This mortal life on earth: On the one hand... On the other...

On the one hand... On the other...

On the one hand: There are truly wonderful experiences in life - for those open to them and who regard reality as meaningful...

(How can it have become normal and unremarkable for so many people so blandly to assume that ultimate reality is without purpose or meaning? How have we arrived at a point when this is officially true, officially taught, and a background assumption to all mainstream public discourse? 

This is an utterly nihilistic and inevitably despair-inducing basis for life - but it is unremarkable normality for almost everyone!

How can this be just unremarkable 'common sense' for so many Men and organizations?

And, having made this life-destroying assumption of a purposeless and meaningless reality; why is this position so vehemently defended?)

On the other hand; we have the essential un-satisfactoriness of life as a whole; of this mortal life bounded by birth and death. 

It's not that good-things don't happen, but when they do happen - they are never enough!

(One might have the happiest or most transformative spiritual experience... but what then? Life goes on, and on...)

Mortal life just is not good-enough and never has been - and all honest and competent Men have always known this. 

The mortal life of men is unsatisfactory at worst, overall, on average, and (even) among the saints and geniuses. No Man's life has ever been good-enough - on the whole; no matter how wonderful are moments and parts.  

Those who say otherwise - that this mortal Life is sufficient and Good of-itself - are ignorant, dishonest, or engaging in a desperate form of wishful-thinking,

(Understandably... in light of the mainstream nihilism; and such falsehoods are the only way that they can motivate themselves to keep-going.)

  

No matter what true, profound and inspiring experience; life is experienced as not-solidly-meaningful, ragged, incoherent - and often or usually at a much lower level than it ought to be. And if, at this moment, one thinks otherwise; then that is wrong. 

If a cult develops to pretend the perfection of any person (some leader, some figurehead) - it will be deluded and wrong. 

Infrequent patchiness of goodness, rightness, elevation; is the best attainable state.  

The reason why is that this mortal life on earth is a transitional phase. 

Of its nature it is not intended to be a thing-in-itself.

Because life is mortal, and this world is entropic - all is transient; Man's life and the earth are-not-designed/ are-designed-not to be independently sufficient.

When viewed from-within this mortal life; we discover its infinite promise, yet inevitable unsatisfactoriness. 

Only when viewed from a perspective beyond this mortal life may we realize what it's all about; and why it is this way it is... 

But such a view cannot make the unsatisfactory sufficient! We are still inside the same situation as before. 

Only, now we know why.  

 

What is the spiritual work of old age?

I assume here that there is indeed a spiritual role for old age, and that ageing is not merely decline: that fact that God maintains someone alive, means that person has work of spiritual importance to be done. 

In the first place there is the chance for salvation, and secondly for spiritual progression towards higher consciousness (i.e. to make conscious and freely-choose those Goods which were previously unconscious and spontaneous). 

But these are personal spiritual jobs; and we are not isolated Beings but are some part of networks of love (love of 'neighbours' as the Gospels call it). 

Therefore, as well as personal or private work - old Age also has a task of 'social' or 'public' spiritual work to do.  

In other words; in Old Age each person has spiritual work to do for the general benefit. 

What seems to happen is that the material for such work comes to mind spontaneously; but the work itself requires agency. 

What we need to work-on will come to mind without specific effort; but the positive spiritual work that needs doing requires discernment and right-choices; and, as usual, there are temptations (wrong choices) that point in harmful and evil directions. 

In old age; attention naturally tends to switch from the present and future towards the past. Thus, it is a true stereotype of old age that certain 'memories' or themes recur; and the old person tends to go over-and-over events from his past (privately, and perhaps in conversation). 

Places, people, events, past decisions... these are examples of the kind of things that recur. 

They may recur by being reminded of them in everyday life, coming to mind in reflection or daydreaming, or in actual dreams. 

A particular thing may be the one subject of recurrent interest; and there may be a few - or many and changing things. This difference depends on what the individual most needs to do, and is capable of doing. 

Interest in these themes is spontaneous; but may be sustained or brief. Which happens in a particular person will depend on the individual's needs and capabilities. Some people need to work hard on one matter; while another person may need to survey many things - and become aware of their implications.  

These form the material of spiritual activity; and the task is to work on this material in the proper way - which is spiritual and inner rather than physical and outer; and with proper aims - which are directed at spiritual outcomes in eternal resurrected life, rather than material outcomes in this mortal life. 

Although the material appears as 'memories'; ultimately what is being worked-on is not what modern society regards as memories. Instead, what is being worked-on are past realities that survive in present creation - survive in the thinking of active Beings...

What come to mind is (presumably) shaped by our personal needs - as ascertained by that-which-is-divine in each Man; in the context of being in harmony with the aims and loving-nature of divine creation, as shaped by the Holy Ghost.  

In other words - we are given as material not only what is important to our salvation and spiritual development, but also what is important to other beings in ongoing divine creation. And 'important' is here understood in terms of post-mortal, resurrected and eternal life - not by the temporary and material aspects of this mortal and earthly life. 

The process of working-on these 'memories' is therefore not in terms of public use, and does not need to be communicated to other people. It is a matter of having the right kind of thoughts, not about saying (nor doing) the right kind of things. 

The 'right kind of thoughts' involve things like becoming aware of that which was unconscious, re-evaluating that which was misunderstood, grasping the wider context of that which was seen in isolation. 

In generic terms; we are called-upon to bring-to awareness from our own unique personal perspective things of the past; and to create new understandings, and to make new links and contexts. 

In sum, this is creative work: it is the work of changing and enhancing divine creation; by, in effect, picking-up unfinished or wrongly-understood business for our past and knowledge; and making new and better understandings, adding meanings, and making relationships... All guided by the aims and (loving-) methods of divine creation. 

It is work that only we our-selves can do; because our nature and perspective is unique. If we, personally, do not do this work: then it will not be done, and creation will be otherwise than it would have been. 

