Most recorded visionary experiences are expansions of perception – seeing or hearing things that other people cannot. For example William Blake saw angels and conversed with his deceased brother. Often these visions occur in altered states of consciousness – trances, lucid dreams, delirium or intoxication.
These are aspects of what Rudolf Steiner termed Atavistic Clairvoyance implying a throw-back or regression to an early type of consciousness more typical of childhood and tribal societies; and Owen Barfield classified as Original Participation. And in the scheme of evolution of human consciousness the aim is not to go back, but forward to a new state of consciousness that Steiner called the Spiritual Soul and Barfield termed Final Participation.
A visionary of Final Participation would not experience ‘visions’ in the sense of hallucination-like, quasi-sensory, perceptual experiences; but would instead experience imaginative thinking, or direct knowing. To put it simply: the visionary of Original Participation would experience things appearing in one or more of his senses; while the visionary of Final Participation would experience things appearing in his stream of thoughts.
It might be asked why this counts as an evolutionary development in consciousness? The answer would be that the imagination is a direct and unmediated form of knowing truth and reality; whereas perceptual experiences are prone to sensory distortions and require to be interpreted. Furthermore, the visionary experiences of Original Participation often occur in states of altered consciousness when attention, concentration, purposive thinking and memory may all be distorted or impaired; whereas in Final Participation the state of consciousness can be alert, clear and focused.
Finally, thinking is intrinsically capable of complete integration of any and all phenomena. Anything which can be thought about is included in the stream of thoughts, and can be subject to any or all of the analyses and manipulations of thinking.
This is straightforward enough; but of course very few people are aware of, or would endorse, the idea of thinking as a primary way of knowing truth and reality. And one reason for this is that typically thinking is much less powerful and compelling than perception. For example, people say things like ‘seeing is believing’ or ‘I’ll believe that when I see it’ – indicating that perceptual experience seems to overwhelm and impose itself in a way that thinking apparently does not. For instance, most people would be more likely to believe in the reality of ghosts or angels if they saw one than if they thought one (even though they are aware of the distortions and hallucinations to which perception is prone – and they would not necessarily believe in them even if they did see one).
Alternatively, people may only believe things for which they have what they regard as ‘evidence’ – and they will believe such things even when they think or perceive differently, and even when they cannot think it or have never had any confirmatory sensory experience; even when experience and common sense refute it.
In practice, ‘evidence’ is so vaguely defined as to be impossible to define or pin down – for some evidence comes from some trusted or authoritative source; but often enough people don’t know from where they got the ‘evidence’, and it could have been from sources which they do not trust or in fact disbelieve (such as the mass media, novels or fictional movies) but despite not knowing the provenance of their beliefs they nonetheless find themselves compelled to believe. Indeed, it is typical that a great deal of modern mainstream beliefs are false or have zero evidence, but are almost universally and indeed fanatically enforced on a global scale - for example the officially imposed assertions that people can change sex by means of drugs and surgery, or that political policies can control the earth’s climate.
Either way, it is clear that thinking is, in practice, low-rated as a human activity. People regard thinking as less important than action, or doing; less important than perceiving (feeling, seeing or hearing, especially); and less important than whatever is culturally-defined and propagandised. Consequently, people do not think very often, very diligently, very sustainedly about things; and they do not take much notice of the consequences of their own thinking.
It is perhaps regarded as little more than a waste of time, a joke or an excuse for idleness when someone claims to have been thinking. This applies even or especially, in academia; where to be caught thinking ‘in office hours’ would be even more shameful than to be caught reading a book! Thinking does not count as ‘work’.
It could therefore justly be said that – in the mainstream modern world - thinking is a low status activity.
Yet, for those who are – like me – convinced by the philosophical arguments of Owen Barfield (and of his acknowledged master Rudolf Steiner); thinking is the most important human activity and a necessity for the future evolutionary-development of our consciousness. Thinking ought to be our number one priority in life (number one, that is, within the prior, essential frame and context of Christianity).
What seems to be needed is that thinking, including imaginative thinking, become at least as powerful - indeed as overwhelming, as potentially motivating and life-changing - as actions, perceptions, and official/ media propaganda. We need both to know, and to feel, that thinking is real and true knowing.
Barfield therefore referred to the need for ‘strengthening’ thinking, and regarded Steiner as the most successful and advanced exponent of the necessary type of strengthened thinking. But how to do this? Steiner left behind various suggestions, instructions and exercises in how to strengthen thinking. For example to focus attention on some-thing, such as a plant, and try to experience its life as a dynamic historical and unfolding reality. However, my impression is that these exercises seem either not to work very well, perhaps only partially and very slowly; at any rate, extremely few people have apparently got anywhere near Steiner in terms of their ability to think in that visionary fashion which is destined for Final Participation.
So, something stronger and faster than Steiner’s exercises seem to be required. The weakness of Steiner’s exercises is, I think, a consequence of people lacking genuine, internal motivation to do them; which is itself a consequence of the subject matter being arbitrary. While Steiner himself, or Goethe before him, would be passionately interested in a plant, and in understanding a plant – this does not apply to most people. Genuinely motivated interest of the kind that will generate and sustain someone’s best efforts is something that cannot be manufactured to order; it is not arbitrary but is idiosyncratic. Indeed, such motivated interest may be unique and specific to each person; furthermore, many people do not even know what it is that most interests and motivates them in this way – since they have neither reflected nor developed their spontaneous, intrinsic nature (for example; they are instead dominated by the pressures of the social environment, expediency, the wish for immediate distractions and proximate pleasures, status, wealth; and things like envy, revenge, spite etc.).
Yet nothing else is likely to suffice in developing the intensity of thinking than that each person be pursuing his or her own deepest, most naturally arising fascination or perplexity.
So – we need to think in such a way as to strengthen and intensify the act of thinking – to increase its power to change us. But for this to happen we also need to take a step back – indeed the ultimate step back into the most fundamental of all considerations: metaphysics – our most basic assumptions concerning the ultimate nature of reality.
For thinking to be strengthened, our metaphysical framework needs to be one in which thinking (of the right kind) is real and true, and universally valid. If our metaphysical assumptions tell us that thinking is primary then our experience of thinking will be one of greater importance, seriousness and attention. It is the fact that the normal mainstream metaphysics of the modern West regards thinking as secondary, indeed trivial, that we find thinking so feebly impactful, so weakly effective in motivating us, as compared with other phenomena such as perceptions, actions and social conventions.
That thinking is indeed primary to human experience is the core argument of Rudolf Steiner’s early work culminating in the Philosophy of Freedom (1894); and Barfield’s Saving the Appearances (1957) – I refer readers to these books for a careful and compelling justification. However, in the end, metaphysics must be endorsed by our direct intuitions – which requires first that we acknowledge we indeed have primary metaphysical assumptions, then to make these explicit to ourselves. Only then can we evaluate whether or not we really endorse and believe our own assumptions – and if not, we may (indeed should) seek to replace them.
For thinking to take its proper place at the heart of Life; it must be of the greatest possible power, intensity and strength. Thinking should be experience – it should be experienced as much, in fact more-than ‘things that happen to us’. We need to know why and how that thinking which we make happen from our freedom and agency, from our real self (our soul) is not arbitrary nor wish-fulfilment, but on the contrary it is intrinsically and necessarily real, true and universal.
