"In western lands"... Another unnoticed/ under-rated poem by Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings

In western lands beneath the Sun 

the flowers may rise in Spring, 

the trees may bud, the waters run, 

the merry finches sing. 

Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night 

and swaying beeches bear 

the Elven-stars as jewels white 

amid their branching hair. 

Though here at journey's end I lie 

in darkness buried deep, 

beyond all towers strong and high, 

beyond all mountains steep, 

above all shadows rides the Sun 

and Stars for ever dwell: 

I will not say the Day is done, 

nor bid the Stars farewell.

**

Good, isn't it? The first verse set's up a generic pastoral idyll - yet of a kind we have all experienced. Then, in the second verse, we are suddenly being spoken-to by a specific voice; and from one who is lying mortally sick ('in darkness buried deep'), and who believes he is about to die ('at journey's end'). 

But this voice remembers to us, that in spite of his miserable and terminal situation; there is another world - that same kind of world of sun and stars he described in the first verse; but this world of eternal beauty and joy is 'for ever', eternal!

Therefore, despite his currently dire circumstances - the voice will not believe that his life is truly ending (as it were 'night falling'). He will not 'bid farewell', say goodbye, to 'life'; because he does not expect to die, not finally - but expects to encounter-again the elven stars (symbols of enchanted beauty and joy). 

A short poem with simple language - yet a real poem; which simultaneously suggests a great deal more than the literal and mundane: and what it suggests is lovely, life-enhancing.

 

Yet, how easy it is to miss this delightsome lyric when reading Lord of the Rings - as did I; because it is depicted as sung by Sam Gamgee in the tower of Cirith Ungol; as (merely!) a way of letting the prisoner Frodo know he has arrived to rescue him, and to attract a verbal response from Frodo, so that Sam can find him. 

As so often; I owe my 'noticing' of such telling detail to that best of all Tolkien scholars and critics - Tom Shippey; who mentions it in a characteristically insightful (and very funny!) videoed lecture at Arizona State University, in 2002.  

Core Big Lies that we depend-upon; versus Gratuitous Big Lies (such as the birdemic and climate change) that are universal and merely-destructive

We live in a world governed on the basis of Big Lies - a world of global totalitarian establishment Leftism of all factions and parties. 

Since the international coup of early 2020; Big Lies now dominate all nations, and major human institutions/ corporations/ organizations. 

This means that The System which keep more than seven billion people alive is net-corrupted - is directed against God, divine creation and The Good. 

In other words, we depend-upon Core Systems that have yet embraced Big Lies; such that all functionality has been diluted then subverted by these lies.

To oppose the Core Big Lies therefore means to oppose the hand that (albeit to an always-declining extent) feeds us, clothes and shelters us, heals and protects us.

This situation of corruption of core functionalities must end in collapse and disaster; and is bad enough...

But on top of such negative erosion of capability, efficiency and purpose; there are Gratuitous Big Lies; of which the birdemic-peck agenda is the most currently dominant; with Global Warming/ Climate Change not far behind. 

These are Not lies that have arisen from the incremental corruption of once-functional systems; but these are instead made-up novel systems that are in essence Wholly Dishonest and therefore Actively destructive.

The birdemic is a manufactured fake from bottom to top - at every step and stage, lies have been woven; it is not only unnecessary but actively-destructive. 

If the birdemic did not exist, there would be no need to invent it - hence it is a Gratuitous Big Lie. 

It is a network of untruthfulness added-to the Global System and designedly destructive of it: with all the major interventions (closures, restrictions, masking, distancing, pecking) being grossly net harmful. 

Likewise the Climate Change Big Lie: another entirely gratuitous deception that has been deliberately structured and manufactured to have the widest scope and to inflict the deepest harm. 

At its centre is the inversional demonization of Carbon Dioxide - the gas of life - associated with all living things - a molecule not only necessary, but vastly net-beneficial to planetary life.

Likewise warmth. In a world where climate is always changing and (obviously!) cannot be controlled; but the major danger to life has been cold (ice ages) we are asked to fear (and pretend to be able to prevent) greater warmth (which people whose motive I trust, such as Freeman Dyson, say would almost certainly be a net-benefit). 

Like the birdemic-peck; the Warming/ Change agenda is not only unnecessary, and ineffective, but also grossly harmful across the board. 

Such is the nature of a Gratuitous Big Lie. 

The depth and evil of our global corruption therefore begins the expanding-insinuation of Big Lies into all the life-sustaining and functional social systems; but the gratuitous invention and imposition of entire novel social systems that are actively evil - actively destructive of Good, and with potential for malignant invasion of every single aspect of human living and relations. 

So these gratuitous Big Lies have taken the agenda of evil from its previous locus in social institutions/ organizations/ corporations; and insinuated the agenda into the most intimate of human relationships - marriage, families, true friendships. 

For instance, since 2020 and leading up to this Christmas; we can see that the birdemic-peck agenda has already done astonishingly deep damage to marriages and families - and this damages increases and expands in scope with each passing month. 

People have treated their loved ones in ways that would have been regarded as frankly psychopathic just two years ago - and the situation is continuing to worsen.   

Not only love, but basic human decency, has been dissolved in face of the malignant spread of the birdemic Big Lie. 

We are now faced with a situation where all moderation, common sense, compromise; have been swept aside by the birdemic-peck agenda. 

There is now a stark choice between wholesale rejection of the entire birdemic-peck narrative - that is; no nuance, no discussion or debate, no argument or evidence but instead total deletion of the official narrative...

Or else capitulation to a Big Lie that is now, already, breaking-apart every prior human value, and all that was regarded as sacred such as the relations of husband and wife, and of parent and child. 

It ought not to be a difficult choice to reject the birdemic narrative when it is both gratuitous and observably dissolving all that we once (just two years ago) most cherished. Common sense applied to personal experience would (where it existed) discern that we have almost-everything to gain and almost-nothing to lose from deleting the birdemic... 

But in practice, for most of the population; rejection is regarded as impossible, utterly unreasonable, and recklessly dangerous. 

For many people, already, their world has already ended - and by their own enthusiastic consent - but this reality has not yet sunk-in... 

It Soon Will.      

No real church...

No real church would agree to its long term (more than a very few weeks, maximum; and time-limited) closure and cessation of core activities under any circumstances. 

And if forced to cease, desist and close; any true church would dissent, protest and disobey to the limit of its courage and spiritual expediency. 

Thus; insofar as any institution that identifies as 'a church' agrees to its own closure and cessation without explicit resistance; it is not a real church: it is a fake church. 

Furthermore; any fake church that goes beyond minimal compliance to add further restrictions on its own activities, and/or who embraces, advocates, celebrates its own limitation in core activities - has gone beyond being a fake church; and has become an Anti-church.

Exactly this situation of Anti-church has, from early 2020, been reached by all the major Christian denominations. 

A Happy/ Fulfilled Christmas

I was awake early as usual - but the family are still asleep as I write and the special events of the day have hardly begun. 

Therefore, I have a sense of anticipation - which is my dominant emotion concerning the lead-in to Christmas (which is the main thing about it - since it lasts so much longer than the day). Meanwhile, I have been thinking and noting; and dipping-into books while I wait - the Tolkien biography by Carpenter, Para Handy stories by Neil Munro, and a Christmas stocking filler about eccentric English clergy. 

But things will begin to happen very soon. 

So, a Happy Christmas to my readers and commenters, known and not-known; and to the Romantic Christian 'group' of (mostly, but not entirely) co-bloggers who provide my online and international equivalent of The Inklings: an audience, critical appreciation, a sense of shared purpose. 

