Q: Why do famous people with access to valuable secrets get paid silly money for giving 'lectures'?
A: The money is a bribe - the public payment for private information or covert influence.
Bribes are of course illegal; while paying somebody silly money for a 'lecture' is not. But the money goes from one pocket to another, just the same.
Simple, really, if you understand what is going-on, and join the dots.
Thursday, 11 May 2017
Loving God, child of God
A loving
God?
While
many people find it easy to acknowledge some kind of deity; there is an idea prevalent
that to assume God loves us, each as individuals, is a belief that smacks too
much of wishful thinking; or else is just a plain denial of the nature of the
world.
But if a
loving God is understood to be a metaphysical assumption, then matters become
much clearer.
A
metaphysical assumption is not based on ‘evidence’ – so the personal or global balance
of good and evil, pleasure and pain, nice and nasty is irrelevant to the
question of whether God loves us: completely irrelevant. Until this is
understood, there will be hopeless confusion on this question.
The way I
think about it is that a child’s experience of the world – the extent to which the
child is wicked, or in pain or experiences nasty conditions; cannot be used to
infer how much that child’s parents love him.
Of
course, some people conflate that question of God’s love with an assumption
about God being omnipotent – and then they recognise the problem that if God is
both loving and omnipotent, then the world God made seems to be significantly
sub-optimal.
But in
reality, there is no reason to assume that God’s power and God’s love are both
necessarily true. Or that what these concepts mean is clear. In sum, lovingness
and omnipotence are two separate questions, and they must be considered separately.
The idea
that God loves each of us is indeed unusual in world religions – probably most religions
have had an unloving God or gods; so why do I believe it is true? What grounds
for such belief could there be?
The most
convincing grounds are a personal conviction that it is true.
However,
this leads on to the question of how we might know such a thing, even if it was
true; and I understand the answer to be that God is within me, as well as
outside of me. Because God is within me, I can have direct personal experience
of God and of his nature. I can know God, and know what he is like.
A Child
of God
It is metaphysically
important that we are children of God, because this is the reason why we have
been made such that we can understand reality.
Because I
am a son of God, I am partly divine; and this is why I can understand the truth
about things.
If I had
been a creature that was purely and only the product of natural selection,
there would be no reason at all why I should be able to discern the truth about
things – since I would be optimised only with respect to reproductive success,
not truth.
However,
since I am partly divine, and since God created this reality; I am potentially able
to know the truth about reality.
Destiny
and purpose
Furthermore;
my being a child of God is the reason for my destiny; in the sense that my
understanding is that God ‘had children’ in order that they may be able
(potentially) to grow-up to be fully divine, like God.
So,
another metaphysical assumption is that we begin as partly divine, and by
choice and experience may become more and more fully divine – and indeed
reality is set-up with the primary purpose that this be possible and
encouraged.
The world
is as-it-is not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end; the world is intended
to be an educational process, not a final result.
How is
this known by me? I think it is a further insight built upon those previously
mentioned. Given a conviction of the reality and lovingness of God, and the
fact of being able to understand God from within – knowledge of my personal
destiny – my purpose in this world - is also available, directly.
Is this
reasoning merely circular? Not merely – because it is based on assumptions that
such-and-such Just Is. These assumptions necessarily include that such and such
Just Is sufficient ‘evidence’ to confirm the earlier assumptions.
So
metaphysics is an incremental matter of discovering, making explicit, what we
actually are assuming – which may then lead to us changing these original basic
assumptions to make new basic assumption that we can endorse fully.
Having
established these basic assumptions about the nature of things (to our own satisfaction)
they may be built upon, and extrapolated – such inferences themselves being
retested (at various stages and phases) by the same basic mechanisms that
established the basic assumptions.
There is
a testing and feedback mechanism, as well as a process of extrapolative reasoning.
If, for whatever reason, we begin to feel uncertain, to doubt; then we can go
back and start again, as often as seems necessary.
metaphysicsofeverydaylife.blogspot.co.uk
metaphysicsofeverydaylife.blogspot.co.uk
Metaphysics and God
Metaphysics
The great
need for me, for everyone, is first to know our metaphysical assumptions and
then to reflect on them. Nobody is exempt in modern times; because there are so
many forces at work to poison our metaphysics. And a poisoned metaphysic will
run life, and beyond life.
For many
years I didn’t believe in either the importance or even the reality of
metaphysical assumptions; I had the idea that we could and should stick to
matters of evidence that were applicable to the business of life. For example,
science obviously ‘worked’ – so why not just get on with it? It was perhaps
when I realised that science no longer worked, and that people were not getting
on with it – but doing something almost entirely different and just calling it
science – that I began to realise the importance of metaphysics. When it was
too late.
But it is
at the personal level that assumptions matter most personally. Life has no Meaning
when our basic assumption is that Life has no Meaning (but Just Is – and might
not have been) – and Life has no Purpose when it is assumed that everything
which happens is either passively caused or else random.
On the
other hand; Life feels very different when our metaphysical assumption is that
Life is created, and for a reason.
God
I have to
start with God. We live in God’s universe; and that is the source of all
meaning and purpose; and the reason why its meaning and purpose can be known. God
is also our Father and we his children: more, he is our loving Father. That is
why there is a place for us, it is why we can understand, it is why God made us
so that we can understand.
This kind
of basis is much more essential that most people realise. We don’t just need an
idea of how things are, but how it is that we are able to know how things are.
At bottom; we need at least two things: a description of the ultimate realities
– and we need assurance that this description is true.
First we
formulate the description of ultimates… then what? Then we seek validation by
means of what counts at the ultimate validation. What is that? – and is it the
same for everybody? We have to stop questioning somewhere and accept that It Just Is; but how do we know when we
could or should stop?