Therefore, old age is not meant to be passive and reactive merely; there is work to be done - but spiritual not physical work, and not necessarily involving other people in material terms.

That work will come to mind spontaneously; and then the active job is to review, consider, evaluated, contextualize that material - in a spirit of love.

To emphasize: the work itself is not automatic - the process of working must be chosen, and choices need to be active. 

And there are many potential temptations that can derail the work from its proper aims, methods and conclusions; and lead to harm instead of benefit. 

Indeed; it would seem that most old people nowadays fall prey to one or more of these temptations, and end by doing spiritual harm to themselves - and failing to benefit their 'neighbours'. 

For example; they may react wrongly, in the wrong spirit, to the material brought up by memories. In the first place, they may regard the whole business as physical, not spiritual; and earthly not eternal. 

Some people may brood resentfully and recurrently on (real or imagined) past wrongs done to them; others engage in wishful thinking and vain regrets - that they had, or had not, done some-thing (which they suppose would have then made their past or present lives better). 

Others may cycle and re-cycle remembered material superficially or verbatim - over-and-again but without ever bring to consciousness new aspects, or striving to learn from it. 

Or people may use past memories with an aim to ameliorate or improve present mortal life; perhaps by trying to attain higher status through memories of self-aggrandizement; or by seeking excuses/ rationalizations for present sins.   

Another spiritual mistake is simply to regard memories as nothing more than opportunities for pleasurable reminiscence; merely a chance for feeling better here-and-now, and passing the time pleasantly. 

 

So there are innumerable ways of derailing the task of old age; but also there is real and valuable work potentially to be done. And so long as God maintains us alive, the old can choose to do this work. 

"The exclusion of love" - the worst possible sin

"I know it's off the point", Havard interjects, "but I'd like to ask Williams what he would regard as the worst possible sin?"

Williams answers without a moment's hesitation: "The exclusion of love."

Havard nods. 

From "Thursday evenings" (an imaginative recreation of a meeting, closely based on documentary sources) in The Inklings, by Humphrey Carpenter, 1979. 

For many years found Charles Williams's idea of the worst possible sin to be impressive - and yet also puzzling.

 (I later came-across the place where Williams gave this judgment, and from-which Carpenter derived the quotation; but unfortunately I have now forgotten where this was published.) 

Although for somewhat different reasons than Williams - I also regard "the exclusion of love" as a deep insight into sin, rooted in the ultimate nature of reality. 

For Christians; Love is - metaphysically speaking - the ultimate cause and reason for creation. 

Therefore, the exclusion of Love is the primary sin; because it rejects and opposes divine creation itself. 

This is important, because Men are easily distracted by more 'spectacular' and positive sins; but it is worth remembering that these are (in a sense) just a means to the end of the exclusion of Love. 

And also that the exclusion of Love may be at work - as a motivation, in the nature of Men or other Beings - even when spectacular sins are entirely absent. 

Many large and powerful aspects of modern life are a material embodiment of the exclusion of Love: such as bureaucracy in general, and social systems such as law, the economy, and mass media... 

The modern institution is a domain where procedures dominate. Love is excluded from operations ever-more-completely; and consequently an environment where (Love-less and Love-hating) cold, soulless, psychopathic, manipulative careerists thrive.  

And the worst of positive sins is probably spite; and that too can be seen as a consequence of the exclusion of Love. 

Where Love is present, spite can never work unopposed; but without Love, spite can become master. 

Committee consensus is one big reason why people Really-Believe nonsense

Why do so many people - especially those in leadership positions - believe things that are false? 

Of course, the ultimate reason for rampant falseness is dishonesty - since the world is ruled by evil, and evil always lies. 

But proximately, how does it happen? What is the psychological mechanism by which so many people believe stuff that is contradicted at the personal level?... And also believe it to the extent of staking their own livelihood and lives on the truth of nonsense? 

One important answer is committee consensus. 

Although I hated and avoided committees throughout my 'career'; nonetheless I attended more than enough of them to recognize their cognitively-distorting effect. 

This is a psychological aspect of committees which comes on top of their objective deficiencies as a decision-making method; and the destructive evils of voting to make decisions. 

This is the way in which committees reach a consensus; which is then assumed to define reality. 

I have seen this innumerable times. A committee has to decide on some-thing that is - or should be regarded - as a matter of fact; but the actual reason for a decision pushes facts down to the level of personal opinions; and personal opinions are framed in terms such as in-group versus out-group, people you like/ are powerful/ from whom we want favours - versus the opposite.

After a while, the members of the committee often reach a conviction of the rightness of... whatever-they-have-decided; and that rightness has nothing to do with the real world - and everything to do with that psychological state of conviction. 

Then, on top, there is way in which committees integrate with the minutes and conclusions, the results and recommendations, of previous committees - such that the web of committee become the only valid reality.  

In other words; the system of bureaucracy operates on the implicit and unconscious assumption that there is no reality out-with the system of bureaucracy - no reality with-which to compare and contrast the committee world. 

And this assumption is all the more powerful for being implicit and unconscious (since it is so absurd that if examined explicitly it could not stand).   

Yet consensus can be, and of course is, routinely engineered by well-understood techniques. Yet those who are thus manipulated nearly-always deny that it has happened... Probably because personal status and power (and employment) is conditional upon committee consensus. 

At every level of modern society of which we are aware and in all major institutions; a committee stands at the apex of power. Therefore, there is no limit to the wrongness with which committees can - formally and officially - regard reality. 

Now that we (in the West, especially) inhabit a totalitarian world - the web of committees is global, and links all social institutions within the nation.  

Once that vast system has reached consensus on some-thing - there is a virtual reality of vast scale and complex inter-linkage to reinforce the virtual reality of consensus; there is no way-in for real-reality. 

Indeed; there is no way even to acknowledge the separateness of real-reality; thus no way to compare real-reality with the virtuality of consensus. 