I hope that I and you who read this will be able to discover within ourselves the right attitude and attributes to make the most and the best of today. 

For me, my powers of response and personal capabilities have - for most of my life - been the "limiting factor"; rather than external and imposed circumstances. This feels like a great blessing. But others may have the excuse of blaming their situation for their limitations - I don't. 

But whatever has been done, so long as we are sustained alive - there is more to be done, more that needs to be done; or, accurately, more things to learn.

To learn even on Christmas Day - especially on Christmas Day. Things will happen-to each of us from-now; life will bring-us experiences - so our job is to be aware, to notice and discern, to choose and take responsibility for our choosing. 

A Happy Christmas is a fulfilled Christmas. 

My core argument for Romantic Christianity

In response to some e-mail communications from Alan Roebuck (of The Orthosphere blog) I will here try to provide a concise summary of my core reason for being a Romantic Christian; and, in the process (and speaking for myself), an attempted definition of what Romantic Christianity might be. 

My underpinning conviction is that God is the creator of reality, and is loving of each and every man and woman in the same qualitative way as the most ideal parents in an ideal family. 

(i.e. God the creator is our Loving Father and Mother.)

The purpose behind creation is that Men be given the chance to become as God in divine stature (i.e. in love and creative power). The hope that as many as possible mortal Men will choose to become resurrected and immortal Men, and choose to dwell with God in Heaven as a loving divine family; working with God on eternal his divine creating. 

Romantic Christianity is based on the conviction that such a God would never leave any of his children bereft of sufficient guidance and motivation for them to make that choice of resurrected life eternal and to live on earth such as to become more divine in that eternal life.

This principle of "None Left Bereft" implies, negatively, that sufficient guidance would not be allowed to depend on a particular child-of-God's access to a particular church, a particular book (The Bible), particular traditions, or any other of the specifics of human mortal life. 

All of these sources of guidance are too uncertain, not universally available; and too open to both corruption, distortion and misunderstanding. Therefore: God would not rely-upon such mechanisms. 

Positively; it therefore seems certain to me that God has created this world and our lives such that we all have direct access to the knowledge - the guidance and motivation - which we need for salvation and theosis.  

Direct access means direct divine guidance from God ('direct' meaning 'mind to mind', not depending on language; that guidance will 'appear in our thinking' -i.e. 'intuition'); and this external guidance is in addition to the fact that - as sons and daughters of God - we all have a divine self; a core divine nature that enables us to receive and understand this directly-transmitted guidance. 

My understanding of Romantic Christianity is that it is based on a conviction that this direct divine guidance (supplemented by that which is divine in each Man) ought-to-be the basis of every Man's Christianity as of 2021 (although this was not always true in the past, in some places). 

I could continue explaining - but I shall keep it brief; and I think there is probably enough there. 

The "hero fighting his own destiny" trope: expected, normal, approved...

One of the ways in which 'modern' stories (of the past few decades) differ from literature up to the middle twentieth century - is that now the 'hero' (protagonist) of a story will nearly always fight against his own 'destiny'. And, indeed, that fight takes-up a good deal of the narrative. 

Thus if the 'chosen-one' of a mythic narrative swiftly and decisively takes-up his heroic role and does his best with what ought-to-be done (like Frodo) - this is regarded as unsatisfactory. But if the appointed-hero struggles (at length) against adopting his role, if he is tempted strongly to abandon it, if he acts in violation of his role and needs to be brought-back... this stuff gets a writer critical 'Brownie points'. 

Struggle-against-destiny has become the usual thing for a modern hero. 

My impression is that this inward fight against what he (or she) ought to do, is expected and approved-of by those who consume and comment on novels, TV, movies etc. For instance; introduction of this self-doubting, inner-conflicted element to several major characters, over and again (Aragorn, Theoden, Faramir...), was perhaps the major distortion of the Lord of the Rings movies, compared with the original fiction. 

If such inner conflict is not present, the writer is likely to be accused of childish simplicity, of having 'black and white' characters; whereas a hero divided-against his destiny is regarded as complex, subtle, realistic, mature.

But the anti-heroic-hero is not a wise Man, nor is he a Man who is consciously adopting what he regards to be the highest path. The focus of stories is moved away from what needs to be done - and trying to do it; towards inner psychological - even psycho-pathological - rumination and conflict. 

Drama has become psychodrama - myth has become a psychoanalytic explaining-away of myth. 

What this means, when repeated again and again stereotypically and in context in which the 'hero' is implicitly admirable, whatever he does (so long as he is in at least two-minds about it) - and when the 'embrace my destiny' hero is excluded; is that the question of a Man's proper aim of life has been deleted; the possibility of wisdom has been deleted - because wisdom is to know what one ought to do, and to do it as best possible. 

Furthermore, the anti-hero makes all stories mundane - all are diminished to the level of endless soap operas (who are eventually driven to deploy this 'inner division' to permutate character motivations and actions over the long term). There can be no real 'myth' or 'magic' - because mythical and magical characters are excluded. 

A real, wise hero is not one who wallows interminably in uncertainty; nor one who is only compelled to - finally! - do the right thing by elaborate coincidences of external circumstances, or the harsh (yet, somehow always reversible!) lessons of selfishness, short-termism, hedonism and cowardice. Wisdom is - by contrast - knowing quickly what is needed, and then doing it as best possible, despite problems. 

In real life - as we used to know - it is not the mixed-up, self-indulgent, inwardly conflicted Man who does the right thing and saves 'the world' - and fiction cannot convince us that he is. 

Instead, we take-home, absorb and learn a message that there is no real heroism because there is no real destiny: because there is nothing to be heroic-about!

We learn that action comes from mixtures of self-centred motivations and external compulsions; and the sophisticated, admirable Man is one who talks extensively about his feelings and paradoxes - such as the incompatibility of the things he wants (home and adventure, flee or fight, wife or mistress... whatever).

Since the best fiction is also a kind of vicarious experience; the conflicted anti-heroic protagonist is likely to be worse than useless (i.e. harmful) as a model for how we personally ought to approach this mortal life.  

But unfortunately, writers have become addicted to this kind of protagonist; because the delay in adopting destiny, and 'getting on with what he ought to be doing' can be spun-out narratively for astonishing periods: many volumes of a book series, many episodes of a TV programme, most of a long movie...  

When a writer is praised for such shameless and easy padding-out of stories; little wonder that so many succumb to the temptation - and thereby contribute their mite to the corruption of Men and culture. 

PSYOPS - Birdemic-response-induced mass anxiety neurosis

After nearly two years of birdemic scamming, the mass population now has a very high prevalence of anxiety neuroses - among which but few apparently have any desire to recover. 

Many, indeed, regard their illnesses as valuable (albeit sometimes unconscious) excuses for malingering and avoidance of responsibilities. 

Neuroses are inducible, in a large minority of the population: for instance they increase in prevalence when encouraged and rewarded; and conversely, when they are penalized (eg during a war), neuroses became rare.  

Phobias are increased in severity and duration by avoidance; therefore agoraphobia has been triggered in those susceptible, and exaggerated in those with a prior tendency, by lockdowns (which, of course, provide ready excuses, and indeed enable an agoraphobic to assert the moral high ground). 

There is also, naturally, a specific phobia relating to the presumed birdemic germ. 

Like other phobias, this has a massively distorting effect on the perception of risk. Just as the spider phobic may fear the imaginary danger of cobwebs more than the real danger of (say) road traffic accidents; likewise birdemic-phobia has substantially destroyed general medical services by - on the one hand - focusing them almost exclusively on (supposed) birdemic-avoidance... 