Well, any
answer to this question of validation falls into an infinite regress of validation;
because it can be (will be) asked why the validation method is itself valid;
and any answer to that is subject to the same question… The point is, do we actually
want an answer, or do we want to ‘prove’ that an answer is impossible? Because
there is an answer, implicit in our behaviour – implicit in our questioning.
All questions proceed from assumptions; what are these assumptions?
This is
the need for ‘faith’, which is trust. If there is no trust, there are no
answers – and there can be no life. The question ‘but who can I trust’ may be
answered by the counter-question: ‘who do you trust already?’ Once that is
known, then its adequacy may be apparent; we may learn that we are trusting
somebody whom we actually – now we think about it – do not trust. (Like when we repeat a story that everybody knows, and
argue against an experienced and knowledgeable friend who asserts something else;
then realise that our information came originally from a newspaper. Knowing the
basis of our assumption, we can then ask: do we trust the friend or the
newspaper. But we can only ask this question when we know the nature and source
of our assumption.)
There is
a cynical pose (most people have adopted it at some time) which effects to
doubt all and everything. In practice, when assumptions are exposed and traced,
cynicism is either the grossest credulity or more often a false argument used
to demolish only that which the cynic wishes to deny (such as a limitation on
his desired behaviour).
But, as
well as the cynic, there is the despairing doubter – who lives on the verge of
paralysis due t uncertainties concerning the validity of… everything. The
despairing doubter is transfixed by the possibility that life may really,
behind everything – and whether or not this could ever be known, have no meaning
or purpose or relevance to us. The despairing doubter is not, fundamentally
concerned with the status of knowledge claims or the validity of ultimate
descriptions; he is simply unsure about everything – lacks any inner sense of
reality.
Whether
the despairing doubter actually exists in a full and coherent form is doubtful,
but a tinge or tendency of this is characteristic. Yet how seldom is this taken
seriously – least of all by its sufferers! The doubts extend to doubting the
doubts – such that nothing is done about them, nothing is done about trying to
settle the doubts…
Clearly a
pathological state; yet common, mainstream, almost universal as at least a
fleeting experience. It was the problem that CG Jungs wealthy and leisured
private patients often consulted him about, and which he tried to solve by
going back to childhood or dream instincts, and building upon them; finding
something – some activity, like playing with mud, or sketching pictures - that
was apparently self-validating, and using this as a foundation to build upon.
But in
the end Jung came back to God; and late in his life he was clearly religious, a
kind of Christian; and said that he ‘knew’ the truth of God (did not ‘believe’,
but knew). His earlier and more therapeutic answers had proven insufficient, or
else his later knowledge rendered them unnecessary.
At any
rate, I think we need to know of the reality of God, and of his nature; and we
need to know this for ourselves – it is not something that can be learned from
others, or taken on trust. We need to know – and what that means, what that
implies, is individual and indefensible because it is the basis of other knowledge.
But that is what we need to do, and we
therefore need to keep working on it – making it our priority – until it is
achieved and we know the reality of God.
Wednesday, 10 May 2017
Why is totalitarianism evil? (or, more exactly, for whom is it evil?)
Totalitarianism is the attempt to control thinking.
The usual excuse is that this is the best or most effective way of controlling behaviour; but in the end that is just an excuse - and the real and strategic motivation is to control thinking because that is what is wanted.
Totalitarianism has nothing necessarily to do with violence (as Aldous Huxley perceived in his Brave New World of 1932 - and to equate totalitarianism with violence was an error by Orwell). For totalitarianism 'whatever works' is the guide.
Thus we now, in the West, live in a highly totalitarian society, in which most people's thoughts are controlled most of the time - by a combination of indoctrination during childhood and youth, the unified-linked bureaucracy of the government and the workplace, the mass media and its addictiveness, and a legal system which explicitly includes thought crimes (what else are 'hate crimes'?).
There is a combination of filling people's minds with approved thoughts, and excluding disapproved thoughts (by direct exclusion, and by simply driving them out with stimuli, noise, and the prevention of detached solitude).
There is very little concern about this state of affairs - and indeed it seems that many or most people positively approve of totalitarianism so long as it is 'in a good cause' - thus our current secular Left totalitarianism is okay because people agree with its goals; and indeed most people apparently want ever-more totalitarianism so that their goals may become realised.
So why is it bad to control peoples thoughts, if the cause is good behaviour?
Well, totalitarianism isn't bad for atheists and secular people generally, which is why our society is as it is; since the aim is merely 'good behaviour' in pursuit of goals like comfort, peace, prosperity and amusement.
In practice (and ignoring empty words), all non-religious people approve of totalitarianism.
Also totalitarianism isn't bad for most religious people in most religions - which is why there have been many religious totalitarian societies that regard thought-control as a legitimate means to religious ends. (They were usually limited by their technology, and the degree of support; but the totalitarian aim of thought-control was explicit.)
Totalitarianism is only really 'a bad thing', an evil, for those Christians who view motivation as primary; who regard freedom or agency as central to salvation and theosis - such that only a truly free, creative, and divine decision of our truest and deepest selves is valued by God; and our actual behaviour is secondary, and indeed (since behaviour may be coerced) almost orthogonal to the divine purpose.
Any system of any kind (whether political, in the workplace, the church or the family), of any aim, that tries to control thought, or to prevent agency - any system which tries wholly to occupy the mind - is therefore evil to this kind of Christian.
This kind of Christian - the kind that regards agency as non-negotiable and central to the faith - would regard any and all types of totalitarianism as evil; no matter how kind, how non-violent, how materially successful; and no matter how happy was the resulting society. After all; Huxley's Brave New World was almost certainly happier than any society of recent centuries.
If happiness is the number one priority; then totalitarianism is the likely means to that end and will sooner-or-later be embraced - and then (as now) the only genuine dispute relates to who is in charge of the totalitarian system.
And that question, in a nutshell, constitutes the entirety of modern mainstream politics.