Individuals have - en masse - made the choice that their own personal experience, reason, common sense are unreliable ways of knowing; and therefore need to be subordinated to committee consensus. 

And, once that choice has been made; belief becomes something external to be obeyed - not something for which any individual is personally responsible.  

And, once that 'something external' is a committee, functioning in a bureaucracy of their-committees - then we are in a world where committee consensus defines reality; and real-reality might as well not exist (without any regard of what yours or my personal judgment may say on the matter).  

Consequently; it is possible, perhaps normal, that the things everybody believes in terms of public discourse; are things that individuals do not believe. Yet they have pre-decided that independent personal discernment ought to be suppressed; therefore they absolutely believe whatever nonsense is committee consensus. And such individuals cannot - in principle, under any circumstances - ever take responsibility to abandon that committee-derived consensus reality; because to do that would we be evil, and dangerous.   

Since we must discern the truth and goodness of complex and informationally-overwhelming issues (such as climate, health, race and war) how can this validly be done by ordinary people?

If we wrongly assume that correct judgment is reached from 'the evidence' then there would be no possible way that ordinary people can ever judge complex issues such as climate change, health (with respect to the birdemic and its peck), race justice, and the Fire Nation war (to mention just some of the Litmus Tests of 2023). 

But equally there is no way that 'experts' can evaluate these issues; since experts are all specialists, knowledgeable and competent (by current standards) only in ever-narrower fields; and there is no-such-thing (in the modern world, by current criteria) as a generalist-expert. 

What this means is that - IF correct judgment really-was reached from expert knowledge and skill applied to evidence; there can be no valid judgment on any complex issue; and the situation is inevitably one of the blind leading the blind. 

Of course, the actual situation is indeed overwhelmingly one of the blind (and purposively-evil) leading the blind (and passively-evil). But this situation is not inevitable. 

It would only be inevitable if correct judgment derived from expertise and evidence. But that is false. 

Correct judgment is derived from correct assumptions; and Good judgment is derived from motivation towards the Good (which is harmonious alignment with God's creation and its purposes). 

This means that valid discernment is possible to anyone who has the right attitudes. 

Roughly, 'right attitudes' means: 1. He takes the side of God/ Good/ Divine Creation and 2. He is able to discern whether or not 'information'/ theories/ attitudes/ opinions/ strategies/ policies/ laws etc come from those on the side of Good. 

Only if someone has Right Attitudes, can he evaluate 'the evidence' and learn from experience so that the inevitable mistakes get corrected. 

By contrast; those with wrong attitudes will interpret 'evidence' wrongly; and will neither acknowledge nor learn-from their wrongness.    

In other words; with 'right attitudes'; discernment is a matter of the provenance of assertions. 

"Provenance" means "where they come-from". 

All that need be known is whether the assertions come from the side of Good, or the side of evil. 

And it is very easy for those with Right Attitudes to know when assertions come from the side of evil: in fact - for those part of 'Western' civilization in particular - discernment of provenance has never been easier in the history of the world! 

In conclusion, not only is it easy for ordinary people validly to discern the truth and goodness of complex issues - in practice ordinary people who are spiritually outside of The System are just about the only ones who can make valid discernments. 

Insofar as expertise and 'evidence' have anything to do with it, they are a disadvantage to discernment; and there is an (obvious!) overall-inverse relationship between expertise and being-informed about a complex issue - and the chance of reaching true and Good conclusion on that issue. 

Note: This is an extension into the spiritual realm of the psychological phenomenon of clever sillies that I floated some years ago; and which has gained considerable traction in some quarters. That is, I sought explanations for the observation that (up to a point) the more intelligent a person, the less likely they are to be correct about matters of common sense and personal experience. Here, intelligence is only a part of wrong discernment insofar as it is a proxy for being an informed and trained 'expert' - but for several decades there are deliberate but indirect strategic policies that reduce average intelligence among the class of experts. Furthermore, the clever sillies idea fails to take into account that motivation is of prime importance to discernment and therefore Good outcomes. Good is more than a choice of lesser evils, and requires a transcendental, next-worldly, orientation.

Metaphysics by means of understanding the nature and purpose of God

Metaphysics is the philosophy of our primary assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

For a Christian this can be simplified into the primary theology of understanding the nature and purposes of God the Creator. 

Most Christian theologians through history have made the assumption that - in the beginning - God's creation was wholly Good (e.g. the angels in Heaven, the Garden of Eden); and that the purpose of God through history has been to develop Man's agency, or freedom. 

Thus - Man began as Good but unfree; and God has worked through history to develop in Man a freedom that then chooses Good.  

I believe in contrast, that reality began with (meaningless and purposeless) chaos - but a chaos that included God the Creator and also Men. 

Thus both God and Men began as Beings with agency.

Men began as free - but unconscious.

God has worked through history to develop Man's consciousness aiming at the point when man would (from his innate agency) consciously choose to align with God.

 

One reason why I believe that personal spiritual responsibility is required

I have often said here that - in this time and place - we are required to take personal responsibility for our own salvation and spiritual development (theosis).

This applies even when we are serious members of a Christian church. 

In fact, I think all serious Christians actually do this in practice - even when they deny it in theory. 

They may state and argue that they are primarily obedient to a church; but if they are, nonetheless, real Christians - then in truth they will be practicing personal discernment with respect to that church, and (in effect) choosing what they obey - and disregarding those instructions which they regard as wrong. 

The incoherence between obedience in theory, and discernment in practice, means that such Christians are weakened and made more vulnerable in the long-term.  

Given that all major Christian (and other) Western churches are corrupt as of 2023, and getting worse; the alternative is to say and do what one believes in the heart to be wrong, and to follow an already-corrupt church ever further into evil...

Such a person cannot remain a Christian; and that will soon become publicly evident. 

He will obediently follow his church away-from Christ; which means ceasing to desire resurrected eternal life in Heaven as his primary goal. 