While simultaneously - on the other hand - the mandatory 'response' to the birdemic has crippled health services by unnecessary and ineffective procedures of disinfecting, masking, gowning, distancing, 'testing' etc. 

Consequently, only around half the previous number of patients can be diagnosed and treated per unit time. Even worse, the fake-testing and stupid-quarantining measures greatly reduces, unpredictably, medical staff availability on any given day. 

The high prevalence and severity of birdemic-phobia is also seen in the way that so many people treat other human beings - even outdoors in the open air! - as rabid-leper-zombies - lurching away, jumping backwards, skirting yards around the path of anyone approaching. 

Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCDs) seem to interact with evolutionary novelties - such as germs. Because germs are invisible and undetectable in everyday life, we cannot know when we are safe from them - or when genuinely endangered. 

Consequently, the threat of germs is experienced as purely theoretical and subjective - and once OCD is established, an OCD individual can never be reassured that a risk is absent. 

Like the phobic, OCD attention is focused on just the single feared-danger, so that even the slightest hypothetical risk is regarded as intolerable, and leads to high levels of anxiety. 

Because germs are undetectable by human perception, the birdemic-OCD suffer cannot be confident that his here-and-now avoidance has been effective; so the unavoidable anxious ruminations (intrusive and dysphoric thoughts) are dealt with 'magically' - by the performance of anxiety-soothing rituals. 

In effect, the sufferer seems to 'make a bargain with nature' that if he performs some rituals correctly, then he will be safe.  

At any rate; he finds that the performance of certain rituals - which may be purely hypothetical or even arbitrary (such as enacting some-thing a specified number of repetitions) will in practice allay anxiety. 

This seems to be the best way of regarding the remarkable phenomenon of voluntary self-masking (or, more exactly, face-covering); despite there being no coherent rationale for prevention; yet many solid reasons why masking will lead to physical, psychological and spiritual damage. 

That is; the health benefits of face-covering are entirely conjectural and undetectable; while their discomfort, inconvenience, estranging and dehumanizing effects are obvious to anyone from direct personal experience and common sense. 

However, face-covering functions as an officially-endorsed ritual for the management of Obsessive-Compulsive symptoms relating to the birdemic; consequently people do it outdoors, alone in a car, even when isolated alone in remote countryside. 

The masking ritual makes them feel less dread. And conversely, and more potently, failure to observe the ritual invites retribution from the unseen, undetectable, but malign micro-organism. 

Thus, Not wearing a mask can make the OCD-birdemic sufferer feel naked, exposed - feel as if he was pride-fully taunting the birdemic: just asking for trouble. 

 

Thus we have a severely damaged neurotic mass population - this damage having been quite deliberately inflicted by government, corporations, institutions and the media; and sustained against all reason, evidence, common sense - and basic humanity (if indeed such exists in 2021). 

All, as with many neuroses; the neurotics all-too-often do not even want to be cured; partly because their disorder is convenient; and partly because the cure (i.e. doing what is feared, until you get used to it) will cause more suffering over the short term. 

Consequently, the world is destroying itself acutely and incrementally, with the approval of a large segment of the now-behaviorally-disabled population whose attention is focused entirely on an existentially-trivial - or non-existent - hypothetical threat. 

The truth about the birdemic germ (even whether it exists as a specific and defined entity) is indeed unknowable - in a world of deliberate and pervasive official lies, disinformation, manipulation - but we do know for sure that the germ in itself is undetectably rare by personal experience (i.e. against the normal, fluctuating background of seasonal influenza). 

The harms from the birdemic-response are, by contrast, there for everybody in the world to perceive, by direct personal experience; and inflicted upon every single person on the planet. 

Mediating this mismatch between the harms of 'the germ' and the enforced 'response' in daily discourse and behaviour; are the vast masses of neurotic individuals who are now - more or less - permanently crippled by birdemic-phobias and birdemic-OCD. 

Permanently crippled because not wanting a cure; crippled and wanting everybody else in the world to become emotionally-damaged just as badly they themselves are. 

Why was Jesus born into this world of sin? Why is anyone?

A candidate for The Big Question is: why does this 'world of sin' exist at all? 

I am here using sin as in the Fourth Gospel to mean, mainly, death; and therefore to encompass the idea that this is a world of inevitable death; thus of ubiquitous change - decay, degeneration, sickness, pain... 

Why did God create such a manifestly-imperfect world as this one? A world dominated by death? 

The only satisfying answer is that this world is necessary. By necessary, I mean necessary to God's plans for creation. 

In other words, this world of sin is needed for the fulfilment of God's creative plans. 

Needed, yes - but obviously not as an end-point - because this changing world is intrinsically Not an end point. Here, the end of every-thing is death...

But as a necessary step towards God's goal. This world is a means towards an end. 

And God's goal with creation is to raise Men up to his level - to enable Men (who are already sons and daughters of God) to choose to become fully divine; which means fully capable of creation. 

God therefore needed both to make it possible for Men to become fully divine (i.e. to create Heaven); and also to enable Men to choose this possibility (i.e. to exercise agency, or free will). 

What is the necessary step that 'this world of sin' enables? 

Well, the one thing shared by all the diversity of Men of all human eras and situations is - A Body. 

In other words, the primary fact of Man's experience is incarnation: getting a body. 

And the body we get is a mortal body, a body that will die. 

Therefore, we may infer that this is the primary purpose of this world is to provide all men with a mortal body: thus the purpose is the totality of mortal incarnation - necessarily including death.*  

Jesus was born into this world of sin for the same reason as the rest of Men - he shared our fate: he was born to get a body - mortal body - and therefore to die. 

The difference was that when Jesus's mortal body had died; he was (him-self) then resurrected with an immortal body. 

Since Christians regard Jesus as the example we wish to follow; we implicitly accept that the best immortality is an incarnated immortality - that it is better to have an immortal body; than it would be to be immortal but without a body.

For Christians therefore; eternal incarnation is better (i.e. higher, more in accordance with God's plan) than eternal life as a spirit.  

So this world of sin is a necessary step in God's plan of creation because it provides us with a mortal body; and by Jesus's birth and death in this world - he made eternal incarnation possible (which is, for God, the best possible kind of eternal life.

Incarnation and death is the only experience shared by all Men - including those who die in the womb, and those who die as babies or children. But if getting a body that was the only purpose of this mortal world, then we would not live such varied lives - and some people would not live for so many decades...

So there must be a secondary purpose to this world, and it must be a purpose that explains why each Man's experience of mortal life is unique. 

In a nutshell; this secondary purpose to this mortal world is quantitative, rather than the qualitative fact of 'getting a body'. 

'Living' our own unique life is about what is best for us, rather than what is absolutely necessary for all Men. 

Our various experiences are in order that each of us, each specifically, has the best chance to learn those particular lessons we personally most need for the best possible eternal resurrected life. 

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus into this world of sin which all Men share with him. 

We celebrate Jesus getting a mortal body, and commencing a mortal life that would inevitably terminate in death. 

It was what happened next, after his death, that was the primary work of Jesus, by which he changed reality forever.  

*This clear understanding seems first to have been attained by the Mormon prophet: Joseph Smith.

The imperative to 'belong'

Belonging is an imperative - we must belong.

But what-it-is to which we belong varies through life, and by choice.  

As young children we belong in a larger world, we are part-of-things; and that belonging is the family. The family is centre of our belonging; which stretches-out from family to the world. 

As young children, we are not aware of 'communications' that need to be interpreted - rather, knowledge comes to us direct. Rather the knowledge is already-there: we just know all kinds of stuff about all kinds of things. 