The usual excuse is that this is the best or most effective way of controlling behaviour; but in the end that is just an excuse - and the real and strategic motivation is to control thinking because that is what is wanted.
Totalitarianism has nothing necessarily to do with violence (as Aldous Huxley perceived in his Brave New World of 1932 - and to equate totalitarianism with violence was an error by Orwell). For totalitarianism 'whatever works' is the guide.
Thus we now, in the West, live in a highly totalitarian society, in which most people's thoughts are controlled most of the time - by a combination of indoctrination during childhood and youth, the unified-linked bureaucracy of the government and the workplace, the mass media and its addictiveness, and a legal system which explicitly includes thought crimes (what else are 'hate crimes'?).
There is a combination of filling people's minds with approved thoughts, and excluding disapproved thoughts (by direct exclusion, and by simply driving them out with stimuli, noise, and the prevention of detached solitude).
There is very little concern about this state of affairs - and indeed it seems that many or most people positively approve of totalitarianism so long as it is 'in a good cause' - thus our current secular Left totalitarianism is okay because people agree with its goals; and indeed most people apparently want ever-more totalitarianism so that their goals may become realised.
So why is it bad to control peoples thoughts, if the cause is good behaviour?
Well, totalitarianism isn't bad for atheists and secular people generally, which is why our society is as it is; since the aim is merely 'good behaviour' in pursuit of goals like comfort, peace, prosperity and amusement.
In practice (and ignoring empty words), all non-religious people approve of totalitarianism.
Also totalitarianism isn't bad for most religious people in most religions - which is why there have been many religious totalitarian societies that regard thought-control as a legitimate means to religious ends. (They were usually limited by their technology, and the degree of support; but the totalitarian aim of thought-control was explicit.)
Totalitarianism is only really 'a bad thing', an evil, for those Christians who view motivation as primary; who regard freedom or agency as central to salvation and theosis - such that only a truly free, creative, and divine decision of our truest and deepest selves is valued by God; and our actual behaviour is secondary, and indeed (since behaviour may be coerced) almost orthogonal to the divine purpose.
Any system of any kind (whether political, in the workplace, the church or the family), of any aim, that tries to control thought, or to prevent agency - any system which tries wholly to occupy the mind - is therefore evil to this kind of Christian.
This kind of Christian - the kind that regards agency as non-negotiable and central to the faith - would regard any and all types of totalitarianism as evil; no matter how kind, how non-violent, how materially successful; and no matter how happy was the resulting society. After all; Huxley's Brave New World was almost certainly happier than any society of recent centuries.
If happiness is the number one priority; then totalitarianism is the likely means to that end and will sooner-or-later be embraced - and then (as now) the only genuine dispute relates to who is in charge of the totalitarian system.
And that question, in a nutshell, constitutes the entirety of modern mainstream politics.
Don't get distracted by unreligious politics
The whole mainstream political world, the entirety of media and public discourse about it - is secular, is excluding of Christianity by assumption - it is all a part of the problem, and not a step towards an answer.
It is the loss, exclusion, rejection of God that is the problem - and the same for the whole world of non-material reality - and it is utterly absurd to expect any change or imporvement in this profound deficit merely from a different set of secular materialist priorities - which is all that the the so-called 'Right' are offering, or even talking-about.
I have been heartened by the Brexit vote; but of itself Brexit has zero potential for Good. At the most optimistic Brexit may slow the drumbeat-led lock-step march into willed-national-suicide.
Brexit is only of value if it is a sign of early spiritual revival - but if Brexit is merely an expedient aimed at greater prosperity, a more comfortable life... then it will just be yet another Bad Thing: the opposite of what is absolutely required.
We are so advanced in corruption, in addiction to the distractions and conveniences of consumer nihilism, we are so deeply wrong in our evaluations and priorities - that we shy away even from thinking about the scope of what is required of us.
Raising consciousness, 'sensible' measures, 'practical' reforms, the lesser of evils.... these are utterly worthless from our mental situation of hopeless lies, confusion and demotivation.
We must sort-out our thinking, and we must sort it out First; and other stuff must be neglected until we have done so.
It is the loss, exclusion, rejection of God that is the problem - and the same for the whole world of non-material reality - and it is utterly absurd to expect any change or imporvement in this profound deficit merely from a different set of secular materialist priorities - which is all that the the so-called 'Right' are offering, or even talking-about.
I have been heartened by the Brexit vote; but of itself Brexit has zero potential for Good. At the most optimistic Brexit may slow the drumbeat-led lock-step march into willed-national-suicide.
Brexit is only of value if it is a sign of early spiritual revival - but if Brexit is merely an expedient aimed at greater prosperity, a more comfortable life... then it will just be yet another Bad Thing: the opposite of what is absolutely required.
We are so advanced in corruption, in addiction to the distractions and conveniences of consumer nihilism, we are so deeply wrong in our evaluations and priorities - that we shy away even from thinking about the scope of what is required of us.
Raising consciousness, 'sensible' measures, 'practical' reforms, the lesser of evils.... these are utterly worthless from our mental situation of hopeless lies, confusion and demotivation.
We must sort-out our thinking, and we must sort it out First; and other stuff must be neglected until we have done so.
Tuesday, 9 May 2017
No compromise on Thinking (must be absolute, clear and coherent)
Life has been ruined by compromise - that is the conclusion of history. All that was originally Good, and might have been better, has been dissipated away into expediencies...
But what is it that should be pure? Not the usual ideas; not facts or feelings - because the actual world of our experience is intrinsically intractable, impossible fully to make conform to our hopes (and the pseudo-attempts to do this have been disastrous, albeit in a different way from the compromised muddle we see about us).
It was the great and central insight of Rudolf Steiner (which he himself badly lapsed-away-from - especially in his later career) that Thinking is primary: it is Thinking that can and should be absolute, clear and coherent.
Because Thinking is our personal dwelling, understanding and activity in the universal world of reality.