Thus prepared and equipped we can each commence work on the Life Task of intensification and strengthening of our own thinking! What does this entail? If you are already engaged in some spontaneously-arising creative endeavour then this may be straightforward – if you are a real scientist, artist or writer; then what you think about is already-decided – and the main difference is to take seriously, attend to, the actual process of thinking.
For me, a good example is what I have termed The Golden Thread. When I think back through my life, and what is important, there are relatively few things among the mass of dullness and duties – and these things seem to link-up to make a golden thread connecting childhood past with the present. It was taking this seriously, as a reality and truth rather than regarding it as some arbitrary fantasy; which helped me to become a Christian and of the mystical type. It also caused me to revise my subjective autobiography, to reshape my understanding of how my life had developed – including wrong turns, blind alleys, and descents into the pit.
Whatever it is that is your deepest motivation then forms the basis of strengthening your thinking. You will need to recognise (at a fundamental level) that you are dealing with something true, real - and in principle universally so, its truths and realities accessible to anyone competent; not merely a private delusion or day dream.
You may then learn from your experiences of thinking how best to intensify it. For instance you may learn that certain times of day are better for thinking; you may identify supportive attitudes, places or positions; helpful activities (such as reading, writing, doodling, walking, music…).
You will need to develop a habit of seriousness about thinking – so that you talk about thinking respectfully, lay stress on its primacy, refrain from casual denigration and invidious comparisons. It may be helpful to take notes, and to rehearse memories of thinking. A strategic devotion to thinking is the requisite.
You will find that creativity is nothing more or other than a consequence of primary thinking; it is a natural consequence of thinking from your unique and real self. While your true thoughts are in a universal realm, nobody thinks them quite like you do; and you will make discoveries in this realm (probably small discoveries, but personally valuable nonetheless).
You will quite spontaneously think about things beyond your past experience, beyond your senses, outside of this world and your times. This is the ‘visionary’ aspect; because the future visionary is a thinker, nor a see-er.
And with endeavour, and rapidly; your thinking will incrementally become strengthened; increased in power, motivating; rooting-you in the world and enhancing your awareness of everything true; curing the typical modern malaise of feeling cut-off, alienated because everything real and valid will come together and be related and integrated in your thoughts.
Wednesday, 2 August 2017
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
What will the great awakening look like?
When the change came there were signs. The sun was different, the moon also - the airs and winds and waters...because all are sentient and knew (in their way) that the time had come. the very earth, too - in its slow vast movements.
Invisible waves, forces, radiations also changed. Everywhere there were signs - for those who could think, and knew their thinking to be true.
As for the others - their dreams knew; whenever their egos were stripped away, their emotions knew.
The children knew - the younger they were, the more they perceived it.
But the change was primarily in Men - because that is reality; that is how creation is organised...
*
There was change - the choice was recognising this change - because it was a change in thinking. It was not, essentially, out-there - and it did not impose itself on people. It was deniable.
Some Men inverted their thinking, systematically inverted their evaluations, inverted their discernment. Shielded their real selves and thought by inculcated habits - or refused to think for themselves, to know for themselves.
True thinking was consciously prevented.
More at:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/jerusalem-in-albion-what-would-national.html
Invisible waves, forces, radiations also changed. Everywhere there were signs - for those who could think, and knew their thinking to be true.
As for the others - their dreams knew; whenever their egos were stripped away, their emotions knew.
The children knew - the younger they were, the more they perceived it.
But the change was primarily in Men - because that is reality; that is how creation is organised...
*
There was change - the choice was recognising this change - because it was a change in thinking. It was not, essentially, out-there - and it did not impose itself on people. It was deniable.
Some Men inverted their thinking, systematically inverted their evaluations, inverted their discernment. Shielded their real selves and thought by inculcated habits - or refused to think for themselves, to know for themselves.
True thinking was consciously prevented.
More at:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/jerusalem-in-albion-what-would-national.html
Coleridge's core concept of Polarity re-explained anthropomorphically (by the metaphor of marriage and family Love)
In his masterful book What Coleridge Thought (1971), Owen Barfield identified Polarity - or Polar Logic - as ST Coleridge's core philosophical concept; and the key to understanding his completion of Romanticism.
I read this book twice, with deep attention, and was convinced by it; however, when I came to try and use the concept of polarity in my everyday life, with the aim of transforming my life for the better - I couldn't. Polarity was just too abstract.
This is probably unsurprising - after all a system of logic is not really the kind of thing which is fundamental; it is more of a tool than a basis for existence. The cognitive domain 'logic' is, indeed of interest to only a tiny minority of very specialised people who have had systematic training.
Furthermore, my experience has been that Christianity ought not to be based upon abstractions, but upon the core analogy of Loving Family Relationships - this is both the reality and the master metaphor (or symbolism) of the Christian religion.
Therefore I need to re-express, re-explain, Polarity in anthropomorphic terms - to make it a matter of human and divine relationships.
Polarity is a way of conceptualising necessary and inseparable opposites: the core physical example (cited by Coleridge) is of a force that coheres and a force that disperses; centripetal (centre-seeking) and centrifugal (centre-fleeing) - the varied combinations of such polar forces then accounts of the dynamic nature of the world, and life.
I then saw that Love - which is the heart of Christianity - is of precisely this nature; because love is a cohesion, a holding together, as with marriage and family relationships; and love is an open-ended creative force, as with children being born, developing, and forging new relationships.
Love is dynamic: it cannot be just cohesion or it will die, it cannot be just expansion or it will die - it must be the polarity of both, which is infinite in its capacity for self-renewal and strength.
Love comes from the dyadic relationship of man and woman, husband and wife, in cohesive relation for eternity and also open-endedly reproducing, having children who have children. The relationships cohere forever, but in a state of continual change and interaction forever.
Love depends on distinction: one person from another, man from woman, parent from child, each sibling from another, each friend unique; and Love also depends on the constancy of the fact of relationship. Many loving relationships changing by an organic, unfolding development. But each relationship sustained in its core nature - husband and wife, father and son, mother and son, brother and brother and so forth.
There are all, in Coleridge's or Barfield's abstract sense, polarities: the insight is true and it is deep. Yet when expressed in terms of relationships it is simple common sense and everyday observation... all we need to do is recognise the ideal for which our earthly family relationships are striving; and then we can know the actuality which will (if we choose it) be the reality in Heaven.
I read this book twice, with deep attention, and was convinced by it; however, when I came to try and use the concept of polarity in my everyday life, with the aim of transforming my life for the better - I couldn't. Polarity was just too abstract.
This is probably unsurprising - after all a system of logic is not really the kind of thing which is fundamental; it is more of a tool than a basis for existence. The cognitive domain 'logic' is, indeed of interest to only a tiny minority of very specialised people who have had systematic training.
Furthermore, my experience has been that Christianity ought not to be based upon abstractions, but upon the core analogy of Loving Family Relationships - this is both the reality and the master metaphor (or symbolism) of the Christian religion.
Therefore I need to re-express, re-explain, Polarity in anthropomorphic terms - to make it a matter of human and divine relationships.
Polarity is a way of conceptualising necessary and inseparable opposites: the core physical example (cited by Coleridge) is of a force that coheres and a force that disperses; centripetal (centre-seeking) and centrifugal (centre-fleeing) - the varied combinations of such polar forces then accounts of the dynamic nature of the world, and life.