We know we belong, but implicitly, passively - belonging is given to us.  

Spirits are real, dreams are real, we know the thoughts of others and they know our thoughts. The world may vary between benign and hostile - but our background knowledge is that we are not alone, we are part of the world.  

Adolescence brings - eventually - a complete separation from that passive immersion in the family and world. 

We find that we now longer experience Just Knowing but must choose from our-selves; and we become aware that we dwell in an ocean of communications: messages, images, sounds and human relationships.

We must belong - and there is a choice of what we belong-to. 

Usually that is the 'peer group'. In traditional society, the peer group is a given, and there is no choice about whether to join it or something else; but in modern society there is a variety of potential peer groups, and allegiance is chosen. 

Thus, from adolescence, we relate to the world via chosen peer groups - and until recent generations this meant that the belonging of a stereotypical doctor was different from that of a farm worker, this-village was different from that-town; churches were different 'peer groups' - because there provided a distinct peer groups via which an individual belonged to the wider world. 

What has happened over recent decades could be termed a convergence of peer groups into a single System.  

Peer groups are chosen; but whatever chosen peer group you relate to the world via - whether that be a local circle of relatives or friends, a school or college, a 'profession' such as law or medicine, or the bureaucracy of a corporation of state institution... Whatever your choice, as of no all peer groups are linked hierarchically and horizontally, have converged-into a single and global ideology and power structure.

Nearly all peer groups - and nearly all families, which are nowadays also consciously chosen - are therefore parts of one system: The System (the 'Matrix'). Not all peer groups are equally a part of the system, some have greater partial and relative distinction from The System - but ultimately all are linked-into-one.

Therefore we find our existential situation is that we must belong - belonging is an imperative; yet all possible peer groups that might give a sense of belonging are part of The System. 

Thus, apparently, we must belong to The System! - There seems to be no alternative, if we are to belong.

And we must belong. 

The above is, I think, the mechanism of compliance and obedience; the mechanism by which the great mass of people choose to opt-in and self-police their own subordination. 

People must belong - and there is only one entity to which they can belong; therefore, people willingly want, think and do whatever it takes to belong to The System.   

This means that people believe - they Must believe - System-communications; because it is these with which they belong. 

If any incoming communication clashes with System-communications - if it dissents; if it tends to push the individual out from The System (if expulsion is what he experiences on encountering that communication) - then that 'anti-System' communication will be regarded as invalid, and threatening, and excluded. 

My point is that - especially since early 2020 and the successful global totalitarian coup, there is but one world, one system - and all social belonging based upon 'normal' communications is increasingly (and more-and-more obviously) a part of that System. 

Since each Man must belong, there seems only the choice of belonging to The System, since there is -  apparently - nothing else to belong-to. 

Anyone who tries to choose a different peer group (eg. a particular church) is finding that that peer group is also being absorbed-into The Single System. 

All the interpersonal and within organization communications are becoming System-aligned - all potential contradictions are being eliminated. 

If the material world of communications, the 'public world' is the only world; and if a Man must belong; then it makes sense that all men simply believe whatever The System is telling them today, do whatever The System is telling them to do today, hold whatever attitudes that best sustain The System...

And this is what we find. 

If it really is The System or not-belonging - then there is no choice but to join The System; and do... whatever-it-takes to stay within The System. 

Such is the primary question of these times: When 'everybody' (and it may actually be everybody, so far as we know) believes that the only choice is System versus not-belonging; and on that basis has chosen The System - then each Man finds himself compelled to confront that core question of human existence: God or Man. 

In other words; when Man has chosen The System - and The System excludes God; then to choose God instead of System means to reject what the mainstream person regards as every-thing.  

And, for the one who chooses God, the imperative to belong remains. The God-believer must belong - yet perhaps all the worldly-world of communications rejects him! 

His belonging can only be to the divine, to the spiritual, to the other-worldly: and this belonging he absolutely Must Have since belonging is imperative.  

This 'not-of-this-world' path used to be the preserve of a tiny minority of 'mystics'! Yet I am saying here that what was the preserve of mystics, must be the path of everyone who wants to choose God instead of System. 

To believe in God - here and now - it seems that we must personally know, and 'belong' in - on an everyday basis, 'the Company of Heaven'. We must belong, therefore our daily lives must substantially be among that company. 

It seems a Huge ask; yet if it Must, then Must it is... 

And since our God is our loving creator and parent - if it must be, it must be possible: and possible for Every-One.  

In this spiritual war - what literally-hurts demons?

In a post last month I speculated on why demons did not attack everybody, all of the time - all-out. 

And one conclusion (or suggestion) was that it hurts demons when they attacked and are repulsed; therefore they greatly prefer indirect and deniable assaults; and will only go all-out when confident of victory. 

In other words: demons try to avoid being undeniably-defeated; because this causes them intense and personal suffering. 

On further reflection - this seems to have the ring of truth; since for demons suffering is an absolute thing. When a demon suffers, there is nothing-else in his existence: suffering is total. 

 

A demon lives for his own gratification - therefore when he suffers there is no 'long-term' benefit, nothing to be learned from the experience: so that demonic suffering is absolute in a way that is alien to a Christian.

Of course, demonic powers seek pleasure - the pleasures of sin. Yet these pleasure are temporary and partial, compared with absolute nature of suffering and the desire to avoid it. 

Presumably, when tempting a soul to become a demon; the pleasures of gratifying his favourite sins are emphasized. But evil feeds upon itself, and it seems likely that after a while committed demons become more-and-more negatively-motivated. 

The demon then lives mainly to avoid suffering, much more than to experience pleasure - because demonic suffering is so much more complete and overwhelming than the (always transitory and less-then-fully-satisfying) gratifications of pleasure.

This waxing of negative-motivation as evil develops, can be seen in the demonically-inspired Leftist movement - which began as utopian - claiming to build Heaven-on-earth; but has now become (with the birdemic-peck and climate-warmism) almost wholly negative and avoidant. 

Modern Leftism is nearly-all about opposing and avoiding some (supposed) suffering; it is hardly-at-all about offering any positive satisfaction or pleasure.

Or the sexual revolution - which began with promises of untrammeled and non-responsible promiscuity with anybody you 'fancied'. But has ended in the inverted evils of the transagenda (with its mutilation, poisoning and official-grooming of children); this being 'justified' by the need to avoid and reduce human suffering!    

In sum: demons have no courage; because they have no reason to be courageous. 

They may be forced to do things they would rather not do by the threat of greater suffering. But even in their boldness they are suffering-avoidant: fearing the certain retribution of their demonic masters more than the threat of what Men may do to them.

(This progressive domination of demonic evil by negative avoidance of personal pain is neatly illustrated in the course of CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast.) 

Yet Men may do much to hurt demons. 

And what can be done to hurt Them can be inferred as the opposite of how demons themselves behave, and the opposite of the behaviours they encourage and enforce upon those Men who have given themselves to the service of evil: Men such as the institutional leadership class of The West.

The demons suffer, immediately and strongly, when their temptations are decisively rejected; when their assaults are thrown-back. Therefore, timidity makes them creep forward towards wickedness - one deniable-increment at a time; trying to avoid their covert evil-motivation being noticed, discerned, exposed - then rejected. 

The demonic hatred of clarity and honesty is 'visceral' - clarity and honesty caused demons actual pain. 

Therefore demons delight to cloud every issue with complexity and 'nuance'; they delight in paradox and ambiguity; a state of fearful perplexity, confusion and dread - is their ideal. 