He will (in his heart) subordinate this transcendental Christian goal to a focus on this-world: this earthly mortal life - so that the eternal gets fitted-into the mortal. 

This because of the ever-greater convergence of his church with the evil-dominated secular-left-materialist ideology that dominates the West. To obey the church is to serve Satan, already and increasingly. 

The lessons of Not-Brexit: Political change is of benefit Only if it leads to a Christian spiritual awakening

For those of you in other countries, it is important to emphasize that Brexit never happened; what we eventually got (two-and-a-half years delayed) was a BRINO, a "Brexit in name only": a paper exercise slightly reorganizing the globalist bureaucracy.  

I was completely on the side of Brexit, and I was very pleased that a large majority of English people (except in London!) were on the Brexit side; however, I was under no illusions that the positive Brexit vote was an opportunity and not an answer. The opportunity was for a national spiritual awakening. 

The blog Albion Awakening was created on exactly that basis: that there was a window of opportunity unexpectedly opening - but unless that opportunity was taken by enough people; then Brexit would yield no net-positive benefit to the nation (but only to the careers of a few opportunistic, "Brexit supporting", politicians).

And it did not. 

The fact that a self-styled "Brexit Day" happened in the midst of the winter 2020-21 birdemic lockdown and on the cusp of the peck onslaught makes that clear. 

As does the continued massive levels of immigration to the UK, including officially-the highest ever levels of illegal immigration (i.e. more than a year after so-called "Brexit"). Yet stopping mass immigration was without any doubt By Far the major issue that caused people to vote for Brexit. 

The official immigration (especially illegal) numbers are, of course, calculatedly-dishonest, and huge underestimates - but it may be that there were around a million (or more) immigrants in a single year; i.e. enough people to fill a city the size of Birmingham, the second-largest city in England, after London. 

In all observable ways and Very Obviously; England post- "Brexit" continues to be ruled such as to weaken, subvert and destroy the nation. 

Most recently; through 2023; the lying, insane, and irrational UK propaganda, subsidies, theft, probable sabotage, aggression and multiple other provocations against the anti-Fire Nation have made us prime military targets - if the British Establishment achieve the war escalations they so assiduously are trying to engineer. 

In sum: Brexit did England no good, because the opportunity it provided for repentance and spiritual reform was decisively rejected; and having rejected that opportunity the nation was left in a worse state - as revealed by the trends since 2016.  

I think this is a general lesson teaching us that (as of these times) all politics-as-such will lead to evil - including even when it is motivated (as was Brexit) by supporting the lesser of two evils. 

The lesser of two evils is still evil! And by engaging us in the pursuit of evil (albeit lesser) we are corrupted and ourselves made more evil.

This is of extreme relevance to the ongoing war. Here there is no doubt which of the sides is less evil; yet the victory of the lesser evil would Not lead to net-Good unless the winning side is (overall) motivated by Good. 

In other words; if the effect of the war on the Fire Nation (FN) is to make it more primarily Christian, more Christian-motivated - then a victory would probably be net-Good - for that nation, and probably for the world-as-a-whole. 

If Christian faith is sufficiently strongly deepened and refined in the crucible of war; such that it is then restored to become a ruling principle of the nation - then the spiritual effect of war might be net-positive. 

But, if (as often happens) war causes a corruption of motivations and a 'win at all costs and at any price and by any means' kind of mentality; then victory would harm the victors and the world. And there is no doubt that one of the core objectives of the anti-FN actions has been to corrupt that nation with the same spirit of satanic evil as rules The West.  

We among the masses are all-but powerless in a material sense: all the power we possess is spiritual. It is therefore vital that we develop and maintain spiritual discernment in relation to this continuing and escalating global war. 

We need to consider carefully what we choose to know, and what we choose to believe, about events and motives - always bearing in mind the provenance of claims (from where, ultimately and spiritually, claims emanate). 

There is no 'safe' option and no safe opinion; situations change and the need for discernment is continuous. (To assert incompetence is a self-subordination; refusing to judge is itself a judgment.) 

And what matters is that we each take personal responsibility for our spiritual attitudes and aspirations. 

Even though mistakes are inevitable; if we do this, sincerely, then over time we will be led to the truth; because we will be open to divine guidance. 

How do the Notion Club Papers relate to Romantic Christianity?

Over at the Notion Club Papers blog, I discuss Tolkien's probable assumptions and expectations of the time when the novel was drafted; and how these are so very different from now - some 75 later.

These are related to the relationship between Romanticism and Christianity; Tolkien was proposing an increased Romanticism, by means of a new relationship with Faery; but he was (I think) taking Christianity for granted. 

Therefore, to understand The Notion Club Papers, we need to supply that Christian basis which is nowadays lacking from our culture. 

How does blanket mind-control work?

That there is blanket mind-control is obvious to the minority who are not a part of it. How it works - and how it is both comprehensive and increasingly detailed - is a worthy subject for theorizing. 

On the one hand, there have been great efforts to present a unified, monolithic body of 'virtual reality'. This is accomplished initially by central and mandatory 'scripting' of the major media/ official narratives. 

Secondly (especially since the birdemic coup of early 2020) there is the suppression of specific dissenting views from mainstream mass and social media. 

Since the Fire Nation affair of 2022 there has been added the general exclusion of whole categories; other major sources that differ from the Western monolith (such as Fire Nation sources). 

And, because neither control nor exclusion can be complete; and both can be overcome by those who make some effort - there is also an extra layer of deterrent from the demonization of those who make the effort to overcome these restrictions. Those who access alterative, or prohibited foreign, mass and social media are now regarded as a species of proto-terrorist. 

Reading, or otherwise accessing, information/ theories/ opinions out-with the official-media monolith is now regarded as de facto evidence of dangerous - probably criminal - activity; or being an agent of enemy powers. 

