecting "the Christian religion" for its covert "cruelty" behind a mask of sweetness. 

The main cruelty being to pretend to offer the delusory hope of Heaven.

Stevie Smith certainly wrote this, at one point, and doubtless felt it on that day and others; and surely believed it at those times and points. 

Also, because she experienced living as hard ("tiring") she sometimes looked-forward to death; perhaps as a long and restful sleep - but other times death was seen as an utter annihilation that apparently rendered life insignificant. 

Yet it is easy to detect, behind the fact of her writing so much and so harshly on the subject, that Stevie Smith was not sure that she was correct in her rejection of all hope after death. 

This comes-out in that extreme inconsistency which is so characteristic, especially in the stream of consciousness of her longer poems and prose. 

Contradictions of opinions, variable moods, extremes of generosity and selfishness, compassion and spitefulness. A good deal of sharp statement - then self-subversion. 

This was her nature. 

Stevie Smith was almost a household name in England from the 1960s and into the 80s, on BBC Radio frequently (when that commanded audiences of many millions) and even on TV; quite widely enjoyed and recognized as strange but significant. 

However, I think her name and reputation are fading into obscurity and neglect. The fact of her being of an earlier generation, as well as her one-off oddness, is unappealing to the current generation. With SS; the average contemporary reader will not find ideological and emotional confirmation of current prejudices and obsessions - which is what so many seem to want from their reading! 

With Stevie Smith, either the reader allows himself to be drawn into her world view, to see things (for a while) in her way - or else you will not find her interesting or enjoyable. 

Which is a great pity! Because there are never many real poets, even fewer women poets, and even fewer poets whose quality is spontaneously unique - absolutely one-off. 

If you value and want what Stevie Smith gave us, then there is nowhere else you can get it; because there was nobody else who did it.   

 And never shall be. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++

And what next? 

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

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

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

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.    

The fact of demons refutes that God can be both "Omni" and Good

What seems to me a very powerful argument against the mainstream orthodox Christian notion that God-the-creator is both Good and an Omni-God; is the theologically-assumed reality of demons - that is, of never-incarnated spirits who are irredeemably committed to evil, and who operate in this world.

In an ultimate sense, this is a just a subset of "the problem of evil" - and its existence At All; but most of the attempted explanations of the presence of evil in this world are focused upon human beings. Apparently; many mainstream Christians (although not me) are sufficiently satisfied by the traditional explanation that human evil is a consequence of 1. human free will (granted by God) and 2. The Fall; plus 3. that there is always a possibility that mortal humans may repent and accept salvation. 

It is this possibility that any human who is currently committed to evil may, nonetheless, repent and accept salvation that serves to explain why such humans are not annihilated or incarcerated somewhere where they can do no harm. 

So; most orthodox Christians believe that evil demons are real, and that they have a harmful effect on this world; but that they cannot ever repent. 

This creates a contradiction. 

It seems obvious (?) that any Good God who had the power to do so (as an Omni-god does, be definition); would decisively sequester such evil beings somewhere where they could not corrupt or damn human beings. 

That God does not do; and allows demons access to humans, implies either that God is not Good, or that God is not "Omni". 

[Note added: To clarify, here I am not trying to refute the orthodox explanation of the existence of demons in the first place. This, in traditional orthodoxy is usually a matter of angels being conceived as a separate creation from Men. Upon having been created, these angels then use their free will to choose evil - they become fallen-angels. This fall is then regarded a - according to the attributed nature of angelic beings - a permanent condition. What I am instead saying here is focused on the question of what God does about fallen-angels/ demons, after they have arisen.] 

Maybe this is why so many modern Christians who cleave to the definition of God as wholly Good and "Omni" tend to deny the reality of traditionally-understood demons. Instead they (seem to) regard demons ("if they really exist") as merely confused, misguided and "disturbed" spirits who might attain salvation; or in some other way as only-partly-evil, or reversibly-evil.   

Or else such Christians fall back on the "God's Goodness is total but un-understandable by Men" argument; which leaves the Christian "God-is-Good" deity indistinguishable from the Islamic concept of "Good is God".  