Not just any and all kinds of thinking - naturally; but a purified Thinking of our true selves functioning at our best and highest; it is such Thinking that should be our primary purpose, and the primary 'location' of our endeavours.
If we become distracted from this, and put 'real life' above Thinking then we simply end-up by compromising Thinking itself - and then we are adrift, and deceived.
Thinking is not 'theory' - Thinking (of the kind indicated) is Real Life - indeed it is the only Real Life - since what we generally-suppose to be 'real life' is anything-but.... a tissue of illusions, deceptions, mere images and easily manipulated by the forces of evil.
What we need to do is very simple to state, although difficult to accomplish (difficult but, importantly, not impossible!) and that is to regard our Thinking as primary and absolute; and we must settle for nothing less than the highest conceivable degree of perfection in our Thinking.
And an included and vital part of this perfected Thinking is precisely the gap between Thinking and Feeling, and the gap between Thinking and 'facts'/ observations/ the phenomena of the world apparent to our senses and to science.
There always is and always will be a difference between Thinking on the one hand, and feelings and facts on the other hand. That is a secondary problem - but this is no reason to compromise the absolute integrity of Thinking. No Reason At All...
But what is it that should be pure? Not the usual ideas; not facts or feelings - because the actual world of our experience is intrinsically intractable, impossible fully to make conform to our hopes (and the pseudo-attempts to do this have been disastrous, albeit in a different way from the compromised muddle we see about us).
It was the great and central insight of Rudolf Steiner (which he himself badly lapsed-away-from - especially in his later career) that Thinking is primary: it is Thinking that can and should be absolute, clear and coherent.
Because Thinking is our personal dwelling, understanding and activity in the universal world of reality.
Not just any and all kinds of thinking - naturally; but a purified Thinking of our true selves functioning at our best and highest; it is such Thinking that should be our primary purpose, and the primary 'location' of our endeavours.
If we become distracted from this, and put 'real life' above Thinking then we simply end-up by compromising Thinking itself - and then we are adrift, and deceived.
Thinking is not 'theory' - Thinking (of the kind indicated) is Real Life - indeed it is the only Real Life - since what we generally-suppose to be 'real life' is anything-but.... a tissue of illusions, deceptions, mere images and easily manipulated by the forces of evil.
What we need to do is very simple to state, although difficult to accomplish (difficult but, importantly, not impossible!) and that is to regard our Thinking as primary and absolute; and we must settle for nothing less than the highest conceivable degree of perfection in our Thinking.
And an included and vital part of this perfected Thinking is precisely the gap between Thinking and Feeling, and the gap between Thinking and 'facts'/ observations/ the phenomena of the world apparent to our senses and to science.
There always is and always will be a difference between Thinking on the one hand, and feelings and facts on the other hand. That is a secondary problem - but this is no reason to compromise the absolute integrity of Thinking. No Reason At All...
Sunday, 7 May 2017
We need a real new and spiritually-inspiring utopia - not fakes or inversions, like sustainability or survivalism
PS: The picture above is Holiday, by William Arkle:
http://www.billarkle.co.uk/greatgift/pictureseq/fset031.html
Christ brought theosis
Christ brought theosis to the world – that is, he made possible our full divinity as Sons and Daughters of God… if we wish to accept this gift, with its responsibilities.
(Salvation is vital; but is not, should not be, the main thing in Life – and the incarnation of Christ was not required to make salvation possible. God the Father could give us salvation, even without the work of Christ. But Christ was needed for men and women to ascend to co-divinity.)
(Salvation is vital; but is not, should not be, the main thing in Life – and the incarnation of Christ was not required to make salvation possible. God the Father could give us salvation, even without the work of Christ. But Christ was needed for men and women to ascend to co-divinity.)
Saturday, 6 May 2017
What is the major psychiatric breakthrough of the past 40 years? Ketamine infusion for severe depression
What is the major psychiatric breakthrough of the past 40 years?
There are two reasonable answers:
1. There hasn't been one.
Or,
2. Ketamine infusion as an extremely rapid and effective treatment for severe, hospitalised depression (aka melancholia or endogenous depression, perhaps including psychotic depression).
Ketamine infusion seems to be about as effective as electroconvulsive therapy/ electroshock - and seems to happen almost instantly.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amit_Anand8/publication/12629777_Antidepressant_effects_of_ketamine_in_depressed_patients/links/0c96052d004156c5ef000000/Antidepressant-effects-of-ketamine-in-depressed-patients.pdf
In a world where psychiatrists were primarily concerned to alleviate suffering, ketamine would have been big-BIG news, long since made widely-available - and ketamine treatment would have been seriously tried-out in the several other serious psychiatric and neurological conditions that respond to ECT such as mania, acute schizophrenia, catatonia and Parkinson's disease (especially Parkinson's disease which is common, and for which ketamine has a plausible pharmacological rationale).
But there is neither money nor status in ketamine - because severe depression is very rare (prevalence about one in a thousand); and ketamine is an old and off-patent drug, used for decades in anaesthesia and with a reputation tarnished by 'street use'.
Big Pharma and their lap-dogs in the mental health leadership have sat-on/ squashed any possible enthusiasm for actually using the actually-available and cheap ketamine, in their usual indirect ways - while they try to develop patentable analogues for use in a bigger market of less severely ill patients (where the new analogues are less likely to do good and more likely to do net-harm; and where there are already many alternatives).
So, the biggest breakthrough in psychiatry is essentially unknown. Those suffering severe depression - probably the worst affliction known to man - continue to suffer (since they seldom get ECT, such is the irrational suspicion of that treatment).
So it goes. Other-people's agony is, after all, quite easy for most people to tolerate.
(Note: The SSRI antidepressants were discovered more than 40 years ago - in about 1969:
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/ssri-story-corruption-of-medical.html. And the 'atypical' antipsychotics and (much) worse than the older antipsychotics they are supposed to have replaced.)