I then saw that Love - which is the heart of Christianity - is of precisely this nature; because love is a cohesion, a holding together, as with marriage and family relationships; and love is an open-ended creative force, as with children being born, developing, and forging new relationships.
Love is dynamic: it cannot be just cohesion or it will die, it cannot be just expansion or it will die - it must be the polarity of both, which is infinite in its capacity for self-renewal and strength.
Love comes from the dyadic relationship of man and woman, husband and wife, in cohesive relation for eternity and also open-endedly reproducing, having children who have children. The relationships cohere forever, but in a state of continual change and interaction forever.
Love depends on distinction: one person from another, man from woman, parent from child, each sibling from another, each friend unique; and Love also depends on the constancy of the fact of relationship. Many loving relationships changing by an organic, unfolding development. But each relationship sustained in its core nature - husband and wife, father and son, mother and son, brother and brother and so forth.
There are all, in Coleridge's or Barfield's abstract sense, polarities: the insight is true and it is deep. Yet when expressed in terms of relationships it is simple common sense and everyday observation... all we need to do is recognise the ideal for which our earthly family relationships are striving; and then we can know the actuality which will (if we choose it) be the reality in Heaven.
Bursting asunder the Dark Satanic Mills...
Vesuvius by Joseph Wright of Derby
Blake is complementary to Shakespeare; because if Shakespeare represented every kind of man except the mystic, Blake could apparently conceive of no other!
To Blake, logic is something that has to be, not ignored, but conquered
Imagination and the redeemer are almost synonymous; and Albion is a symbol for universal Man...
Nature is to be redeemed by Imagination, is to become Imagination.
What does it mean to 'build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land'? What can it mean except to rise from the Consciousness Soul to the Imaginative Soul?...
The 'Satanic Mills' which have arisen in England since Blake's time, will never be thrust down from their hideous tyranny until those Mills of which he actually sang (that is, the dead thinking of Newton, Locke and Hobbes) have been burst asunder from within.
More at:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/shakespeare-blake-and-albions-mission.html
Monday, 31 July 2017
Understanding Owen Barfield by starting with his conclusions
I often find it easier to understand philosophy the opposite way around from the direction it is usually presented; that is, by knowing where the writer is going and why - then interpreting the 'evidence' as a demonstration-in-action...
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/owen-barfield-in-reverse.html
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/owen-barfield-in-reverse.html
Owen Barfield and Rudolf Steiner
In a nutshell: Barfield contains the necessary essence of Steiner. Most people will therefore want to approach Steiner via Barfield; turning to Steiner himself mainly for another perspective, and a different mode of explanation.
More at:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/owen-barfield-and-rudolf-steiner-nature.html
More at:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/owen-barfield-and-rudolf-steiner-nature.html
A clear, simple explanation of Owen Barfield's Final Participation
To attain Final Participation is simply to return to a child's basic understanding of the world as being really full of alive and conscious beings - but this time in full awareness that we ourselves, by our thinking, are participating in the knowing of reality.
In Original Participation the child perceives (sees, hears, feels) the world to be really alive and conscious; in Final Participation we think and we know that the world really is alive and conscious; and that we have participated in making it so.
This Participation is indeed Final because it is the truth; it is the divine way of being.
More at:
https://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/owen-barfields-final-participation.html
In Original Participation the child perceives (sees, hears, feels) the world to be really alive and conscious; in Final Participation we think and we know that the world really is alive and conscious; and that we have participated in making it so.
This Participation is indeed Final because it is the truth; it is the divine way of being.
More at:
https://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/owen-barfields-final-participation.html
Sunday, 30 July 2017
My new meditational practice: knowing that every-'thing' is alive, conscious, meaningful, purposive
Most meditational practices attempt to change the state of consciousness - by inducing a trance, dream, visions or the like; feeling oneself transported to another time, place or reality.
But a meditational practice aiming-at what Owen Barfield called Final Participation or Rudolf Steiner called the Spiritual Soul must be in a experienced state of full thinking-consciousness; a state of clarity and alertness, purposive and memorable.
The objective is to synthesise reality in the process of thinking, with awareness that our thinking participates in the recreation of the world.
I say 'recreation' because this is an active process whereby each thinking person takes mere perceptions and recreates from it truth, universal reality; such that all thinking persons (thinking from their real/ true divine self) are thinking in a universally accessible realm of truth.
Thus, thinking (of this kind) is both subjective - because reliant on the individual and created for himself; and also objective - in that all persons are 'accessing' the same reality.
Anyway, the aim is quite simple: To experience the world in the same way as we did as young children, that is 'animistically', as a world of living beings, each conscious and purposive. Or, to put it another way, a world where there are no dead 'things' but only alive 'beings'.
However, when we were children, we passively perceived the world as alive and conscious; whereas now as adults we aim actively to think the world as alive and conscious.
This makes our meditation quite easy! We simply look around us, or think about the world - anything; and we think about every-thing as alive, conscious, meaningful and purposive. Indeed we know the world as alive, conscious, meaningful and purposive.
That's it. The meditation is that we practise knowing the world as such; we do it whenever we think about it, whenever we have the chance to do it.
I regard this type of meditation as quite simply practicing, as working on developing a new habit so that it may gradually become automatic, authentic, transformative - we may gradually, incrementally, come to experience the world as composed of sentient beings; and this knowledge will tranform us.
It may be helpful to clarify what not to aim at. We do not aim at perceiving the world differently - we do not try to see visions or auras, do not aim to hear voices or feel forces, we do not try to become transported to live as another world.
Also, we do not attempt or expect to understand everything; do not expect, for example, to know the content of consciousness, purpose or attitude of everything - but simply to know that they are conscious, do have purpose, do have attitudes.
Nor do we expect to know the exact scope and nature of beings - we do not try to know whether (for example) an individual cloud, blade of grass, tree or hill is 'a being'; or whether the being is instead at a larger scale - the whole sky, a meadow, a forest or range of mountains... Instead we simply focus on the fact that we know that everything is being - and it doesn't matter whether it is is either a being in its own right, or a small or large part of a being.
So, this is my new meditational practice - one based on thinking and knowing; and I find it can be done in many states of mind and many circumstances - I just think about, I just think, I just know something as being not-a-thing but a being.
And it works... Its long-term effect on my life remains to be discovered.
But a meditational practice aiming-at what Owen Barfield called Final Participation or Rudolf Steiner called the Spiritual Soul must be in a experienced state of full thinking-consciousness; a state of clarity and alertness, purposive and memorable.
The objective is to synthesise reality in the process of thinking, with awareness that our thinking participates in the recreation of the world.
I say 'recreation' because this is an active process whereby each thinking person takes mere perceptions and recreates from it truth, universal reality; such that all thinking persons (thinking from their real/ true divine self) are thinking in a universally accessible realm of truth.
Thus, thinking (of this kind) is both subjective - because reliant on the individual and created for himself; and also objective - in that all persons are 'accessing' the same reality.
Anyway, the aim is quite simple: To experience the world in the same way as we did as young children, that is 'animistically', as a world of living beings, each conscious and purposive. Or, to put it another way, a world where there are no dead 'things' but only alive 'beings'.