Such are the ways in which the stark contradiction of traditional Christian theology when it comes to demons is obscured; and concealed behind imprecision, and complexity of (only vaguely-understood) abstractions. 

NOTE: I intend to present an alternative metaphysics to explain permanently-evil demon-spirits and their continued operations in this world; in a soon-to-be-published post - which will be referenced back to the above argument.

"If Jesus Christ is King, then why isn't he doing a better job?" This is not a trivial quip...

Christians (of various denominations) often make a good deal of the assertion that Jesus Christ is King of the world, and the Universe - everything. 

The intent is, obviously, to emphasize that Jesus is divine, is a god - and (for Trinitarians) that Jesus is The One creator God. 

The intent is to make sure that everybody recognizes that there is no-thing, no-person, no-god that is greater than Jesus, or more powerful - that Jesus can do anything that Jesus wills. To make clear that - because he is the King of everything and always - Jesus not only should-not, but cannot (coherently) be ignored by anyone. 

When Jesus is King of the Universe, then anyone who believes otherwise must be ignorant or insane; or else purposively evil. There can be no rational choice against Jesus.   

But if Jesus is the actual ruler of every-thing, now and forever (and indeed always has been, from eternity) - then why doesn't he do a better job ?

This is not just a rhetorical quip - it is an unanswerable, knock-down refutation of Christ is King.

Because if Jesus rules everything, then either King Jesus is making a mess of things (and always has done); or else Jesus's idea of being a Good King is so different from my idea, and your idea, of a Good King; that most decent people would want nothing to do with such a monarch. 

It is simply not-good-enough to point-out that most things "work" for most of the time, else we would not be here to discuss anything. It is not enough to point out all the good stuff that happens. 

When such absolute claims are being made for Jesus's rulership, claims that include omnipotence, omniscience and the rest of it; then quantitative arguments are irrelevant: qualitative claims require qualitative consistency. 

If Jesus is King of Everything and Jesus is Good, then everything should be Good. 

It is not enough to wave at the "Free Will" of Men, and blame freedom for everything that goes wrong; because that just kicks the can onto why the creator-King made Men such that they want bad things; and why the King doesn't run his realm with all possible inducements to Good and excluding evil.    

Indeed, the presence of exceptionally evil people, some of whom have been that way from early childhood, is the King's fault; and so are "environments" that (we believe) cause so many people to become evil during their lives. 

The more powerful Jesus is claimed to be, the more Jesus's rulership and power is emphasized; the bigger such contradictions become. 

My point is that such Justifications of Jesus Just Will Not Do! 

And insofar as Christian belief in Jesus genuinely depends on this kind of Justification - faith is a house built upon sand. 

It will not do - so, Christians Must Do Better!... 

And this will require reaching a better, more coherent, less complex and abstract, understanding of who Jesus Christ was (i.e. his nature, what kind of person he was), what he did; and what it means for each person, individually. 

And this when attained must satisfy each of us; so as to provide a solid basis for faith; and afterwards Must Be (and it then will be) explainable briefly and clearly to non-Christians. 

By prolonged and intensive effort; we can enhance our powers, but we cannot make ourselves better people

St Paul realized that his being a brilliant orator, high-adept, and genius were ultimately irrelevant to salvation

We are much inclined to believe that people can (and should) improve themselves by prolonged and intensive effort. In short; that strong and sustained will, properly directed, leads to better people. 

Indeed, for most people, now and in the past; this is almost a definition of "religion" - redirecting our will, training and implementing our will.  

And when people are not getting better; the answer is therefore intensification of willed-effort across a longer span of time.

I personally underwent, in accordance with my will, two prolonged and intensive efforts at self-transformation in search of new abilities: first in medicine, secondly as a scientist. 

The years-long and immersive training as a doctor had many effects on me; and I developed many abilities. But there were costs. My personality was somewhat distorted and considerably hardened; and I became prone to be negatively-motivated by the group ethos, especially by a nagging sense of guilt - that lasted several years, even after I ceased to practise as a doctor. 