There are two reasonable answers:
1. There hasn't been one.
Or,
2. Ketamine infusion as an extremely rapid and effective treatment for severe, hospitalised depression (aka melancholia or endogenous depression, perhaps including psychotic depression).
Ketamine infusion seems to be about as effective as electroconvulsive therapy/ electroshock - and seems to happen almost instantly.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amit_Anand8/publication/12629777_Antidepressant_effects_of_ketamine_in_depressed_patients/links/0c96052d004156c5ef000000/Antidepressant-effects-of-ketamine-in-depressed-patients.pdf
In a world where psychiatrists were primarily concerned to alleviate suffering, ketamine would have been big-BIG news, long since made widely-available - and ketamine treatment would have been seriously tried-out in the several other serious psychiatric and neurological conditions that respond to ECT such as mania, acute schizophrenia, catatonia and Parkinson's disease (especially Parkinson's disease which is common, and for which ketamine has a plausible pharmacological rationale).
But there is neither money nor status in ketamine - because severe depression is very rare (prevalence about one in a thousand); and ketamine is an old and off-patent drug, used for decades in anaesthesia and with a reputation tarnished by 'street use'.
Big Pharma and their lap-dogs in the mental health leadership have sat-on/ squashed any possible enthusiasm for actually using the actually-available and cheap ketamine, in their usual indirect ways - while they try to develop patentable analogues for use in a bigger market of less severely ill patients (where the new analogues are less likely to do good and more likely to do net-harm; and where there are already many alternatives).
So, the biggest breakthrough in psychiatry is essentially unknown. Those suffering severe depression - probably the worst affliction known to man - continue to suffer (since they seldom get ECT, such is the irrational suspicion of that treatment).
So it goes. Other-people's agony is, after all, quite easy for most people to tolerate.
(Note: The SSRI antidepressants were discovered more than 40 years ago - in about 1969:
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/ssri-story-corruption-of-medical.html. And the 'atypical' antipsychotics and (much) worse than the older antipsychotics they are supposed to have replaced.)
The essence of the strategy of modern evil
Modern evil is trying to persuade us that we Do Not Want to be Sons and Daughters of God, destined for full divinity.
(Initially, modern evil persuaded us that all was uncertain... next that all was untrue. But the ultimate goal - which is now an everyday reality - was for people to believe that even though the claims of Christianity are true they are not wanted. )
(Initially, modern evil persuaded us that all was uncertain... next that all was untrue. But the ultimate goal - which is now an everyday reality - was for people to believe that even though the claims of Christianity are true they are not wanted. )
Awake in the World of Dreams (Final Participation)
To get a taste of Final Participation try the following:
First see the world as a dream... Then
Wake-up, and engage in
Thinking (staying inside the dream).
First see the world as a dream... Then
Wake-up, and engage in
Thinking (staying inside the dream).
Thursday, 4 May 2017
Tolkien and the universal dream world
Sleep experience, especially dreaming, lies near the heart of JRR Tolkien's unfinished novel The Notion Club Papers (written 1945-6). One aspect of this is that there are multiple references to the idea that the dream world is a realm of experience which is universal - in other words, dreaming is a single, vast domain - with distinctive qualities, different from the waking state - that is potentially accessible by all people.
More at:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-universal-realm-of-dream-world-in.html
More at:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-universal-realm-of-dream-world-in.html
Wednesday, 3 May 2017
Our thought content is shared with others - our perceptions are private to ourselves!
From Speaker's Meaning by Owen Barfield (1967) - edited from pages 71-72:
It is generally supposed that the 'public' world which we have in common with others consists entirely of what we perceive; and the private world of each person consists of what he thinks.
Yet the exact opposite is the case: It is the thought content which we share with others, while our perceptions are private to ourselves.
The above formulation (which I have condensed and slightly rephrased for clarity) shows the radical nature of Owen Barfield's philosophy - it is so much in conflict with mainstream modern thinking as to seem just plain bizarre, or crazy; yet the contention is justified across hundreds of pages of argument and evidence in Barfield's main works.
It is easy, and in a sense uncontroversial - despite being ignored in everyday life, to point-out that our perceptions of The World are private, 'subjective' - because it is recognised that everybody sees, hears and feels things differently, and that such perceptions have been manipulated and disrupted by many illusions, technologies, drugs, diseases and just from individual and cultural differences. At another level, we all know that the world described by science - especially physics - is utterly different from the world we perceive.
What is hard for modern people to grasp or believe is that we share our thought content with others.
This does not mean telepathy; it does mean that when we think, this is happening in a shared, universally-accessible realm. It is this world of thinking that unites people - and not the world of perceptions.
It is strange to modern people to suppose that there is or can be a shared world of thought - mostly we can't even imagine this. We moderns suppose that thinking is restricted to our own heads, our own brains - but for thought to be universal, then thinking must be located in some state or place that is universally accessible.
Yet in the past it was apparently taken for granted that there was a spirit world, an 'underworld' - e.g. the Ancient Egyptians' Dwat. This was not located elsewhere, but within - apparently people had no trouble in supposing that the Dwat was within everything, and also everywhere - it was a kind of unbounded space that was inside everything - and also from-which everything perceptible came, and to which it returned.
In more recent times, Jung posited a 'collective unconscious', of myths and archetypes, which shares some of these aspects and was supposed to be accessed in dreams and trance states. Yet for Barfield this world of thinking is conscious as well as unconscious.
Perhaps we can think about this, imagine it, only if we understand the world of thinking to be primary - and the perceptible world to be secondary. The world of thinking is therefore everywhere; and it is the perceptible world which is restricted and located - as it were 'within' the world of thoughts.
Everything began as thought - and the perceptible world was condensed and concentrated from it.
We actually live in the world of thinking; but have partly learned, partly developed the habit, of cutting ourselves off from it - because that is how we became free agents.