However, when we were children, we passively perceived the world as alive and conscious; whereas now as adults we aim actively to think the world as alive and conscious.
This makes our meditation quite easy! We simply look around us, or think about the world - anything; and we think about every-thing as alive, conscious, meaningful and purposive. Indeed we know the world as alive, conscious, meaningful and purposive.
That's it. The meditation is that we practise knowing the world as such; we do it whenever we think about it, whenever we have the chance to do it.
I regard this type of meditation as quite simply practicing, as working on developing a new habit so that it may gradually become automatic, authentic, transformative - we may gradually, incrementally, come to experience the world as composed of sentient beings; and this knowledge will tranform us.
It may be helpful to clarify what not to aim at. We do not aim at perceiving the world differently - we do not try to see visions or auras, do not aim to hear voices or feel forces, we do not try to become transported to live as another world.
Also, we do not attempt or expect to understand everything; do not expect, for example, to know the content of consciousness, purpose or attitude of everything - but simply to know that they are conscious, do have purpose, do have attitudes.
Nor do we expect to know the exact scope and nature of beings - we do not try to know whether (for example) an individual cloud, blade of grass, tree or hill is 'a being'; or whether the being is instead at a larger scale - the whole sky, a meadow, a forest or range of mountains... Instead we simply focus on the fact that we know that everything is being - and it doesn't matter whether it is is either a being in its own right, or a small or large part of a being.
So, this is my new meditational practice - one based on thinking and knowing; and I find it can be done in many states of mind and many circumstances - I just think about, I just think, I just know something as being not-a-thing but a being.
And it works... Its long-term effect on my life remains to be discovered.
Suppose that both Leftist materialist modernity and traditional religion are impossible futures?
This is, indeed, the impossibility I confront: that modernity (secular Leftism) is the tool of evil, and orientated ultimately to destruction of The Good; yet traditional religion has become an impossibility at the mass social level, partly for reason of wrong choices (such as the sexual revolution); but not entirely so.
It is consistent with observation (but of course not evidentially-proven; that being impossible) that the grounds for mass religiousness in The West have simply, inexorably, dissolved-away over the past couple of centuries and the Christian churches are now either fundamentally-corrupt or else intrinsically-elite --- that is my interpretation.
That around 1800, in the industrialising nations, a new impulse came upon Men that we usually term Romanticism; which was (at its heart, and at its best) against both the unspirituality of traditional Christianity and also against the arising materialism and Leftism. Romanticism was supposed to be the spiritualisation of all life in context of Christianity; but unfortunately it split into (approximately) anti-spiritual Christianity as a form of social organisation on the one hand; versus an unChristian spirituality that ran in-parallel-to (unintegrated with) materialism in the political sphere and the gratification of non-spiritual emotions (the desire for prosperity, novelty, sex etc).
Romanticism is unfinished business. It was supposed (and by supposed I mean divinely-destined) to be the future of humanity; but that path of spiritual, 'magical' Christianity was refused.
Since then, Life has become compartmentalised; the great mass of people (rulers and ruled alike) have become ever more alienated, unrealistic, incoherent; distracting emotional escapism and pragmatic matter-of-fact despair have become the twin mainstream cultural expressions.
The only possible future is to finish the business of Romanticism. And, at this point n history, there is no group or institution doing this in The West; so if we want to do it - if we regard this as our divine destiny, then we must each do it solo.
And we cannot follow a path, because no path is laid down; we need to find our own path. We know where we want to be: that is living the Christian life in clear, coherent and continuous awareness of both the spiritual context of creation and creator; and within this the living, conscious nature of ourselves and the world around us: in a phrase animistic Christianity...
But we don't know how to get there - or even how to take the next step towards that goal. This situation is the cumulative consequence of two centuries of evasion and corruption; the consequence of living in a society of lies where any advice we take is almost certain to be wrong; any knowledge we acquire is almost certain to be wrong; and directions we are given almost certain to be pointing back down the same path on the down-conveyor belt, or into the abyss.
We may take clues from the insightful early romantics: Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge; Goethe and his interpreter Rudolf Steiner - and Coleridge and Steiner's interpreter Owen Barfield... but they do not yield a blueprint or program.
It seems that part of the divine plan is that we each develop spiritual autonomy and Christianity both; that we do this for ourselves and from ourselves - and do so without any clear knowledge or assurances or examples of where we are going or how we might get there.
Instead of clear knowledge we have hints and lustres, and an awareness of our inner freedom or agency yielding direct conviction - which is not solid and insistent in the same way that social institutions are, due to their material power and simplistic inertia. To withstand these pressures, and do do so without fear and with faith, requires a very solid and strong trust in God and his love; and our capacity to know God's nature and motivations - and that can originate only from personal experience.
Cross posted at: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/suppose-that-both-leftist-materialist.html
It is consistent with observation (but of course not evidentially-proven; that being impossible) that the grounds for mass religiousness in The West have simply, inexorably, dissolved-away over the past couple of centuries and the Christian churches are now either fundamentally-corrupt or else intrinsically-elite --- that is my interpretation.
That around 1800, in the industrialising nations, a new impulse came upon Men that we usually term Romanticism; which was (at its heart, and at its best) against both the unspirituality of traditional Christianity and also against the arising materialism and Leftism. Romanticism was supposed to be the spiritualisation of all life in context of Christianity; but unfortunately it split into (approximately) anti-spiritual Christianity as a form of social organisation on the one hand; versus an unChristian spirituality that ran in-parallel-to (unintegrated with) materialism in the political sphere and the gratification of non-spiritual emotions (the desire for prosperity, novelty, sex etc).
Romanticism is unfinished business. It was supposed (and by supposed I mean divinely-destined) to be the future of humanity; but that path of spiritual, 'magical' Christianity was refused.
Since then, Life has become compartmentalised; the great mass of people (rulers and ruled alike) have become ever more alienated, unrealistic, incoherent; distracting emotional escapism and pragmatic matter-of-fact despair have become the twin mainstream cultural expressions.
The only possible future is to finish the business of Romanticism. And, at this point n history, there is no group or institution doing this in The West; so if we want to do it - if we regard this as our divine destiny, then we must each do it solo.
And we cannot follow a path, because no path is laid down; we need to find our own path. We know where we want to be: that is living the Christian life in clear, coherent and continuous awareness of both the spiritual context of creation and creator; and within this the living, conscious nature of ourselves and the world around us: in a phrase animistic Christianity...
But we don't know how to get there - or even how to take the next step towards that goal. This situation is the cumulative consequence of two centuries of evasion and corruption; the consequence of living in a society of lies where any advice we take is almost certain to be wrong; any knowledge we acquire is almost certain to be wrong; and directions we are given almost certain to be pointing back down the same path on the down-conveyor belt, or into the abyss.
We may take clues from the insightful early romantics: Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge; Goethe and his interpreter Rudolf Steiner - and Coleridge and Steiner's interpreter Owen Barfield... but they do not yield a blueprint or program.
It seems that part of the divine plan is that we each develop spiritual autonomy and Christianity both; that we do this for ourselves and from ourselves - and do so without any clear knowledge or assurances or examples of where we are going or how we might get there.