(Or - if not evil; then such behaviour is regarded as insane or mentally-defective.)

Thus, although is not difficult to discover the truth behind the propaganda; doing so, or even by simply attempting to do so, is quasi criminal activity - and expressing such views is actually criminal. And even when not legally criminal, such behaviour may be sanctioned with extreme (and unbounded) severity by The System through multiple other mechanisms: loss of employment, education, income, by setting virtual/ actual mobs on institutions or people etc. 

This situation is what the modern consciousness confronts, looking out onto the world. 

There is a single master-choice that the choosing agent makes - either one is an in-grouper, a System-believer - which happens by default. 

Or else one actively steps into an out-group; which act, in itself, is sufficient 'evidence' for a wide range of exclusions and persecutions. 

Not to be mind-controlled is therefore a decision to become a social pariah and paint a target on one's own back. 

Such a step is a particularly strong deterrent for women-in-general - who are highly motivated to be accepted in a peer group (as big as possible). For men, such a step is often ruled-out both for those who aspire to ascend the social hierarchy (by successfully competing in socially valued hierarchies, by leading alliances); and also for the larger proportion of insecure men who feel the necessity to appease the social hierarchy. 

Regarded thus, it is hardly surprising that the majority are mind controlled.

Why not be mind-controlled; when all the social benefits accrue to those who are controlled? 

Well, there probably needs to be a strong inner motivation. And this motivation needs to be personal, individual - not groupish; since all Western groups of significant size, power or prestige our 'converged' parts of The System.

What are the possible causes of a strong inner motivation? There are fewer and fewer of these inner motivators that are out-with The System and also sufficiently effective. 

Furthermore, suitable potential strong inner motivators increasingly need to become explicit - or otherwise they will passively be eroded by mounting adverse pressures to conform and converge. 

And on top of all this; the inner motivators need to be explicitly chosen - including by being rooted in metaphysical intuitions different from those of The System. Otherwise, alternative ways of living will surely be wedged and expanded and subverted piecemeal (as happens when failing one, then more, of the Litmus Tests).

At bottom, it is (as usual) about ultimate motivation; and the decision of whether we want to be mind controlled the by monolithic totalitarian System - which itself depends substantially upon who we believe is ultimately doing the controlling. And then upon whether we believe that we ought-to-be controlled At All - or ought, instead, to be self-controlled, as free and responsible agents. 

Note: the above was stimulated by a topic thread by Bill Ryan, at Project Avalon.

 

What will be the 2023 early-year offensive against Western Civilization - and against whom will it be directed?

In 2020 we had the birdemic offensive against Western civilization (especially Christianity); amplified in 2021 by the peck offensive; and in 2022 the Fire Nation affair. 

These were primarily directed against the Western masses, and were all supported solidly and aggressively by the entirety of the Western Establishment: government, the leadership of major institutions, and the mass-social media.  

This year I presume there will be another offensive; and my best guess is that it will be an amplification of the Fire Nation affair - an amplification that is intended to draw-in - officially and fully (not just unofficially, partially, and in disguise) - the forces of the West.

But history is linear, and never repeats; and evil triumphant feeds upon itself. 

If early summer of 2020 represented the high point of the totalitarian, bureaucratic Ahrimanic evil of planning, surveillance and control; since then, there has since been a waxing of spiteful, short-termist, destructive and chaos-inducing Sorathic evil. 

So my prediction is that the 2023 offensive will be focused - not against the masses, but against the Globalist Establishment 

There have already been many astonishing and horrible provocations against the FN by the Sorathic powers; but these have so far failed to evoke any escalation from that side.  

Therefore, I think that the 2023 provocations will be directed against the West. 

In other words; I am suggesting that Sorathic powers within The West (such as extreme 'hawks', covert wreckers, or 'rogue elements' within The Establishment) will be attempting provocations that are designed irresistibly to trigger rapid and wholesale escalation from the Western Establishment. 

This kind of escalation is against the interests of the Globalist Establishment; who have so far prevented the rapid and multi-national escalation of the Fire Nation Affair - despite considerable pressure from the mass media and a minority of internal elements and their puppet-heroes. 

To overcome this evident reluctance; there would need to be staged (but deniably, presumably via a chain of proxies) some kind of un-concealable, major (and intended-to-be) irresistible 'atrocity'; against one or more of the key Western Allies - which atrocity would be blamed upon the Fire Nation. 

All kinds of horrible and obvious possibilities spring to mind; so I will not attempt to guess which is most likely. The point is that the provocation should be experienced as so extreme and terrible as to be impossible to ignore, and demanding of a quick and extreme (and unwise) response.  

The intent, therefore, would be to stampede the Establishment into acting against their own interests; in such a way as further and irreversibly to initiate the collapse of their monolithic global structure of control (subversion and inversion) of thinking and feeling. 

Instead: to Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war.

Accelerating chaos.

It's all just a guess; but if it does happen, then don't be fooled. We can't stop it - that is not our job. Our job is spiritual, and consists in knowing evil, cutting-through its deceptions, pointing-out its operations, to declare: I See You!

Direct thinking, 'spiritual contact' and provenance

It is a plague of all those who attempt or achieve some kind of 'spiritual contact' to know what is the provenance of those Beings that they contact. 

Are they who they claim, or are they someone or something else?

I regard it as an advantage of what I have termed primary thinking or direct knowing - that, because it is 'direct', a sharing of thoughts between Beings, it brings with it a knowledge of provenance - of who is being-contacted.

In other words, when 'communication' is mind-to-mind, we know who or what we are dealing-with; whereas when communication is mediated by sensory factors - words (whether spoken or written) or visions or any kind of symbolism - then this introduces an indirect layer between the minds; which may serve to conceal provenance. 

So direct knowing is intrinsically more reliable and valid. 

On the other hand, indirect communications are tempting - because they are often more precise, and occur (or can be induced) in higher volume and on-demand. 