Now that the process of becoming free agents is complete - we can, and should, voluntarily and deliberately, return to engage with, participate-in, the world of thoughts - but this time with freedom, agency, and awareness of what we are doing. (In the past we just took it for granted, were unaware of it - passively lived-by-it.)
First we need to recognise that our thinking is in a universal realm - and then we may exercise our freedom within this realm of thinking - not just understanding it, but changing it.
This conscious participation in the realm of universal thinking is the ultimate in creativity - indeed, the only true creativity; because it shares in the divine.
God created what is and wished for us to share it - not merely passively, but as co-creators, to work with God and to develop and enhance creation in the loving spirit it which it was made.
It is generally supposed that the 'public' world which we have in common with others consists entirely of what we perceive; and the private world of each person consists of what he thinks.
Yet the exact opposite is the case: It is the thought content which we share with others, while our perceptions are private to ourselves.
The above formulation (which I have condensed and slightly rephrased for clarity) shows the radical nature of Owen Barfield's philosophy - it is so much in conflict with mainstream modern thinking as to seem just plain bizarre, or crazy; yet the contention is justified across hundreds of pages of argument and evidence in Barfield's main works.
It is easy, and in a sense uncontroversial - despite being ignored in everyday life, to point-out that our perceptions of The World are private, 'subjective' - because it is recognised that everybody sees, hears and feels things differently, and that such perceptions have been manipulated and disrupted by many illusions, technologies, drugs, diseases and just from individual and cultural differences. At another level, we all know that the world described by science - especially physics - is utterly different from the world we perceive.
What is hard for modern people to grasp or believe is that we share our thought content with others.
This does not mean telepathy; it does mean that when we think, this is happening in a shared, universally-accessible realm. It is this world of thinking that unites people - and not the world of perceptions.
It is strange to modern people to suppose that there is or can be a shared world of thought - mostly we can't even imagine this. We moderns suppose that thinking is restricted to our own heads, our own brains - but for thought to be universal, then thinking must be located in some state or place that is universally accessible.
Yet in the past it was apparently taken for granted that there was a spirit world, an 'underworld' - e.g. the Ancient Egyptians' Dwat. This was not located elsewhere, but within - apparently people had no trouble in supposing that the Dwat was within everything, and also everywhere - it was a kind of unbounded space that was inside everything - and also from-which everything perceptible came, and to which it returned.
In more recent times, Jung posited a 'collective unconscious', of myths and archetypes, which shares some of these aspects and was supposed to be accessed in dreams and trance states. Yet for Barfield this world of thinking is conscious as well as unconscious.
Perhaps we can think about this, imagine it, only if we understand the world of thinking to be primary - and the perceptible world to be secondary. The world of thinking is therefore everywhere; and it is the perceptible world which is restricted and located - as it were 'within' the world of thoughts.
Everything began as thought - and the perceptible world was condensed and concentrated from it.
We actually live in the world of thinking; but have partly learned, partly developed the habit, of cutting ourselves off from it - because that is how we became free agents.
Now that the process of becoming free agents is complete - we can, and should, voluntarily and deliberately, return to engage with, participate-in, the world of thoughts - but this time with freedom, agency, and awareness of what we are doing. (In the past we just took it for granted, were unaware of it - passively lived-by-it.)
First we need to recognise that our thinking is in a universal realm - and then we may exercise our freedom within this realm of thinking - not just understanding it, but changing it.
This conscious participation in the realm of universal thinking is the ultimate in creativity - indeed, the only true creativity; because it shares in the divine.
God created what is and wished for us to share it - not merely passively, but as co-creators, to work with God and to develop and enhance creation in the loving spirit it which it was made.
What Christian church for an Englishman?
Most English churches with historical roots are
liberalised and secularised. This situation with churches is a microcosm of the larger social scene -
all the traditional English institutions and organisations (professions, schools and colleges, social systems, charities, clubs... indeed pretty much all significant organisations) have been, in past decades, in
effect hollowed-out from within - and their vocational leadership
replaced by Leftist quasi-political careerist managers and public
relations consultants... So which Christian church is suitable, natural, 'feels right' for an Englishman?
More at:
http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/what-christian-church-for-englishman.html
More at:
http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/what-christian-church-for-englishman.html
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
Meditation - too much or too little!
People often recommend meditation-for-all - which is a blanket kind of recommendation that doesn't really take notice of the individual development and needs. But when they do - they tend either to talk in terms of 'five minutes a day' or some kind of vast programme extending over years.
In a sense, both of these are true and valid - especially in the sense that we require to withdraw form family, work, media and to engage in purpose thinking from our truest selves about the highest things, yet in an open-ended fashion (if we programme the use of this time, then there can be no creative discovery)...
But in another sense neither of these seems realistic. To say five minutes a day will suffice, is to trivialise the absolute necessity for a transformation in human consciousness, in each of us - starting as soon as possible...
Yet to talk in terms of a total programme of Life is to suggest that anything less than a one-hundred-percent commitment will be trivial; when the fact is that even a few seconds of high conscious awareness - noticed, recalled, reflected-upon - can be permanently life transformative.
In a sense, both of these are true and valid - especially in the sense that we require to withdraw form family, work, media and to engage in purpose thinking from our truest selves about the highest things, yet in an open-ended fashion (if we programme the use of this time, then there can be no creative discovery)...
But in another sense neither of these seems realistic. To say five minutes a day will suffice, is to trivialise the absolute necessity for a transformation in human consciousness, in each of us - starting as soon as possible...
Yet to talk in terms of a total programme of Life is to suggest that anything less than a one-hundred-percent commitment will be trivial; when the fact is that even a few seconds of high conscious awareness - noticed, recalled, reflected-upon - can be permanently life transformative.
Monday, 1 May 2017
Three and a half million page views for this blog - but dwindling rate... Is this a bad thing?