Demonic horror arises when their activities are seen clearly, and when even their baby-steps towards evil are immediately called and exposed. When their devious policies are rapidly recognized, repulsed, mocked - this causes actual and extreme, over-whelming, suffering. 

When elaborately deceptive demonic plans are instantly seen-through and cast into oblivion... this is more than merely frustrating - it is a cause of total agony for the Beings involved. 

So, we may begin to see what we should do, and what we should avoid, in our dealings. 

It is wise to avoid getting enmeshed in the demonic agenda in any way; demons love to debate, endlessly, on their own ground.

Do not compromise or be 'strategic' with evil: what They hate most, what is most effective - is also the least 'sophisticated' response. 

Keep it simple, keep it lucid, be concise; do Not try to meet evil half-way...

What is probably best, what likely causes most rapid and extreme harm to Them; is a childishly-direct response to what is childishly-obvious to the Christian discerning spirit. 

As so often; we are called-upon to choose a 'return' to child-like simplicity - but consciously, deliberately, as mature adults. 

As so often; the highest knowledge is a rediscovery of 'the obvious'. 

My shameful past - three great sins repented

I have done much of which I repent - since I became a Christian I have discerned and recognized this; and three of the worst of my sins were being a doctor, a scientist and a university teacher. 

What appalling professions these have turned out to be: how solidly and aggressively evil these three careers have become!

Are there any worse jobs? probably not. Some are equally bad: politics, the civil service, law, the mass media, police... but none are significantly worse than medicine, biological research, and academia; none have contributed more to the current corrupt, cowardly and value-inverted state of the world here-and-now.

Yet these activities are what I gave the bulk of my life to! 

Nothing to be proud of there... Much to repent. 

Archbishop Vigano - correct diagnosis, flawed prescription

Archbishop Vigano (of the Roman Catholic Church) has made a characteristically incisive intervention concerning the nature and reality of the 2020 global totalitarian coup, led by the demonic powers of evil. 

I value Vigano, because I know of nobody in public life who has done a better job of diagnosing the heart of that corruption which has so rapidly accelerated to cover the world; with the compliance of large masses of the populace.

Yet, when it comes to describing what those who agree with his diagnosis ought to do about it; the Archbishop's recommendations are inadequate. 

For a start; he envisages an 'anti-globalist alliance' as the basis for future opposition. 

But this would not be a positively-motivated movement. Instead Vigano proposes a 'double-negative' basis for alliance - i.e. a grouping of those who are Against Evil. 

Such a movement (and there are many already) would certainly be weak because diversely and feebly motivated. At best an anti-evil alliance could only slow the advance of evil; because it offers no a superior alternative basis of life. 

Evil is itself oppositional - oppositional to God/ the good/ divine creation - and ultimately oppositional Christianity with its offer to all Mankind of eternal life in Heaven. A Christian alternative to evil should not itself be oppositional! Christianity has the inestimable advantage of offering positive good - and this ought to be reflected in its aims. 

What is needed, therefore, is an alliance of those who are positively For God, good/ divine creation and salvation. In other words a Christian alliance.  

In the past this would have suggested A Church - or perhaps an alliance of Churches. However, our problem is that the churches are - overall, but decisively - on the side of the powers of evil; they fail to recognize, discern, and reject global totalitarianism - and indeed all major 'Christian' churches embraces more than one of the core strategic instruments of evil. 

This means that before any putative Alliance of Good could get off-the-ground and achieve anything; it would first need to reform and turn-around the major Christian churches. But this is not happening - and instead the churches are getting worse, more evil, by the month. 

Anyone Christian who hoped to join a church and fight totalitarian evil by the means of offering a positive and transcendent alternative; would immediately find himself confronted by an organization that already served exactly that evil he intended to oppose! 

Before opposing global evil, that person would need to embark on a fight against institutional evil; when the institution was embedded in an already evil world; and its evil qualities were being supported by all powers in the global totalitarianism - laws, officialdom, police, the media etc.

Anyone Christian who wanted to fight for good would be faced by inevitable - and probably prolonged - delay; before he could even begin: If he did so via a church! 

(On the other hand, if Christian found a small but uncorrupt church; a church who recognized the coup and opposed global evil - he would instead be faced by the immediate problem of growing that church to such a size that it could exert effective socio-political power.) 

So what does an individual who agrees with Vigano's diagnosis actually do? 

To my mind, any generally proposed solution should be possible for any person, anywhere; and, given the the fact that failure to resist evil leads to more and greater evil - the answer needs to be one which every individual can start to act-upon immediately. 

This rules-out institutional (including church) solutions, since all these regard the individual first trying to persuade other people - and we don't have time for that; nor can we afford to delay beginning our own opposition. 

If we wait until after we have attained a local majority of sufficient size, until after we have achieved sufficient institutional reform; if we put-off our own active opposition until after we can persuade enough 'other people' to join with us in some kind of significant 'movement' - then nothing will happen. 

Most of us are isolated, surrounded, outnumbered - thus nearly-everybody will end-up waiting for some other people to start something that they can then 'join' - so... nothing will happen. 

Once we have ruled-out what we cannot or should-not do; the answer to what we should do becomes obvious:

We should do what we personally can - starting now, not waiting for anybody else; and relying upon divine providence to amplify and organize individual activities into something greater. 

After all; if we are doing the right thing, then God will be on our side; and God is the creator - therefore God can and will use whatever we personally do to advance His agenda. 

We really must do the positively-right things Now - so far as we are able - and trust in God to deal with strategic considerations. 

Such a personally-focused attitude can be made to sound feeble and ineffectual compared with daydreams of a large international anti-evil alliance clashing head-to-head with the demon-controlled corporations and governments...

But the difference is that the one Will happen, starting instantly; insofar as any individual person wants it to happen...

Whereas the other is purely aspirational. 

What is The Sun's mood today?

How would you describe The Sun's mood today? 

Happy smiley, or something more enigmatic...

perhaps even angry?

There can be no peace treaty in a spiritual war - because when you surrender, you just keep-on losing

One of the great disasters consequent upon the general unawareness or denial of the current state of global spiritual war; is that when evil wins, it keeps-on winning. 

Evil is insatiable. 

In a physical war, there can be a peace treaty. The side who have lost can surrender and limit their losses. 

After defeat things nearly-always get worse - but often only up to a point; after which a steady state may arise - or things may even start to get better.  

History even provides several examples when the losing side ended-up better off than the winners. 

But this does not apply to a spiritual war. When a person, a nation or the world has been defeated by the powers of evil; as happened after the global totalitarian coup of early 2020 - things can only get worse until the situation is recognized, evil repented, the side of God and divine creation is embraced; and the defeat by evil rolled-back. 

Because evil feeds upon evil. 

Consider dishonesty - a topical subject. Lies, unrepented, always lead to further and bigger lies without end - until all of discourse is untruthful; and gets ever-more untruthful by intent and effect.

When it comes to evil, there is no negative feedback: no pendulum swing back towards Good. 

When a person, nation or the world surrenders to evil - by doing what evil wants; it is making a deal with the devil. 

And compliance with the devil does not lead to a quiet life... 

Surrender to evil is just the beginning of more-and-more, worse-and-worse problems. 

Northumbrian storm damage

The gigantic Christmas tree, annually gifted to the City of Newcastle by the King of Norway

We have only gradually become aware that the storm from three weeks ago (named 'Storm Arwen'; apparently because of the gales of tears produced by actress Liv Tyler throughout Lord of the Rings movies) produced more damage than any winds in the North East of England in my lifetime*. 