The years of training as a scientist also developed new aptitudes and habits, especially in the realms of thinking. I became not just able, but also almost compelled, to adopt explicit and few assumptions; stick-to and follow-through clear and transparent lines of reasoning from them; and to exclude all other factors that were not part of the "model". 

This was a deep change, and it made me a pretty good scientist; but was bad for me as a person, overall - at least until it was understood and contained. Because it was a deliberate but also compulsive form of self-blinding.  

In sum; the application of will in a prolonged and intensive training led, in both medicine and science, to functionality and power in a this-worldly sense; but were spiritual dead-ends that impaired me in significant ways as a person. 

I believe that exactly the same applies within the realms of spirituality and religion. 

I mean that when people pursue their religion by prolonged and intense training, by exercise of will (for example in the training and initiation of a priest or monk, or the leading of a rigorous, devout, or holy life) - the result can certainly be enhancements of of the mind in accordance with will; a transformation of personality; an increase of ability, of power...

But the outcome of any sustained and focused exercise of our conscious will, is also a degree of spiritually-negative distortion of our nature.

We may delude ourselves otherwise; but this becomes obvious if we can spiritually evaluate other people, and how observe the ways they are changed by prolonged and intensive effort in accordance with their conscious will-power. 

   

This was an insight of St Paul; who recognized that he himself had been impaired by the effects of his prolonged and intensive (and high-level) initiation into Priesthood. 

Paul realized - indeed he knew, from experience - that Men could not be improved in their spiritual quality by an exercise of will...

That no matter how much we wanted and strove to become better, and now matter how genuine was this desire and effort; we are unable to accomplish this.

For Paul; this was a great insight into the nature of reality, the nature of what Jesus needed to do to help us (help genuinely and qualitatively) - and also a revelation of what Jesus actually did: 

With Jesus there was not (ultimately false) promises of positive personal transformation and enhancement; achievable by following his new prescription of attitude and activities; and rewarded by salvation... 

What Jesus offered was not a new (and better!) sort of life and mind therapy - not even a spiritual therapy; but something altogether different. 

I think Paul saw vividly the limitations of human will and effort; probably because he had himself first accomplished so much by his own will and effort, but then recognized (in a flash) that all this was irrelevant to what Jesus had done for us. 

But this truth is a slippery insight: hard to keep a-hold-of (indeed, Paul often drifted from it), such are the advantages of the kind of worldly enhancements and satisfactions we may achieve from applying our will-power in a sustained and focused way.

In sum: Training and initiation may certainly be useful in this life and world; but such achievements do not and cannot make us better people, or better followers of Jesus - and, indeed, most often our transformation and enhanced aptitude will function as a snare, a distortion, and a distraction.

    

Religions and churches are analogous to Tolkien's Rings of Power

The Rings of Power - but especially the One Ring and the three Elven Rings, seem to describe something profound about reality. 

Sauron infuses much of his native power onto the One Ring; which gives him the ability to dominate the other Rings of Power - and, more generally, dominate the will to power of other beings. 

But, the transfer of power means that, when the One Ring is destroyed, Sauron cannot hold-himself-together anymore; he cannot sustain himself coherently as a functioning "self", but diffuses into a dark spirit of largely-passive malignancy. 

What is often missed by readers of The Lord of the Rings (but which was insightfully described by Paul Kocher more than fifty years ago); is that the Elves did something analogous with their three Rings, with analogous but inverted positive benefits; and similar negative consequences after their power was broken.  

The Elven Rings were made by a transfer of vitality from Elves-generally, into the Three Rings specifically. 

The Rings were apparently intended to focus and strengthen Elvish (or rather, specifically High Elven, Noldorian) characteristics - purity and the preservation of unstained beauty, in the case of Galadriel and Lothlorien; wisdom, learning, and healing, in the case of Elrond and Rivendell. 

(Gandalf's Elf Ring was given him by Cirdan, and thereby seemingly repurposed from its original intent.)