Instead of clear knowledge we have hints and lustres, and an awareness of our inner freedom or agency yielding direct conviction - which is not solid and insistent in the same way that social institutions are, due to their material power and simplistic inertia. To withstand these pressures, and do do so without fear and with faith, requires a very solid and strong trust in God and his love; and our capacity to know God's nature and motivations - and that can originate only from personal experience.
Cross posted at: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/suppose-that-both-leftist-materialist.html
Saturday, 29 July 2017
What should we ultimately believe? Not what we perceive or reason, but only direct intuition.
Why don't we see angels anymore, like people used to do in the past?
Well, some people do sometimes - but most people can't ever; and among those that do see angels, the results are not usually impressive, so it doesn't seem to do them any good (at least, not so as convince other people).
The idea is seeing is believing, is related more generally to the common modern belief that perception is reality; the idea that what is real is what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell - and perceiving is how we know it is real. And, if God, angels, divine things were real, then we would perceive them; and if God was real he would therefore show himself, give signs...
So modern people point at the lack of 'evidence' for God... Yet when there is the evidence of people reporting sensory contact, it is disbelieved - it is put down to hallucination, self-deception, fraud...
Indeed, people disbelieve their own perceptions, quite routinely. They believe the mass media rather than what they perceive, what they experience...
Furthermore, in science, what is perceived directly is of very little relevance - and the 'observations' are done with machines of various types, and often after very complex statistical manipulations. The validity of the machines and statistics is a matter of faith (faith that is generally misplaced).
So the situation is that people use the notion that seeing is believing to reject things that they want to reject - like God, or angels; but lack of perceptual evidence is no barrier to accepting things that are socially sanctioned (like the belief in reversible anthropogenic global warming, which has transformed all of our lives - for the worse) .
*
But seeing is Not believing, and perceptions are not the bottom line - we know that! We know that perceptions provide only indirect knowledge, that they are partial and distorted; and may be unique to the individual (hallucinated). We know about optimal illusions, we know that we can't see ultra-violet light but it is there, we know that colour depends on our physical makeup and can be altered by ambient light or tinted spectacles... we know that seeing is not believing - or should not be.
Indeed, we know that we are being manipulated by fake images all the time - whether in the movies or in the 'news'. If we believed what we saw, we could be made to believe anything!
*
Taking this further, many people are aware that most of the whole world of public discourse is manufactured. That much of what we are shown, much of what we are provided with 'evidence' for, is fake, false, manipulative. There are systematic forces at work behind the scenes to create virtual realities using images, fake evidence, false logic and so on...
All perceptually-derived knowledge is mediated - and this enables it to be manipulated.
*
So what should we believe? In principle, only what we directly know. Only what we know without mediation.
What we believe ought to be that we we do not perceive, for which we have zero evidence; that which is now without use of reason, logic or inference.
That which is intuited.
Think about it.
Cross posted:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/seeing-is-not-believing-only-direct.html
Well, some people do sometimes - but most people can't ever; and among those that do see angels, the results are not usually impressive, so it doesn't seem to do them any good (at least, not so as convince other people).
The idea is seeing is believing, is related more generally to the common modern belief that perception is reality; the idea that what is real is what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell - and perceiving is how we know it is real. And, if God, angels, divine things were real, then we would perceive them; and if God was real he would therefore show himself, give signs...
So modern people point at the lack of 'evidence' for God... Yet when there is the evidence of people reporting sensory contact, it is disbelieved - it is put down to hallucination, self-deception, fraud...
Indeed, people disbelieve their own perceptions, quite routinely. They believe the mass media rather than what they perceive, what they experience...
Furthermore, in science, what is perceived directly is of very little relevance - and the 'observations' are done with machines of various types, and often after very complex statistical manipulations. The validity of the machines and statistics is a matter of faith (faith that is generally misplaced).
So the situation is that people use the notion that seeing is believing to reject things that they want to reject - like God, or angels; but lack of perceptual evidence is no barrier to accepting things that are socially sanctioned (like the belief in reversible anthropogenic global warming, which has transformed all of our lives - for the worse) .
*
But seeing is Not believing, and perceptions are not the bottom line - we know that! We know that perceptions provide only indirect knowledge, that they are partial and distorted; and may be unique to the individual (hallucinated). We know about optimal illusions, we know that we can't see ultra-violet light but it is there, we know that colour depends on our physical makeup and can be altered by ambient light or tinted spectacles... we know that seeing is not believing - or should not be.
Indeed, we know that we are being manipulated by fake images all the time - whether in the movies or in the 'news'. If we believed what we saw, we could be made to believe anything!
*
Taking this further, many people are aware that most of the whole world of public discourse is manufactured. That much of what we are shown, much of what we are provided with 'evidence' for, is fake, false, manipulative. There are systematic forces at work behind the scenes to create virtual realities using images, fake evidence, false logic and so on...
All perceptually-derived knowledge is mediated - and this enables it to be manipulated.
*
So what should we believe? In principle, only what we directly know. Only what we know without mediation.
What we believe ought to be that we we do not perceive, for which we have zero evidence; that which is now without use of reason, logic or inference.
That which is intuited.
Think about it.
Cross posted:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/seeing-is-not-believing-only-direct.html
Tuesday, 25 July 2017
The most exciting new CS Lewis resource for over a decade: Joel Heck's Chronologically Lewis
A detailed, almost day-by-day, account of the doings of Jack and Warnie Lewis from birth to death; and it's free!:
https://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/chronologically-lewis-by-joel-heck.html
https://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/chronologically-lewis-by-joel-heck.html
Why I am neither a reactionary nor a modernist
I equate modernity (that is secular Leftism in all its forms - including all mainstream and non-religious parties) with arrested adolescence - which is the worst thing.
I equate religious reaction with our spiritual childhood.
Now - if forced to choose between perpetual adolescence and childhood, I would certainly choose childhood. But that is not what is on offer from religious reaction, starting (as we are) from here-and-from-now: what is offered is a partial and self-conscious return to the closest-possible simulacrum of childhood - therefore not childhood itself.
This is still somewhat better than full-blown Leftist modernity, but it is not stable - and it is sad, because it knows itself to be based on a kind of self-deception, a self-blinding.
The difference between my traditionalist views in 2011 (e.g. when I wrote Thought Prison, influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy via the monk Eugene/ Seraphim Rose) and my views over the past three or so years is that now I have been persuaded (by Owen Barfield, the early Rudolf Steiner, William Arkle - and by Barfield's reading in ST Coleridge) that the spiritual adolescence of modernity was intended (I mean divinely-intended, as our human destiny) to be a transition to an adult form of spiritual and Christian consciousness which Barfield calls Final Participation and Steiner terms the Spiritual Soul.
In other words, because I now see a way forward past modernity to something better than traditionalism in Christianity, I no longer wish to go back.
Especially considering that I believe in the truth of Mormon Christian metaphysics; this puts me in an even smaller minority than when I was a 'mainstream' Christian traditionalist c 2009-13 - perhaps indeed a minority-of-one.
So be it: that is where I best perceive the truth of things to be.
I equate religious reaction with our spiritual childhood.
Now - if forced to choose between perpetual adolescence and childhood, I would certainly choose childhood. But that is not what is on offer from religious reaction, starting (as we are) from here-and-from-now: what is offered is a partial and self-conscious return to the closest-possible simulacrum of childhood - therefore not childhood itself.