There were dozens of trees with branches ripped off, in the woodland just down our road - and several on the steep sides of the valley ('dene') were tipped right over, almost blocking the stream. We assumed that this was because the valley runs north to south, and the worst winds came from the north. 

But visiting one of our favourite National Trust properties in Northumberland - Wallington Hall; we saw that a large number of trees (many hundreds) have been blown down altogether - including ancient oaks and mighty beeches - some of the oldest in England.   

The hurricane of October 1987 was a good bit worse that Arwen (I visited Surry a few months later, and some woods were almost flattened); but it hit first on the South of England, and by the time it reached us in the north it was hardly noticeable. Also, the prevailing strongest winds around here come from the west (through the Tyne Gap); so I suspect that the trees were unused to attack coming from an unfamiliar direction - and had not developed root strength on that side.  

At times like this, I naturally think of JRR Tolkien - that friend of the trees; and wonder how he would have responded. Walking around and surveying the carnage - which will take months to clear away; it was certainly poignant. 

Yet, because it was a 'natural' phenomenon - I did not feel so sad as I would have been, had the trees been removed by the hand of Man. 

Perhaps for a great and noble tree, to be snapped-off or uprooted by a strong wind is analogous to a warrior such as King Theoden falling in battle: since die we must, this is a good way to die.

Note: readers in other countries will be amazed at how not-extreme are the extreme weather conditions in England. This is true. When we have a once in a century, weather-based disaster, the casualties are numbered in dozens - not the orders-of-magnitude greater deaths seen in other places. Consequently, perhaps, our ideas of hazard have a very low threshold. The sealed-off areas of Wallington Hall where trees had fallen to block paths were labelled by the National Trust with signs warning: Extreme Danger... 

Solving the Immanence versus Transcendence paradox

The Immanence versus Transcendence 'paradox' is the unresolved, endless argument within classical theology about the nature of God, and consequently Jesus Christ: the argument about whether God is ultimately like-Man in his nature of being; or if instead God is ultimately infinitely higher than, and utterly different-from, Man. 

Immanence emphasizes that Men are Sons of God, that is children of God (and of the same kind) - and that Jesus became a Man, and Jesus was God - thus Man is God... 

Yet if Man is already God, why was Jesus necessary and what function did he perform. 

Transcendence emphasizes that God is unbridgeably greater than Man - thus Man never can be God; therefore Jesus always-was God... as well as becoming a Man... 

This is the I versus T mystery/ paradox, which is supposedly-solved by stating that Jesus is both God and Man, which are nonetheless utterly different... but Men can never be God, because Men are (ultimately) utterly different-from Jesus Christ.

So, the proposed 'solution' to the paradox of Immanence and Transcendence is that both I&T are true, simultaneously, and utterly true: God is both at once Immanent and Transcendent; fully, and without compromise; always was, is now, and forever shall be. 

The example of Jesus is taken to show us that this is so, and how this can be so - Jesus being conceptualized as having been conceived and born both fully divine and also fully a mortal Man - despite that God and Man are defined as being wholly- infinitely, un-bridgeably different-from each other.   

The promise for Men to become Sons of God is interpreted (following Paul) to mean that we are adopted children of God; that we are not full children and of the same kind - but infinitely lower beings who are (by adoption) given some (but not all, because that is regarded as impossible) of the rights and duties of heirs of God. 

The above paradox which has (apparently) plagued and/or divided Christianity since not long after the ascension of Jesus is that the Immanence v Transcendence debate is founded-in the assumption that Time is Not a factor. 

The difficulty is therefore rooted in the time-less perspective of 'classical' Greek-Roman pagan philosophy - metaphysical assumptions that saw reality as timeless and time as illusion - thus God (ultimate source of reality) is seen as necessarily 'outside' of time. 

In other words; this concept of God is of one who experiences past, present and future simultaneously - for God, in ultimate reality, there is no time; and God surveys all times, and acts on all times; all of the time.  

My understanding is that this already-existent set of classical pagan philosophical assumptions absorbed the new religion of Christianity, and applied its prior assumptions to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. 

This distorted the truth of Christianity - and led to several insoluble 'paradoxes' that were dealt with by declaring them 'mysteries', and the mysteries became dogmas.

But (in complete contrast); taken at face value (as described in the Gospels, but especially the Fourth Gospel) Jesus Christ happened in time; and his life and teachings implicitly assume that time is real and necessary. 

In other words, I regard it as both possible and true to see God, Jesus and man as existing In Time; and therefore the story of creation, incarnation, death and heaven is one that happens as an historical sequence of events - an 'ongoing process'. 

In other-other words: reality was changed by Jesus Christ - Jesus Christ himself changed through his life and after - and 'things-in-general' were different after Jesus than before. 

BC and AD therefore refer to a crux in cosmic history; and change is real and continuous. 

When the 'in-time' understanding is taken as a real assumption; then the apparent paradox of Transcendence versus Immanence can disappear. The apparent paradox (or 'mystery') is seen as an artifact of trying to explain the historical events of Jesus Christ without reference to Time - an artifact, therefore. of a misguided attempt to explain history, while asserting that Time is ultimately unreal.  

If, instead, we take it that Time is a part of basic reality - that time is inseparable-from basic reality; and that reality changes through time - then we are no longer looking for an eternal description of The nature of Jesus Christ, or God, or Man. All are expected to develop ('evolve') through time.  

At any particular time-slice; we would expect t find different degrees of Immanence and Transcendence; and indeed we may then discover that a trend to obliterate the I versus T paradox and distinction is the main thing about reality, the main purpose of creation. 

This is my conviction: That God's primary purpose in creation is to make it possible for Men (who are already gods, but 'immature', incomplete) to choose to become raised to full divinity. 

Jesus Christ is the example of this aim being achieved, and he provided (and provides still) the 'method' by which Men who came after could make the choice, and take a qualitative step, towards becoming gods of the same (fully-creative, fully-loving) nature as God. 

Eventually, in an Immanent sense: Man will be 'a god' as God - that is a god-like-God; just as Jesus Christ became, fully; and just as Jesus promised we could likewise become. 

'Yet' in a Transcendent sense; God will always be 'above' Man - because it was God who created this reality within-which we dwell. 

Even when a Man (such as Jesus Christ) becomes a full-god, at a level with God - it will always be within that creation which (historically, in-time) was-made by God; and continues to be-made by God, by Jesus Christ, and by that-which-is-god in our-selves. 

Henry VII - The Shadow of the Tower (BBC TV 1972)

As a young teenager I had the good fortune to watch a BBC Television drama series called The Shadow of the Tower (meaning the Tower of London) - about the Kingship of Henry VII (1457-1509), first of the Tudors. This gave me a lifelong sympathy and interest concerning Henry Tudor, something completely alien to my usual taste in people and periods. 

I was so taken by these plays that a bought a book which accompanied the series. 

As you can see from the cover, one of the features of this series is that the actors were chosen partly on the basis of resembling what is known (from portraits) of the appearance of the historical characters. 

The form was a set of 13 plays by several authors - all performed in studio sets - spanning from the beginning of Henry's reign (1485) at the Battle of Bosworth when Richard II was killed; until around the death of Henry's much loved wife - Elizabeth of York. 

These plays are nothing like any television today. They are very tightly written, subtle, extremely intelligent - and demanding of total concentration. 

The character of Henry (depicted by James Maxwell) comes across as appealing - very clever, subtle, secretive; someone who regarded himself as a father to his nation and God's anointed representative. He certainly left England in a much better state than he found the country - more peaceful , richer, stronger... All too soon most of this was wasted or put to evil use by his Tyrannical son Henry VIII ('the Attila of England' as John Aubrey rightly termed him). 