In other words, direct knowing tends to have a low amount of simple information; but (I would say) can be relied upon more solidly. 

Yet even direct thinking is not wholly reliable; because while a Being may be known for who 'it' is, nonetheless a Being can conceal its intent. The motivation behind the thinking is part of the real-self, the ultimate and irreducible basis of our individual being; hence inaccessible to any other Being (inaccessible even to God). 

(This ultimate 'privacy' is the reason why Beings have agency or 'free will'.)

My point here is that we would be wise to be satisfied with the lower quantity and precision of direct thinking; and therefore not to crave (or insist upon) detailed and specific information on... whatever we suppose we want, or think we need, to know!  

The almost-opposite effects of 'oneness' 'negative' meditation, past versus present - implications for a truly valuable and transformative modern meditation

In the pre-modern past, meditation was a matter of getting past the surface illusions of the mundane world; and re-connecting with the reality beneath. In other words, ancient meditation enabled Man to pierce illusion and discover The World, as it truly was.

Past meditation was therefore a negative method - a matter of removing, of discarding; yet it had positive results, because reality was already there, behind the illusions, 'waiting' to be discovered.  

This was possible, because pre-modern Man retained a connection with spiritual reality; and it was this underlying spiritual reality that provide the consensus view of Mankind. It was indeed a 'common sense' because it was common to all Men - and meditation was able to discover this unifying commonality below the variable surface of personality and custom.

Remove the illusions of the merely personal and local; and the eternal verities remained. 

But modern Man is cut-off-from the spiritual, is alienated from the common world. Having become a detached individual; modern Man has lost the spontaneous and unconscious group cohesion; a product of immersion in the spiritual and divine - which remained, until recent generations, as a dwindling residue of Man's earliest consciousness.  

Nowadays, when meditation strips-away or dissolves the surface illusions of the world - nothing remains. 

When illusions are cast aside - there is nothing left! When a negative method of meditation is deployed the outcome is itself negative; because there is no 'consensus reality' waiting to be discovered - but instead a void. 

By meditation, modern Man does not gain the world, but loses it. 

While pre-modern meditation (in the right context) led to a strength and encouragement rooted in solid reality; modern meditation leads to nihilism and despair... If, that is, modern meditation is pursued rigorously and honestly. 

But it is not! Since modern meditation leads to no values, not motivations, and loss of the world; then, meditation is almost never pursued to its logical conclusion. 

Instead, modern meditators use meditation as (merely) a therapy - directed at making the meditator feel better. And as such, modern meditation is embedded in the standard, mainstream, totalitarian-leftist assumptions of the modern world - hence, modern meditators attitudes are worldly, contemporary - and labile in accordance with tracking the changing and rootless dictates of the global Establishment. 

Consider: If modern meditators were genuinely committed to the idea that everything was one, the world was illusion and the self/ ego and thinking were the cause of illusion - they would realize that this illusory nature extended to all of morality. 

They would reject all notions of human rights and equality, because these are part of this world's illusion; they would realize that kindness was as illusory as aggression; that suffering was as illusory as the political views of their enemies. 

But this does not happen. Meditators claim that oneness meditation has all sorts of this-worldly benefits. Some claim that an increase in meditation, or many meditators working together, will improve our lives in this world. Or that meditating makes for better people - kinder, more appreciative, more altruistic people!

Because this is incoherent nonsense; in practice modern meditation that aims at seeing through the illusion of this-world is itself worldly - hence just-a-therapy, at best. It does not have the potential for transformative religious or spiritual power.

I agree with the view that some kind of 'meditation' is valuable, and for some people necessary, in this modern world; but its aims need to be quite different from the merely negative goals of seeing-through illusion - almost the opposite.

Modern meditation needs to be - not about 'discovering' a reality already there - but instead about co-creating a reality that we choose and is in harmony with divine creation. 

We, as selves, need to start working with God in choosing to make the reality - which will not happen unless we take an active and conscious role. 

And that should be the nature, method, goal of meditation in 2023. 

Note: These ideas were stimulated by passages from an audio lecture by Stanley Messenger on the Wessex Research Group web pages. His ideas were mostly drawn from Rudolf Steiner.  

A note on Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020)

As may be recalled, I regard Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as my favourite novel written in the past... oh, fifty years or so. At any rate; I regard it as one of the very best novels I have ever read. And I have read it many times.   

When, after a gap of some fifteen years, SC published a new work; I felt I ought to read it, to give it a chance - even though I could see that it was not the same kind of thing as S&N... not at all. 

I read an extensive excerpt, and could see that Piranesi was written in something like the highly-wrought, formal-symbolic, style that was very fashionable in translations of foreign writers (and by foreign writers using English) some forty to sixty years ago. 

The prose of Piranesi demonstrated neither the confident fluidity and power, nor the sinuous wit, that made Strange and Norrell such a continuous delight. It might as well have been written by someone else altogether.  

Anyway; to overcome the perceived turgidity of style; in late 2020 I finally decided to tackle the audiobook version (which was well performed). 

The day afterwards; I wrote the following in an e-mail (somewhat edited):

My overall evaluation is that Piranesi is an 'interesting' short story that has been pumped-up into a 'novel' (or, at least, that attempt has been made). 

The whole thing fell to pieces at the end in an astonishing way, so terribly inept that I suspect it may have been written (largely) by someone else*. 

This corresponds with the moral collapse of the book from the sweet innocence of the early chapters, to the sordid references (and actuality) of the late ones. 

It seems obvious that the author had no idea how to finish the book, in any way, at any level - and it just dribbles off into nothing. 

I also listened to an audio podcast interview with Susanna Clark which is linked at the foot of this summary article in the Church Times - about her life since writing Strange and Norrell and the writing of Piranesi.  

It is rather sad altogether. Woman geniuses are apparently always precarious and vulnerable. 