This is still somewhat better than full-blown Leftist modernity, but it is not stable - and it is sad, because it knows itself to be based on a kind of self-deception, a self-blinding.
The difference between my traditionalist views in 2011 (e.g. when I wrote Thought Prison, influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy via the monk Eugene/ Seraphim Rose) and my views over the past three or so years is that now I have been persuaded (by Owen Barfield, the early Rudolf Steiner, William Arkle - and by Barfield's reading in ST Coleridge) that the spiritual adolescence of modernity was intended (I mean divinely-intended, as our human destiny) to be a transition to an adult form of spiritual and Christian consciousness which Barfield calls Final Participation and Steiner terms the Spiritual Soul.
In other words, because I now see a way forward past modernity to something better than traditionalism in Christianity, I no longer wish to go back.
Especially considering that I believe in the truth of Mormon Christian metaphysics; this puts me in an even smaller minority than when I was a 'mainstream' Christian traditionalist c 2009-13 - perhaps indeed a minority-of-one.
So be it: that is where I best perceive the truth of things to be.
The triumph of William Arkle
And I was trying to think of anyone who seems personally to have made this transition; to have moved into spiritual adulthood and Final Participation - and I could think of no one more-completely successful than William Arkle; a man who consistently writes-from that FP perspective of daily awareness of universal livingness, consciousness, meaning and purpose.
Of course, I don't know how much of Arkle's daily living was spent in this mode of thought - and because it is a subjective state this is anyway very difficult to determine. Still, Arkle was the most plausible candidate I could come-up with - other candidates included William Blake, Goethe, Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield himself; but Arkle comes-across in his writings (and paintings) as more of an advanced practical and fully-self-aware mystic than any of these.
Regular readers will know that I have been blogging about William Arkle for about three and a half years, since the death of Colin Wilson reminded me of his work. I later set-up a blog to post this material - this is my introduction:
http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/william-arkle.html
I was surprised yesterday, on reviewing the blog statistics for the first time in a good while, to discover that it had received 48,000 Hits; which is about 1000 a month on average. This was pleasing - especially given that the main Arkle web resource (billarkle.co.uk) has seemingly been 'down' for maintenance/ improvement for about a year (although much of it can still be accessed via The Wayback Machine).
The fact is that, although apparently quite a few people have looked at my blog, William Arkle remains almost-wholly obscure. Nonetheless, after three-plus years of intense and close-reading; I would regard him as one of the deepest and truest writers on spiritual Christianity I have ever encountered.
Just over the past couple of weeks I have been working on some liner notes for a forthcoming CD of William Arkle's music, as orchestrated and performed by Robert John Godfrey and The Enid (a progressive rock band which began in the 1970s, and which also used an Arkle painting for one of its albums); a copy of which I will post later.
But in the meantime, somebody has posted on YouTube a sample of this music, which is well worth a listen. Composed before 1968, it was a precursor of what would now be called 'ambient', and somewhat in the genre of minimalism - but I would describe it sounding rather like as Brian Eno meets Frederick Delius! If you enjoy it, you might look-out for my notice of the full CD album:
My Editorial Preface to the English translation of Goethe’s correspondence with a child by Bettina von Arnim - 1837
Publishing an online version of the English translation of Bettina von Arnim's Letters to Goethe was a project I did in the early months of 2004. It was, in fact, a spin-off of my interest in Emerson, Thoreau and the New England Transcendentalists; among whom this was a 'cult' book.
This link will take you to my Preface (somewhat politically correct, as it now strikes me! - being from my pre-Christian era) - from which the book itself can be accessed:
https://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/preface-bettina.html
This link will take you to my Preface (somewhat politically correct, as it now strikes me! - being from my pre-Christian era) - from which the book itself can be accessed:
https://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/preface-bettina.html
Monday, 24 July 2017
The Qualitative Moment in Science (or: When do we know that we know?)
Science is primarily about qualities - and only when we know the qualities can we coherently quantify.
This is the reality of the situation, and may conclusively be shown by philosophical argument; but the fact is nonetheless almost universally ignored, and almost as frequently denied.
(Indeed, it is a recurrent delusion in science that qualities can be derived from quantities, and many people delusionally suppose they are doing theory-free science, based wholly on measurements and statistical analysis.)
The deep question in science is therefore how we discover true qualities - or, how do we discover the primary phenomena; because only after these are known can 'routine' science get underway. It is qualitative discovery that does the heavy-lifting in science, and it is the activity where creativity is absolutely necessary.
How can we observe primary phenomena? The key point is that we cannot know in advance where or how we will find primary phenomena, and we know we have found a primary phenomenon only in retrospect.
Specifically, the primary phenomenon is known when the situation becomes simple, clear and obvious. We recognise that what we have before us (or in mind) is a primary phenomenon because it is simple, clear and obvious.
This accounts for the strong element of surprise in scientific discovery! We do this, then that, and then the other - then suddenly we see, grasp and know what is happening, what we are dealing-with!
We have arrived at a situation of simplicity, clarity; and it is obvious.
*
But how do we look-for it? Where do we look for it?
Well, there are no rules - and indeed the necessary capacity is the capacity of recognition. But science does imply purposive seeking, so what is happening? This can't be answered with precision but only by such hints as putting our minds to the matter in hand, attending to things with honesty, and observing various 'arrangements' of things (for example making structured observations or doing experiments).
We expose-ourselves to various things in a purposive manner while being alert and attentive... and then at some point we may recognise that we have before us (or in mind) exactly that situation of simplicity and clarity when the meaning is obvious. We experience the state of knowing.
It can be seen just why we cannot, in principle, know in advance what observations, what experiments will yield primary knowledge of this type - we don't know what exactly we need to do, because if we did we would already be knowing what we seek.
Yet how can we find what we seek given this; and given that the search-space would seem to be infinite? We have an infinite number of choices of what we might do - how does anybody ever discover the needle of a primary phenomenon in the infinite haystack of distracting irrelevance?
(Of course, sometimes the need is not found - but sometimes it apparently is; and even sometimes seems impossibly against the odds.)
I do not have an answer; and the point is that neither does anybody else - which is why science cannot be made into a process. There is no scientific method: there just isn't. Science - I mean real, creative, qualitative science - cannot be planned.
(Thus 99% of what calls itself science is a fake... probably more. Mostly is it merely measuring, parasitic-upon science)
*
How may primary phenomena be validate: in other words, how do we now that a qualitative phenomenon really is primary?
Especially considering that primary phenomena cannot be tested by measurements - because qualities are primary, quantities are structured-by the qualities. Measurements are made of and by-using the qualities - so measurements cannot evaluate their validity.
The true test of a primary phenomenon is that anybody competent and honest can, in principle, observe them - once they have been pointed-out, everybody knows where to find them.
But how do we know if someone is competent and honest? (And when they are not!)
The answer is: by exactly the same primary knowing as leads to the identification of the primary phenomenon. That is, we may get to know a person such that we know - simply, clearly and with conviction - that they are honest and competent.
And only such persons can do science. Anyone not so-validated must simply be excluded as generators of mere noise and distortion.
Science is difficult enough without letting-in nose and distortion! And too much n&d will render real science impossible.
This is why real science is always and necessarily done in 'invisible colleges' of not many people who know and trust each others honesty and competence.
(Again this emphasises the fact that that 99%-plus of modern, professional self-styled 'science' is nothing of the kind!)