Despite this blog - begun in earnest almost exactly seven years ago - today passing the mark of 3.5 million page views; all signs are that this blog in particular, and the blog as a medium, is of dwindling impact.
The most recent sign was a sudden halving in daily traffic from 20 to 21 April (from 3000 plus to about 1500 views) - presumably as the result of some search-engine change, presumably related to the new wave of fake-'fake news' anti-Left dissent-suppression.
I find very little indeed to sustain me spiritually on the internet on a daily basis; and it is possible that such sustenance does more harm than good once a certain threshold of awareness is passed. Either way; the mainstream mass media are strategically making it harder and harder to find and access information the media don't want accessed (not just on the internet, but also in public venues, talks, lectures and the like); and it is only the bovine blindness of the media-numbed-and-addicted, short-term-selfish-hedonic-materialistic mass population that apparently masks the sudden and sharp ramping-up of our established Western totalitarianism.
However, we need to remember that the real war in this world is about souls, salvation and spiritual progression - and since the evils of the mass media cannot (even in principle) be defeated by 'alternative' strand of mass media (such as this blog) - then anything which damages the reach and attraction of the mass media is, overall, to be welcomed.
After all, the mainstream mass media has triumphed mainly by means of its form not its content, its size and growth not its detailed control - as I wrote in my mini-book Addicted to Distraction:
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
The past few months (triggered, I guess, mainly by the US election lead-up and result) therefore represent a major change in policy by the mass media - in attempting to control content, rather than maximise growth. And I believe this is a strategic error on their part, and therefore a victory for Spiritual Christians such as myself - because only for as long as the mass of people are engaged by the mass media is my side's situation really dismal.
If the mass media loses its grip - and if therefore people start refocusing on their own personal experience of reality - then there is potential for the vast artificial edifice of evil that is secular-Left-modernity to collapse - very rapidly indeed (timescale of weeks, not years).
What replaces it will surely be uncomfortable at least, and perhaps very unpleasant (certainly it will be as unpleasant as the current demonically-driven global leadership can contrive to make it) - but since we are ultimately concerned with human souls in the timescale of eternity, it would nonetheless be better than the current situation of The West; in which the state and the media combine to induce ever more people to subvert, destroy and ultimately invert Goodness itself; so that many people now actively embrace, advocate, and enforce evil - calling it a new-kind-of-Good; and reject virtue, beauty and truth.
In such a context; the diminishing impact of blogs in general, and this one in particular, is a price worth paying.
The most recent sign was a sudden halving in daily traffic from 20 to 21 April (from 3000 plus to about 1500 views) - presumably as the result of some search-engine change, presumably related to the new wave of fake-'fake news' anti-Left dissent-suppression.
I find very little indeed to sustain me spiritually on the internet on a daily basis; and it is possible that such sustenance does more harm than good once a certain threshold of awareness is passed. Either way; the mainstream mass media are strategically making it harder and harder to find and access information the media don't want accessed (not just on the internet, but also in public venues, talks, lectures and the like); and it is only the bovine blindness of the media-numbed-and-addicted, short-term-selfish-hedonic-materialistic mass population that apparently masks the sudden and sharp ramping-up of our established Western totalitarianism.
However, we need to remember that the real war in this world is about souls, salvation and spiritual progression - and since the evils of the mass media cannot (even in principle) be defeated by 'alternative' strand of mass media (such as this blog) - then anything which damages the reach and attraction of the mass media is, overall, to be welcomed.
After all, the mainstream mass media has triumphed mainly by means of its form not its content, its size and growth not its detailed control - as I wrote in my mini-book Addicted to Distraction:
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
The past few months (triggered, I guess, mainly by the US election lead-up and result) therefore represent a major change in policy by the mass media - in attempting to control content, rather than maximise growth. And I believe this is a strategic error on their part, and therefore a victory for Spiritual Christians such as myself - because only for as long as the mass of people are engaged by the mass media is my side's situation really dismal.
If the mass media loses its grip - and if therefore people start refocusing on their own personal experience of reality - then there is potential for the vast artificial edifice of evil that is secular-Left-modernity to collapse - very rapidly indeed (timescale of weeks, not years).
What replaces it will surely be uncomfortable at least, and perhaps very unpleasant (certainly it will be as unpleasant as the current demonically-driven global leadership can contrive to make it) - but since we are ultimately concerned with human souls in the timescale of eternity, it would nonetheless be better than the current situation of The West; in which the state and the media combine to induce ever more people to subvert, destroy and ultimately invert Goodness itself; so that many people now actively embrace, advocate, and enforce evil - calling it a new-kind-of-Good; and reject virtue, beauty and truth.
In such a context; the diminishing impact of blogs in general, and this one in particular, is a price worth paying.
Sunday, 30 April 2017
Friday, 28 April 2017
Remembering Robert M Pirsig
Robert M Pirsig - author of one of my long-term favourite books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died a few days ago at the age of 88.
I first read ZAMM aged 17 - when I thought it probably contained The Answer to Life. It didn't - mostly because it rejected religion; and I was never able to use its ideas to achieve a viable set of assumptions. Nonetheless, it is a wise, powerful and beautiful book - certainly one of my 'best books of the twentieth century'.
Over the years, I published a couple of articles about ZAMM:
http://www.moq.org/forum/BruceCharlton/APhilosophicalNovel-ZenAndTheArtOfMotorcycleMaintenance.html
http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/electroshock-and-pirsig.html
The whole book can be found at:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?9963-PDF-book-Zen-and-the-Art-of-Motorcycle-Maintenance-by-Robert-Pirsig
The audiobook version is excellent; and uses the same narrator - Michael Kramer - who reads Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan's epic fantasies... Here's a bit of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsUFwhi65ig
I first read ZAMM aged 17 - when I thought it probably contained The Answer to Life. It didn't - mostly because it rejected religion; and I was never able to use its ideas to achieve a viable set of assumptions. Nonetheless, it is a wise, powerful and beautiful book - certainly one of my 'best books of the twentieth century'.