Susanna Clarke must have been a genius when she wrote Strange and Norrell, but apparently is not any more. She seems now to be writing as therapy - at any rate, she is apparently not driven by an inner motivation. 

She has become a liberal artsy Anglican; but, as usual, such insipid pseudo-Christianity is doing no detectable good.

*Note: What I meant by this was that I guessed there had been a large editorial input; to the point of overwhelming the authorial voice. I deplore the modern practice - in the publishing of mainstream as well as genre fiction - of an author almost co-writing a book, as a de facto collaboration with editor/s, beta-readers and other advisors. I believe that this quasi-committee system of authorship diminishes whatever is distinctive about specific authors; and almost completely eliminates any possibility of genius-level work. 

"I did no more than follow the lead of 'chance" - A helpful perspective on what to do when the adverse odds seem impossible to overcome

"I promised to help [Thorin] if I could. I was as eager as he was to see the end of Smaug, but Thorin was all for plans of battle and war, as if he were really King Thorin the Second, and I could see no hope in that. So I left him and went off to the Shire, and picked up the threads of news. It was a strange business. I did no more than follow the lead of 'chance,' and made many mistakes on the way."

Gandalf speaking; from The Quest of Erebor, in Unfinished Tales by JRR Tolkien. I have previously written on how things - providentially - happened on this journey of The Hobbit. 

The probabilities stacked against us in life can sometimes feel overwhelmingly bad - insofar as we can calculate them honestly.  

What is perhaps needed is a change of perspective - from which may come a desirable change in attitude; and then (from this perspective) valid grounds for hope... 

Some idea of what to do would also be helpful. 

In such a mood it may be useful to recall (again - we already 'know' it) that God is good, our loving father; and God is the creator - and creation is on-going. 

This means that there is such a thing as divine providence, and this applies to each of us - as individuals.

We would be right, therefore, to have confidence in God from here onward; and starting from now. 

"What to do", is that we ('merely') need to start noticing whatever providence brings into our lives, take them seriously, make the right-choices, learn from them; and then we will be on a right-path. 

The apparently impossible has sometimes happened; but seldom in ways or by means that people expect or could possibly have predicted; and good outcomes are seldom what we would have asked for in advance - even when they are certainly good. 

The best possible results come from (seriously) minding our own business - if what we are then doing is in harmony with divine will, then great good may come of it.  

And, knowing this is true, may well prove to be a cure for being overwhelmed. 

This does not mean that we ought to cling to unrealistic optimism, simply because we cannot face it. 

Yet the fact is that we cannot know what will come - because we do not know the full situation, nor all its important causes. 

Faith in providence suggests that the best possible outcomes will (by whatever means) derive from making the right decisions; and the right decisions are those made in the spirit of transcendental hope. 

The existential struggle of these times

Over the past year, the conflict between The West and the Fire Nation (and, increasingly, its increasingly-close major allies) has become more and more obviously existential in nature. 

The FN regards itself (I believe correctly) as being actively threated with existential annihilation; and, unlike Western Nations, the FN seems (increasingly, solidly) determined to fight to the last to defend its distinctive identity; including its Orthodox Christian church. 

The West - which means, effectively the Globalist multi-national/ no-nations Western leadership class - also regards itself as in an existential struggle; with the rapidly emerging 'Eastern alliance' which is waxing in power both in absolute terms and relatively to The West (which, by contrast, is diminishing in both respects, including by deliberate self-destruction). 

So, it seems that the Western leadership class (which is all that matters in The West, since the Western masses are puppets to ideology) also regards the struggle with the Fire Nation as existential: as a Must Win scenario. 

(And, it should be obvious, Must Win implies that no-holds-are-barred with respect to the nature of weapons deployed in the struggle.) 

For the globalist Establishment, it has become a case of Us or Them w.r.t. the FN.  

(Whether or not this is true; it is what They believe.) 

But whereas "the people" of the Fire Nation are indeed "a people", and know explicitly and in their hearts that they are engaged in an existential struggle for their identity and 'way of life' (including Orthodox Christianity); by contrast, the Western masses, including Western Church Christians, are almost-wholly ignorant, and in-denial, of this fact. 

The Western masses misunderstand The Situation completely, indeed in an inverted fashion. We have (overwhelmingly) adopted such a narrow, selfish, short-termist, self-blinded complacency; that existential matters are not even on the radar. 

And existential 'talk' is regarded as sheerly crazy, paranoid, weird, dangerous, 'conspiracy theory' stuff; to be avoided by all decent and sensible people. The Western masses would rather be destroyed utterly, than recognize the fact that they are deliberately being-destroyed. 

Thus, in the West and among the masses; this astonishingly profound, cataclysmic, year of global change has - pretty much - passed them by... 

The world may be engaged in this titanic existential struggle; but the mental life, attitude and aspirations, of the Western masses has utterly failed to register this reality; instead vehemently rejecting all thought of this reality.  

The question remains as to the nature of this existential struggle. 

The most evil side is obvious: the Empire of Lies is the most evil grouping known in the history of the world; as being the only major civilization that has explicitly and officially adopted value-inversion; and is expanding its scope, and coercively-implementing inversion. 

But the other side, as it is emerging - although clearly less evil, in terms of their degree of evil - are a mixed bunch in terms of their motivations. 

Only over-arching and Christian motivations count as positively Good. And insofar as these exist at all, which is only in the Fire Nation, they do not seem likely to permeate the West - whatever happens. 

From our perspective in The West, the existential choice may between further solidification and extension of the totalitarian System by means of globalist institutions such as the UN/ WHO, EU, NATO, financial groupings etc. (along the lines of UN Agenda 2030 or the Great Reset)...

Or else World War Three - which has already been extended to include multiple deliberate provocations on FN territory and active participation of personnel from adjacent and remote NATO states - and may, at any moment, explode into an explicit and expansile multi-national, multi-regional, conflict. 