I infer that the Three Rings were made exactly because elvish vitality and power was already declining, as a consequence of prolonged residence in the mortal lands of Middle Earth (which was by will of Eru; who always intended that Elves gradually be replaced by Men). 

The Elven Rings were made, therefore, with the ambivalently-virtuous motivation of stopping the ongoing decline in Elvish vitality. 

And for so long as the One Ring was not being wielded; the Elf Rings worked well; and in Rivendell and Lothlorien, High Elven culture continued for thousands of years longer than anywhere else in Middle Earth - but at the price of being increasingly cut-off, encapsulated.  

But, when the Master Ring was destroyed, all the racial vitality of the Elves that had gone into the making of the Three Rings was dissipated and diffused, much like Sauron's beingness.  

Immediately; the special qualities of Elrond and Rivendell, Galadriel and Lothlorien, began to decline, dwindle, fade...

The High Elves could not longer remain High; but must revert towards the much lesser cultural and intellectual level of the "Silvan" or Wood Elves - or else migrate to the Undying Lands before this declining process could advance too far.  

*

I believe that Tolkien was here expressing a profound and general truth about the benefits and disadvantages of concentrating our innate vitality - our human qualities. 

I think that - across the large timescale of human history - there was a decline in the natural and spontaneous spirituality of humans; a decline in the immersive and passive awareness-of, and participation-in the divine.

In effect: there was an intent to stop this process of spiritual alienation; by concentrating and focusing our "spiritual vitality" into what is called religion: into religions and churches, into abstract systems of rituals and symbols. 

Religion is therefore a "Ring of Power". 

But, it turned-out that the Elven Rings, and church religion, did not stop the decline, but only delayed it. 

Outside of the increasingly encapsulated worlds of serious religion; the decline in human spirituality and Man's alienation from the divine continued... indeed it accelerated; given that the spirituality has been drained from it and poured into the churches. 

By this analogy; the various Christian revivals can be seen as the re-forging of further Rings of Power - further attempts to stop this decline by increasing the focusing and concentration.

These later Rings included (in general terms) greater demands for personal commitment, efforts at training of mental powers by new rituals or more frequent practice, increased exclusion of the secular from the sacred... etc. 

At the same time religions functioned like Rings of Power - achieving a sustained awareness and participation of the divine, in the cut-off context of "churches" and their activities - but at the cost of sucking spiritual vitality and divine awareness from the rest of life, and from humanity in general... 

An unintended cost of religion, was therefore the creation of "the secular" - what was not within the concentrated scope of religion, necessarily became secular. 

And as the underlying trend of human alienation continued; the secular realm expanded, while the divine and spiritual realm of religion shrank.

My main point is that when Man has created religion, and infused his churches with much of Man's native spiritual vitality - this means that when churches are destroyed, this focused and concentrated spiritual power is dissipated. 

Much as Sauron minus the One Ring was weaker than if the Ring had never been made; and as the Elves declined more suddenly and rapidly after the power of the Three Rings was lost than if the Elven Rings had never been...

So, Mankind's alienation from the spiritual and divine is more severe and intractable after the decline of church religion, than it would have been if we had not invested so much of our religious vitality into institutional, symbolic, and ritual forms. 

Thus; many modern people living after the (de facto) death of the churches and religions; experience this institutional loss as fatal to the divine and the spiritual - and without church, they feel that there is and can be no God, no creation. 

Post-religion; experienced-reality has been drained - abruptly and very fully - of purpose and meaning; and therefore of lasting personal significance. 

Although some churches/ religions sometimes did an effective job for many centuries in some places in sustaining contact with the divine and spiritual realms; because the spiritual and divine was thereby concentrated, focused, protected by the structures of church and formal religion - it now seems that when mankind's innate consciousness changed, and these social structures lost their power and integrity - then we are left worse-off than we would have been if churches had never existed. 

The churches functioned, therefore, analogously to the Elf Rings in their intent and effect; and in the consequences after the power of religion first declined and then was destroyed.