Yet - to my surprise - Henry VII tends to be regarded pretty negatively; variously as a faceless and characterless individual, a hypocrite, a miser, and a too-careful man of small spirit and scope. Inkling Charles Williams was one of these nay-sayers - in a potboiler biography he wrote for Oxford University Press. But Francis Bacon - author of the first biography about a century after Henry died - called Henry the Solomon of England. 

Shadow of the Tower's sympathetic portrayal of Henry fits what is known very exactly, but hostile portrayals make sense too. This just goes to show how the same facts can be given very different interpretations - how 'evidence' does Not overturn assumptions. 

However regarded; Henry VII came at a fascinating time, right on the cusp of our civilization. He was the last medieval monarch of Merrie England, the last Roman Catholic king - and also the first 'modern', legalistic, mercantile national administrator.

Take a look at the TV series, if you like the sound of my description. The first two episodes, written by Rosemary Anne Sisson, are superb examples of screenwriting craft on a low budget; of great integrity, where less is more; and there is none of the lazy padding or crude manipulation that have since become normal. 

The end of the first episode fixes the camera on the hands of Henry and his new wife Elizabeth as they sit next to each other. At first, the two hands are positioned in a conventional fashion - then, there is a short, affectionate squeeze; depicting with great economy that the relationship began as a political convenience, but developed into love. 

Indeed, Henry and Elizabeth enjoyed one of extremely few (relatively) 'normal', stable and loving family lives among all English monarchs. To me, that says a lot about the man. 

'Moderate' leftist dissidents (like JK Rowling) may be specifically-correct and show courage - but they strengthen the evil System whose 'extremes' they deplore

This is a slightly topical post - for once, and I am not setting a precedent (nor am I inviting further topical references in the comments!); because it has been triggered by JK Rowling's rather courageous persistence in making blunt and true public criticisms of the trans extremes of Leftism. 

Similar situations are common, and always have been common - I merely reference 'Rowling and trans' because she has neither backed-down nor apologized - and because she is as famous as anybody in the world at present. 

Note: I have written extensively about JK Rowling on this blog - because I regard her Harry Potter series as a work of genius in its genre. 

It is - of course - proximately A Good Thing for anybody to speak the truth, any truth, in a world of lies; and to do so requires courage. 

For this JKR is to be applauded. But...

The mindset of a moderate Leftist like JKR is interesting. She can see clearly that for the trans agenda to enable and excuse (multiple instances of) rape of women is an evil. She can perceive that rape is morally of far greater seriousness than the imposition of lies about sexuality. She is prepared to say so, despite extreme pressure. 

But...

JK Rowling makes her criticism from a Feminist perspective; and both the trans agenda and feminism are aspects of Leftism: feminism early, and trans coming more recently. 

Nonetheless it is a fact that both feminism and trans share the same political history, have the same ideological roots, and employ the same nature of justification. That is both are utilitarian: both feminism and trans claim to make more people happy, more of the time - both claim to reduce human suffering and diminish injustice. 

Yet both lack metaphysical roots, because feminism and leftism are free-floating ethical systems - they assert their goodness, their justice etc; but with no transcendental basis for doing so. 

Trans is a plain lie and a value-inversion - and a far more extreme form of Leftism - but both feminism and trans originate in exactly the same mind-set, motivations and assumptions. 

JKR has (apparently) not reflected on how it is that such an obviously insane evil as trans has arisen, how it has been internationally been adopted; how trans is supported by all major institutions in government (world and national), finance, corporations, and the mass media. 

Trans is now part of employment and criminal laws; and is coercively enforced worldwide - as Rowling is currently experiencing. 

How does JKR suppose this situation has arisen? A situation where almost everybody among the Establishment - most of whose opinions she endorses, and whose general assumptions she 'passionately' shares and expounds, and who are (or were) her personal friends and associates - has unified so unanimously around such an extraordinarily wicked lie? 

In essence, Rowling (like so many other dissident, 'sensible' Leftists) sees and deplores one or another particular symptom of evil; but shows no serious interest in understanding the underlying cause which has led to this happening. 

Quite the opposite - she endorses almost everything about Leftism - except a few specific points where her own 1990s feminism clashes with nearly-everybody-else's 2021 trans-ism.

Rowling is the one who is out of step ideologically - almost everybody else in Leftism has followed the internal oppositional logic of Leftism through to the trans conclusion. 

And therefore the net effect of her dissent is to support the Leftist System that creates and sustains exactly the evil she deplores. 

Because - where else could the trans agenda possibly come-form - except Leftism? This discernment, this conclusion, is not "rocket surgery": it is about as obvious as anything could be - unless one is self-blinded by exactly that same ideology...    

JK Rowling deplores a real and extreme abuse and moral inversion. Well done! However, she argues from Leftism, without apparent awareness that this evil abuse is a direct and logical product of the assumptions of her own Leftist ideology. 

Just as feminism grew from opposition to traditional sexual roles - first opposing inequality of opportunity, then inequality of training and experience, then inequality of outcomes... But it did not - could not - stop there. 

Feminism soon evolved into denying obvious innate differences in men's and women's nature, disposition, motivations and abilities. And this has been the situation for decades - in all major corporations, institutions, organizations - in government and the media; and apparently Rowling is quite happy with it.  

From this feminism's false and dishonest denial of difference between men and women, it was but a short-step - just another short false and dishonest step! - to asserting that men and women were inter-convertible; and crushing anyone who says otherwise... Exactly as the feminist Establishment has, for the past generation-plus, crushed anyone who asserted true-and-obvious functionally significant sex differences. 

Leftism is 'progressive': it never stands still, it cannot stand still - because it has no structural basis for standing still. 

This is because Leftism is oppositional, critical, subversive - it is not aiming at any particular social end point but at a state of 'permanent revolution'.

Therefore Leftism will always lead to value inversion - that is, to extreme, insane and evil lies - because there is nowhere else for Leftism to go!

Rowling is thus engaged in the futile gesture of trying to stop the cancerous subversions of Leftism at a particular point that rationalizes some specific ethical values which she personally regards as primary.

Implicitly, thereby, JKR operates on the basis that Leftism is the only acceptable and moral ideology. 

Unfortunately, but inevitably, that deeply pro-Establishment, pro-System, pro-Left message is what is communicated by JKR's highly-particular act of courageous dissent.

And this pro-Establishment Leftism is precisely why JK Rowling (and other dissident Leftists of her ilk) remain able to dissent; why their dissent is given so much publicity, and is so widely disseminated by the mass media - and why she has not been excluded by The System; as is anyone who denies the assumptions of Leftism is excluded.

Courage is a virtue; but courage on the side of evil and therefore against God's creation is not something that a Christian can endorse. 

Mrs Moore: The greatest mystery of CS Lewis's life - now officially solved

Some nine years ago I wrote a post at the Notion Club Papers blog, in which I speculated on what might be the truth behind the greatest mystery of CS Lewis's life, and a subject on which he maintained (apparently) absolute secrecy: the nature and basis of his decades long relationship with Mrs Janie Moore. 

Just last week, and some 58 years after Lewis died, the mystery has 'officially' been solved in public, with the publication of an interview from the late Walter Hooper (CSL's literary executor, who died a year ago). I have lightly edited the passage, for clarity:

My knowledge of this comes from Owen Barfield almost entirely. Owen Barfield told me that yes, Lewis told him there had been a sexual relationship and it began really at the time, right after he came out of the army [c1918]. 