Over the years, I published a couple of articles about ZAMM:
http://www.moq.org/forum/BruceCharlton/APhilosophicalNovel-ZenAndTheArtOfMotorcycleMaintenance.html
http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/electroshock-and-pirsig.html
The whole book can be found at:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?9963-PDF-book-Zen-and-the-Art-of-Motorcycle-Maintenance-by-Robert-Pirsig
The audiobook version is excellent; and uses the same narrator - Michael Kramer - who reads Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan's epic fantasies... Here's a bit of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsUFwhi65ig
The lazy, sub-human passivity fantasy - but we need to be active, purposive, conscious and free
I find that a snare of spiritual and religious life is the desire to take an essentially passive role and be overwhelmed into assent.
The notion that if only we would stop resisting; then we would quite naturally and spontaneously be convinced and coerced into the proper frame of mind, perspective, way of behaviour.
The idea that a spiritual/ religious awakening/ rebirth - to be valid - ought to hit a mass of people like a tidal wave or a blast of electromagnetic radiation or a mind-warping, psychedelic drug - smashing us into some new mental conformation by main force, whether we like it or like-it-not...
But I am sure that all valid spiritual and religious change is agent - that is, it must come from our freedom, from our true-self thinking;not from animal instinct, nor from derangement or disease or devolution; and indeed I have become ever-more aware that the particular task of modern Man in the modern situation is actively, explicitly, deliberately and by choice to move forward along the line of full consciousness of phenomena.
Modern spiritual rebirth therefore cannot happen without each of us as individuals knowing that it has happened; furthermore it cannot happen unless we will it to happen, want it to happen, work for it to happen... perfectly consciously and explicitly.
The spiritual laziness and self-blinding and self-indulgence of modern Western Man knows no bounds! Yet if we wish to move forward, we must discard our passivity fantasy, our notion that only what is overwhelming and external is 'real' - and accept that we are destined and intended and supposed to be conscious agents - like God.
***
NOTE added: Many people believe that only if one is overwhelmed - emotionally, viscerally - is a conversion experience authentic. This seems to be the lesson of some conversion stories from earlier cultural eras - and it was the implicit basis of 1960s countercultural spirituality based on delirious altered states of consciousness (shamanism, drugs, sex etc).
Yet it is characteristic of modern culture that we distrust the validity of any such experience - and disbelieve (in practice) anything which is 'unconscious', 'instinctive', 'nonrational'.
(Despite two centuries of exhortations that our lives should be utterly 'natural', spontaneous, child-like, a restoration of original tribal spirituality... the cultural trend has been unrelebntingly in the opposite direction. We now live under micro-managerial totalitarianism with an all intrusive and pervasive and addictive mass media. A return to instinctive spirituality is just Not Going To Happen.)
This combination of assumptions has been a major reason why spirituality (and serious religion) has been driven utterly out from the domain of public discourse and to the fringes of life, to private subjectivity and 'lifestyle'.
It seems clear to me that for our time and place, spiritual experience must not be either/ or; either bureaucratic materialist rationality or unconscious instinct - but needs to be fully conscious and explicit while also being powerfully intuitive - hence convincing. This combination does not 'come naturally' which is why our spiritual future is one of deliberate purpose and choice... or else it won't happen.
The notion that if only we would stop resisting; then we would quite naturally and spontaneously be convinced and coerced into the proper frame of mind, perspective, way of behaviour.
The idea that a spiritual/ religious awakening/ rebirth - to be valid - ought to hit a mass of people like a tidal wave or a blast of electromagnetic radiation or a mind-warping, psychedelic drug - smashing us into some new mental conformation by main force, whether we like it or like-it-not...
But I am sure that all valid spiritual and religious change is agent - that is, it must come from our freedom, from our true-self thinking;not from animal instinct, nor from derangement or disease or devolution; and indeed I have become ever-more aware that the particular task of modern Man in the modern situation is actively, explicitly, deliberately and by choice to move forward along the line of full consciousness of phenomena.
Modern spiritual rebirth therefore cannot happen without each of us as individuals knowing that it has happened; furthermore it cannot happen unless we will it to happen, want it to happen, work for it to happen... perfectly consciously and explicitly.
The spiritual laziness and self-blinding and self-indulgence of modern Western Man knows no bounds! Yet if we wish to move forward, we must discard our passivity fantasy, our notion that only what is overwhelming and external is 'real' - and accept that we are destined and intended and supposed to be conscious agents - like God.
***
NOTE added: Many people believe that only if one is overwhelmed - emotionally, viscerally - is a conversion experience authentic. This seems to be the lesson of some conversion stories from earlier cultural eras - and it was the implicit basis of 1960s countercultural spirituality based on delirious altered states of consciousness (shamanism, drugs, sex etc).
Yet it is characteristic of modern culture that we distrust the validity of any such experience - and disbelieve (in practice) anything which is 'unconscious', 'instinctive', 'nonrational'.
(Despite two centuries of exhortations that our lives should be utterly 'natural', spontaneous, child-like, a restoration of original tribal spirituality... the cultural trend has been unrelebntingly in the opposite direction. We now live under micro-managerial totalitarianism with an all intrusive and pervasive and addictive mass media. A return to instinctive spirituality is just Not Going To Happen.)
This combination of assumptions has been a major reason why spirituality (and serious religion) has been driven utterly out from the domain of public discourse and to the fringes of life, to private subjectivity and 'lifestyle'.
It seems clear to me that for our time and place, spiritual experience must not be either/ or; either bureaucratic materialist rationality or unconscious instinct - but needs to be fully conscious and explicit while also being powerfully intuitive - hence convincing. This combination does not 'come naturally' which is why our spiritual future is one of deliberate purpose and choice... or else it won't happen.
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