This is the reality of the situation, and may conclusively be shown by philosophical argument; but the fact is nonetheless almost universally ignored, and almost as frequently denied.
(Indeed, it is a recurrent delusion in science that qualities can be derived from quantities, and many people delusionally suppose they are doing theory-free science, based wholly on measurements and statistical analysis.)
The deep question in science is therefore how we discover true qualities - or, how do we discover the primary phenomena; because only after these are known can 'routine' science get underway. It is qualitative discovery that does the heavy-lifting in science, and it is the activity where creativity is absolutely necessary.
How can we observe primary phenomena? The key point is that we cannot know in advance where or how we will find primary phenomena, and we know we have found a primary phenomenon only in retrospect.
Specifically, the primary phenomenon is known when the situation becomes simple, clear and obvious. We recognise that what we have before us (or in mind) is a primary phenomenon because it is simple, clear and obvious.
This accounts for the strong element of surprise in scientific discovery! We do this, then that, and then the other - then suddenly we see, grasp and know what is happening, what we are dealing-with!
We have arrived at a situation of simplicity, clarity; and it is obvious.
*
But how do we look-for it? Where do we look for it?
Well, there are no rules - and indeed the necessary capacity is the capacity of recognition. But science does imply purposive seeking, so what is happening? This can't be answered with precision but only by such hints as putting our minds to the matter in hand, attending to things with honesty, and observing various 'arrangements' of things (for example making structured observations or doing experiments).
We expose-ourselves to various things in a purposive manner while being alert and attentive... and then at some point we may recognise that we have before us (or in mind) exactly that situation of simplicity and clarity when the meaning is obvious. We experience the state of knowing.
It can be seen just why we cannot, in principle, know in advance what observations, what experiments will yield primary knowledge of this type - we don't know what exactly we need to do, because if we did we would already be knowing what we seek.
Yet how can we find what we seek given this; and given that the search-space would seem to be infinite? We have an infinite number of choices of what we might do - how does anybody ever discover the needle of a primary phenomenon in the infinite haystack of distracting irrelevance?
(Of course, sometimes the need is not found - but sometimes it apparently is; and even sometimes seems impossibly against the odds.)
I do not have an answer; and the point is that neither does anybody else - which is why science cannot be made into a process. There is no scientific method: there just isn't. Science - I mean real, creative, qualitative science - cannot be planned.
(Thus 99% of what calls itself science is a fake... probably more. Mostly is it merely measuring, parasitic-upon science)
*
How may primary phenomena be validate: in other words, how do we now that a qualitative phenomenon really is primary?
Especially considering that primary phenomena cannot be tested by measurements - because qualities are primary, quantities are structured-by the qualities. Measurements are made of and by-using the qualities - so measurements cannot evaluate their validity.
The true test of a primary phenomenon is that anybody competent and honest can, in principle, observe them - once they have been pointed-out, everybody knows where to find them.
But how do we know if someone is competent and honest? (And when they are not!)
The answer is: by exactly the same primary knowing as leads to the identification of the primary phenomenon. That is, we may get to know a person such that we know - simply, clearly and with conviction - that they are honest and competent.
And only such persons can do science. Anyone not so-validated must simply be excluded as generators of mere noise and distortion.
Science is difficult enough without letting-in nose and distortion! And too much n&d will render real science impossible.
This is why real science is always and necessarily done in 'invisible colleges' of not many people who know and trust each others honesty and competence.
(Again this emphasises the fact that that 99%-plus of modern, professional self-styled 'science' is nothing of the kind!)
Sunday, 23 July 2017
Divine Purpose by William Arkle (with my comments)
There are a number of matters which I would like to define which are matters that seem to cause a deep stirring in the heart of our being and which require some response from us.
I will quickly go by the opinions of those people who do not see the need for a purposeful creative consciousness behind the manifestation of this universe.
Such understanding must come to us as a simple observation beyond doubt, or it does not come at all.
We realise that there are people who are able to conceive of this manifest universe as an outgrowth from some haphazard life which is fumbling its way by accidents from one thing to another.
I cannot sustain such a theory since I am aware that the organisation of matter has to reach an extremely high degree indeed before life can even begin a fumbling of any sort.
Our time and attention is too valuable to remain in, what are for me, such unproductive fields.
From an essay published in The Great Gift by William Arkle, 1977
My comments: Arkle says many vital things in this truly profound and inspiring essay; which can be read in its entirely at:
https://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/divine-purpose.html
However, none are more important than the two sentences in bold font above.
Understanding that the universe of reality has behind it a purposeful and creative consciousness must (sooner or later: as soon as possible) come to us by means of a simple, clear observation - beyond doubt.
And, this is a matter to which we must give our urgent and most focused concern; because, unless or until we can attain such a simple, clear and solid insight; then our time and attention, our mortal Life, will feel and be to our deepest consideration a torment, an unproductive waste.
Life as learning not being: the significance of Peak Experiences for Final Participation
We tend to think of consciousness or thinking as a state of being; and notice that we fail to attain and sustain this state of being. For example that our peak experiences are infrequent and brief - normal life is lived at a lower level...
However, this is an incorrect inference based on a false assumption based on a misunderstanding of the nature of life, and what we are supposed to be gaining from it. The (divinely) desired purpose of life is not to achieve a state but to experience a process of learning.
Life should be a process of learning, of transformative learning. What ought to happen in a peak experience is that we are having an experience during which we are learning about life; being transformed by life in a positive way (in the kind of way that our creator intends; tending to cause theosis or making us become more-divine, more god-like).
And, in this age of Man, we should be aware of this process and its consequences. It is good if we know-about peak experiences, when they are happening, that we are learning-from them and what we have learnt...
The perspective is that this kind of aware experiencing of our selves in the moment - the state of being as instead a dynamic thing - this is the vision of life as experience, learning, 'education' towards divinity which is primarily aimed-at fulfilment after mortality (i.e. in our resurrected life that comes after mortal death).
In this era of Man, the aim is especially of greater consciousness; therefore we should strive to be explicitly aware of the process of incremental, developmental change of our consciousness that comes from serial experiences, expanded learning, awareness, reflection.
Life brings us the necessary experiences; or role is mainly to be aware of them and make the best of them. And repentance (always vital for Christians) can be understood as explicit knowledge of when our response to experience has been beneficial - and when not.
However, this is an incorrect inference based on a false assumption based on a misunderstanding of the nature of life, and what we are supposed to be gaining from it. The (divinely) desired purpose of life is not to achieve a state but to experience a process of learning.
Life should be a process of learning, of transformative learning. What ought to happen in a peak experience is that we are having an experience during which we are learning about life; being transformed by life in a positive way (in the kind of way that our creator intends; tending to cause theosis or making us become more-divine, more god-like).
And, in this age of Man, we should be aware of this process and its consequences. It is good if we know-about peak experiences, when they are happening, that we are learning-from them and what we have learnt...
The perspective is that this kind of aware experiencing of our selves in the moment - the state of being as instead a dynamic thing - this is the vision of life as experience, learning, 'education' towards divinity which is primarily aimed-at fulfilment after mortality (i.e. in our resurrected life that comes after mortal death).
In this era of Man, the aim is especially of greater consciousness; therefore we should strive to be explicitly aware of the process of incremental, developmental change of our consciousness that comes from serial experiences, expanded learning, awareness, reflection.