[Lewis], as he himself has said about himself he was not a moral man at that time. He believed in morality, he believed in goodness, but anyway, he–they did have an affair. And it lasted until Lewis was converted to Christianity [c1931]. 

Lewis told Owen Barfield that part of his reparation for all of that took the form of, first of all he stopped having the sexual relationship with Mrs. Moore as soon as he was converted to Christianity, and he thought that his penance should be and was looking after that lady for the rest of his life. 

I can’t imagine him getting rid of Mrs. Moore. But you can see that this is part of his penance,  and I think that penance went as far as he could, right up until he visited her everyday even in the nursing home. 

This pretty much confirms what I had guessed from contextual evidence:

I believe that what happened was that the relationship between Lewis and Minto was initially sexual (this is now generally accepted), but when this ceased (the time and reasons for which are not known, but was almost certainly before or at the time Lewis gradually became a Christian around 1929-31), Lewis felt he had done Minto a great wrong. At this time, I strongly suspect that Lewis made a vow to do service to Minto for the rest of his life, as a penance for the wrongdoing. I suspect that this was a private matter and that he told nobody - but for the rest of his life he stuck to this penance, and that this is what explained the extraordinary servility of the relationship between Jack and Minto for the last 20 or so years.

How does free will work? The Divine Self and the Conscious Self

In brief, I will describe how there are two elements to free will. 

1. The creative power of the primordial Divine Self 

We are all Beings who have existed from eternity. And as Beings we have the capability to originate thought. Therefore, we are not merely passive and reactive - but can generate thought from our-selves. 

2. The directive power of the Conscious Self

For there to be free will - more is required; and that extra was provided by God when he 'created' us; that is, when he made us into Children of God ('Sons of God').  

What God provided was the Conscious Self, which has the ability to direct the attention of the Divine Self. 

It is the Divine Self that enables us to originate thought (independent of external causes). The Divine Self is what make's each Being (and each Man) and uncaused case. 

But in our primordial situation, before God created us, this originative thought was passively responsive to whatever external situation we were in. 

We would have been able to think, to originate uncaused thoughts; but we had no control over what it was that we thought. 

There could therefore be no free will primordially, because there was no control over the originative properties of the Divine Self. Free will was made possible by God's creation of Men.   

When the Conscious Self is added to the Divine Self, free will becomes possible; because the Conscious Self can 'point' the Divine Self at one thing or another. 

The Conscious Self could also be termed our 'will' - in other words, we can consciously will our Divine Self to attend to what we are observing, making, reading, doing - or whatever it may be. When this happens, we are able to choose where to deploy our divine creativity. 

The Conscious Self cannot 'control' what comes-out-of our Divine self. Because nothing can control the Divine Self - the Divine Self is the basis and reality of our ultimate freedom, autonomy; our capacity to create-from-ourselves. 

But we can consciously control the subject matter attended to by our Divine self - we can therefore choose what the Divine Self deploys-itself-upon.

So, conscious will can direct our Divine Self; and that is why we need to be conscious in order to be free. 

If the Conscious Self was not present, or not actually conscious; then the Divine Self only responds to whatever external circumstances present to it. But with consciousness, potentially we can voluntarily influence what we think about.    

And that is how free will works, what free will does; and why it is important for Man to become more conscious...

Because consciousness is what enables freedom; and freedom is what enables us to choose to accept Jesus Christ's gift of eternal resurrected life. 

The failure of the ethical - a need for the 'cosmic' perspective

For most people 'religion' is about ethics - indeed it is about nothing-but ethics... Ethical principles and rules, ethical behaviour... 

It seems that everybody in the world is obsessed with ethics - governments, bureaucrats, corporate executives, the mass media, doctors, scientists, advertisers, soldiers and the police all speak publicly on ethical issues, and on all issues, in an ethical fashion... endlessly. 

Implicitly, our world is ruled on the basis that The Establishment are ethical authorities - who tell us what is good, and make us do it. 

Plus, of course, priests and pastors - their sermons and lectures are nearly always about ethical matters. 

A Man's attitude to Christianity tends to be a product of pre-existing ethics. 

Plenty of people who endorse Christianity, do so because they believe it validates, encourages and enforces good ethical behaviour. While those who dislike it and want rid of it, do so on  the same qualitative grounds of ethics - but with the difference the dislikers believe Christianity is Bad for ethics: that it purveys false ethics, encourages immorality etc... 

Whatever we approve or disapprove of - it always seems to be argued on ethical grounds. 

It seems that our basic understanding of reality is nowadays ethical! 

I can remember when I was an atheist puzzling over the mismatch between my own ethical focus and the fact that I officially believed in a wholly mechanical and non-ethical universe. I seemed to see these vast, swirling structures of 'ethics' floating around like coloured gas - but without being linked to anything real that was happening!

God was obviously absurd, because how could ethics be built-into The Big Bang?

It seemed that all mankind was living in a delusional system; enmeshed in absorbing and spouting ethical-stuff, 24/7 - and yet (with another part of the mind) knowing that it was all arbitrary, made-up, and without bearing on anything real.  

Mankind had, it seemed, a compulsion to be ethical always and about everything - yet, in an ultimate sense, in a cosmic sense - it was all utterly futile! 

It now strikes me that it has been a colossal civilizational error to try and base our religion, our society, our lives - on ethics. 

An error because if ethics is not really the bottom line, then building structures which rest upon ethics Will Not Work: and experience shows that they don't work! 

Vast, officially-endorsed - but free-floating, un-rooted - ethical 'structures' like the United Nations Universal (!) Declaration of Human Rights - or any other of ever-multiplying 'rights'; are deviously made and used by evil-motivated persons for the manipulation of the masses into new and greater evils.

The expansion and diffusion of ethical discourse has been, In Fact, a major instrument of evil. 

Thus the rise of ethical discourse to colonize all of public (and much of private) life, has been accompanied by a commensurate rise in unprincipled power and short-termist hedonism. The endless ethical discourse apparently serves merely as a smokescreen for hypocrisy and selfishness on a scale which would have been impossible in 'less ethical' times!

Well OK. But If Not, then What? 

If I am saying that we ought Not to put ethics as primary, then What should we instead put as primary? 

I think it ought to be what I sometimes think of as the 'cosmic' perspective... 'Cosmic' being a more exciting way of describing 'metaphysics' - which sounds unutterably dreary to most people!

Our fundamental way of thinking ought to be a matter of imagining and picturing our-selves in a cosmic perspective - where we came from, where we are going; what are the real and eternal things and how do we personally relate to them. 

Of course at first a cosmic perspective will probably fall-into that image we have passively absorbed for popular science - of ourselves as microscopic sparks briefly illuminating an infinitely large, empty, dead universe... 

Well, it is a start! 

And if we stay with it; continue to encourage ourselves to dwell imaginatively in whatever reality we regard as ultimate; and continue to ask ourselves what we really regard as really-real...

Then we may reach a properly 'cosmic' understanding of our-selves, reality and our lives; in time and in eternity. 

And that is a much better basis for things than endless ethics-talk!

Note: The cosmic perspective is also the level at which Jesus Christ's teaching is primarily directed. He was not primarily an ethical teacher, nor was his work an ethical work. Jesus Christ came to enable us to receive eternal resurrected life in heaven; and Jesus's concept of sin was mostly death. Sin was primarily death - not ethics; and Jesus came to save us from death - not immorality. Until we can - this time consciously and by choice - recover that 'cosmic' attitude; it seems that Christ's message and offer will continue to fall on deaf ears; or merely be translated into  the feeble and cowardly 'pseudo-faith' we see dominant among the leadership of all the major 'Christian' churches.