Life brings us the necessary experiences; or role is mainly to be aware of them and make the best of them. And repentance (always vital for Christians) can be understood as explicit knowledge of when our response to experience has been beneficial - and when not.
Saturday, 22 July 2017
What's the time? A traditional rhyme for 5 year olds (and a version for younger kids)
What's the time?
Half past nine.
Hang your knickers on the line.
When a policeman comes along
Don't forget to put them on!
This is the risque version guaranteed to raise a snigger in the playground.
For younger kids who don't find knickers, or lack of them, to be intrinsically humorous, there is an alternative neat final couplet:
What's the time?
Half past nine.
Hang your knickers on the line.
When they're dry, take them in
And put them in a biscuit tin!
'Collected' Backwell, Somerset, England - c 1964-5
Half past nine.
Hang your knickers on the line.
When a policeman comes along
Don't forget to put them on!
This is the risque version guaranteed to raise a snigger in the playground.
For younger kids who don't find knickers, or lack of them, to be intrinsically humorous, there is an alternative neat final couplet:
What's the time?
Half past nine.
Hang your knickers on the line.
When they're dry, take them in
And put them in a biscuit tin!
'Collected' Backwell, Somerset, England - c 1964-5
Friday, 21 July 2017
The People want metaphysics! (but they don't realise it...)
It was more than 100 years ago Rudolf Steiner noted that the (German-speaking) public were no longer interested in academic philosophy in the way they had been a couple of generations earlier; the situation prevails - except when people get close to addressing metaphysical concerns about the ultimate nature of reality.
It was the 'epistemological turn' (away from metaphysics and towards epistemology - a focus on knowing, justification, logic etc) from the mid-1900s, that killed real philosophy - and thus spontaneous public interest in the subject. Since then, academic philosophers write purely for one another, the subject is free-spinning cog; its effect is subversive not constructive.
(Modern professional philosophers are often clever; but actually have nothing to be clever about. Hence the leading figures seem to project a peculiarly unjustifiable smugness, presumably based on the delusion that they are of the lineage of Socrates and Plato, rather than prime destroyers of that lineage...)
Revivals of philosophical interest are usually focused on 'middle-brow' but fundamental-problem-orientated work on the nature of the human condition - e.g. the popular existentialism of the 1950s epitomised by Colin Wilson, Robert Pirsig's writings on Quality from the 1970s, and the like (not much since Pirsig, however...); these tackling core aspects of the basis for living, meaning, purpose etc.
It seems the people want metaphysics! - even though they don't know the name, and would not like it if they did.
However they want metaphysics, although they don't realise it, because they need it - indeed they need it more than anything else; because it is unknown, unexamined and denied false-basic-assumptions about reality that have created and sustained the nihilism and despair which is at the root of modern self-hatred and covert-strategic suicide.
It was the 'epistemological turn' (away from metaphysics and towards epistemology - a focus on knowing, justification, logic etc) from the mid-1900s, that killed real philosophy - and thus spontaneous public interest in the subject. Since then, academic philosophers write purely for one another, the subject is free-spinning cog; its effect is subversive not constructive.
(Modern professional philosophers are often clever; but actually have nothing to be clever about. Hence the leading figures seem to project a peculiarly unjustifiable smugness, presumably based on the delusion that they are of the lineage of Socrates and Plato, rather than prime destroyers of that lineage...)
Revivals of philosophical interest are usually focused on 'middle-brow' but fundamental-problem-orientated work on the nature of the human condition - e.g. the popular existentialism of the 1950s epitomised by Colin Wilson, Robert Pirsig's writings on Quality from the 1970s, and the like (not much since Pirsig, however...); these tackling core aspects of the basis for living, meaning, purpose etc.
It seems the people want metaphysics! - even though they don't know the name, and would not like it if they did.
However they want metaphysics, although they don't realise it, because they need it - indeed they need it more than anything else; because it is unknown, unexamined and denied false-basic-assumptions about reality that have created and sustained the nihilism and despair which is at the root of modern self-hatred and covert-strategic suicide.
Heddon Hill - a ritual labyrinth/ ancient temple site, that I discovered in Northumberland's Cheviot Hills
Note the remains of a ?ritual labyrinth ascending to its peak (akin to Glastonbury Tor?)...
More at:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/heddon-hill-and-ingram-church-john.html
My Marshall McLuhan book, and the reader's favourite: Addicted to Distraction
I get the impression that my 2014 book on the mass media (and dedicated to the memory of Marshall McLuhan) Addicted to Distraction is the most popular among readers (which, admittedly, isn't saying very much!)
Anyway for those of you who don't know, as well as traditional paper copy; it is available free online in an unformatted text version (to copy, paste and print):
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
Or, properly formatted, for a nominal price from Amazon Kindle.
The book was given very pleasing endorsements by Jim Kalb and John C Wright:
Anyway for those of you who don't know, as well as traditional paper copy; it is available free online in an unformatted text version (to copy, paste and print):
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
Or, properly formatted, for a nominal price from Amazon Kindle.
The book was given very pleasing endorsements by Jim Kalb and John C Wright:
In
this groundbreaking study, Bruce Charlton sheds brilliant light on
fundamental features of our current situation. He develops Marshall
McLuhan's insight that "the medium is the message" into a deeply
illuminating account of the mass media as a self-sustaining
techno-cultural system that absorbs the whole of human life into a
virtual world of willfulness and unreality. Like Plato in his Myth of
the Cave, he calls for each of us to turn away from flickering images
and toward realities. We need to heed that call. --James Kalb: author of The Tyranny of Liberalism and Against Inclusiveness
Addicted to Distraction by Bruce G Charlton is a brilliant, pithy, and incisive analysis and condemnation of the modern mass media and its semipurposeful agenda of permanent revolution, permanent hysteria, and permanent chaos. His comments are as cutting as the scalpel of a surgeon performing an autopsy, and his insights a bright and clear as the merciless lights in an operating theater. Can a fish drown? Can it even notice the waters in which it lives and moves? No more than can we notice the totalitarian relativism of the modern mass media. The Mass Media is a roaring, grinding attention-grabbing machine which operates with no set purpose; except the purpose to subvert, uncreate, mock and destroy. It does not matter what the media destroys. Pointless subversion is the point of the media, and the medium is the message. By all means read and understand this book ... and then go out by yourself into the calm and silent wilderness for a year. --John C Wright, author and Nebula Award finalist
Addicted to Distraction by Bruce G Charlton is a brilliant, pithy, and incisive analysis and condemnation of the modern mass media and its semipurposeful agenda of permanent revolution, permanent hysteria, and permanent chaos. His comments are as cutting as the scalpel of a surgeon performing an autopsy, and his insights a bright and clear as the merciless lights in an operating theater. Can a fish drown? Can it even notice the waters in which it lives and moves? No more than can we notice the totalitarian relativism of the modern mass media. The Mass Media is a roaring, grinding attention-grabbing machine which operates with no set purpose; except the purpose to subvert, uncreate, mock and destroy. It does not matter what the media destroys. Pointless subversion is the point of the media, and the medium is the message. By all means read and understand this book ... and then go out by yourself into the calm and silent wilderness for a year. --John C Wright, author and Nebula Award finalist
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