We the Western masses will not be offered, will not make, any choice between these material fates; since we are (voluntarily, yet denied) mentally-colonized - almost-wholly manipulated and dictated-to. 

But the only effective Western deciders - the Western leadership class - are currently choosing-between their perceived existential options: Control, or War. 

So-far the totalitarians have - apparently - regarded War as a threat to Control. War has been, is being, prepared and prosecuted mainly by 'the destroyers', the makers and promoters of chaos.

But if the totalitarian Western System-leadership come to believe that War offers their best opportunity for increasing Control - then War will happen very quickly; and the existential conflict of these times will suddenly! be obvious to everybody. 

Blog Traffic Report 2022

8,724K - All-Time Page Views (7,364 posts)

987K - Page Views for 2022

2.5-3K per day (approximate) modal average Page Views

Top Five posts by Page Views

10.7K History tells us... that history is a misleading guide to 2020 

5.14K Global Giga-death - what are the apocalyptic options? 

2.62K "An inflexion-point in the collapse of The West" - My review of Amazon's "Rings of Power" 

1.1K The distinctive quality of ruling-class evil - now (for the first time) explicit, mandatory and universal 

0.94K They make it So easy for Us - and yet...

The scope and power of the thinking self

Sometimes, when I am thinking well, I am aware of the tremendous, limitless scope and power of real thinking. 

This is, I think, a very basic and fundamental human experience and assumption. It is what almost everything is rooted in. 

Yet it is not sufficient, and it is countered and modified by an awareness of our own inconstancy and failures; the fact that most of the time our thinking is shallow, manipulated, constrained - and utterly unsatisfying. 

Analogously, we begin life immersed in an unconscious (taken for granted) sense of being 'in' the world, and bound up with the other people in the world - especially our family. We experience our-selves more as concentrations of awareness in a general awareness - minds are experienced as permeable. 

Yet, soon we become aware of an opposite sense of being isolated selves, cut-off from the world of nature and of other Men. We become afraid of others, and of the world; afraid of dying and the death of those we love. 

We begin to experience a crumbling of meaning, a sense of incoherence, a general tendency towards disintegration and dying.  

In one sense, at one level, we feel self-sufficient - capable of knowing and creating from our-selves all that we need; yet, at another level we realize that this would actually be a life of ineradicable boredom, and self-inflicted suffering. 

This is The Problem - and (to some extent) most people seek for, or at least hope for, a solution: a solution that eradicates the bad aspects and negations of our condition, while making permanent and building-from that scope and power, that connection and awareness.

There have been many, many attempts to solve this problem - but almost all are only partially successful (even in theory); they solve some, but neglect other aspects; and are reducing to saying that the unsolved aspects do not really need to be solved, or that our strengths are actually our problems. 

Only Christianity solves the whole Problem: only Christianity has the potential. And only some, minority, selective Christianities - from those many throughout history. 

There is only one answer - which is why Jesus Christ is essential. 

Fortunately for us (but not by 'luck, but from the deliberate design of God) we are not required to solve The Problem for ourselves; but only to recognize and choose the answer, when it is presented to us. 

 

Ten days into this New Year - the year of civilizational collapse

It has become a (dreaded) annual tradition for me to say something snarky about the (so-called) "New Year". 

This past one has been dominated by the Fire Nation war - the start of World War Three. The escalation has been all-but one sided; with the Western powers making some of the most outrageous and gratuitous provocations imaginable, and the Fire nation (in particular their leader) demonstrating astonishing restraint while building vital alliances that prevent the FN's isolation when (not if) the pressure for escalation becomes irresistible. 

This coming year will be, I predict, the year of civilizational collapse in The West - and by collapse I mean an irreversible and accelerating process of breakdown towards chaos. 

Yet, of course, such collapse will be deniable - and indeed denied - probably by a majority of the population. 

One mode of denial will surely be to re-conceptualize and explain-away civilizational collapse as the consequence of war - hence alleged (unprovoked!) foreign aggression. 

But other pretend rationales will potentially be wheeled-out such as climate emergency/ breakdown, Birdemic 2.0, epidemics of "died suddenly" syndrome, explosions of pseudo-racism, or any of a selection of engineered (and faked) crises. 

This will (probably - of course I don't really know!) happen because it is ever-more obvious that the "Sorathic" powers of spiteful-destructive evil are ever-more dominant in The West - and are not being recognized as such, but instead ignored and excused by nearly everybody. 

Of course there is also colossal destruction from short-termist profiteering on an unprecedented scale, which is amplified by deliberately-constructed incompetence of leadership personnel (which has become so extreme, and so endemic, that people have ceased to notice that there we are well into the consequences of an active process of selection of known-incompetent thoroughly-corrupted leaders in (I think) all Western nations). 

So, those who are ultimately holding greatest power in The West and who knowingly want evil-destruction; are less-and-less trammeled by the presence of anyone who might desire to oppose them, or be able to oppose them. 

Collapse is just a question of time; and (since the underlying situation is deteriorating) the longer delayed, the more rapid and extreme it will be. 

While this is, of course, a bit of a worry; it ought not be a cause of fear - not if we reflect that fear is a sin, and that the mandatory Christian virtues include faith (trust in God) and hope (assurance of ultimate Good). 

Yet we must recall that faith and hope are directed at the spirit and eternity, hence mostly post-mortal resurrected life. The absolute assurances of faith and hope ought Not to be directed at the material circumstances of this finite mortal life.    

Luckily for Christians; we are not dependent on the general, civilizational circumstances of this earthly existence. 

But we do have a job to do; and that is to understand, discern, and choose. 

That is, to know Good from evil; to locate and to take the side of Good.  

This need not be a problem, unless we insist upon being directed by external, this worldly, merely-human influences. 

So long as we are prepared to take responsibility for our own salvation and theosis, to work things out for our-selves; there will no shortage of help, guidance and comfort from divine sources and by means of the active work of God's creation in the world and our-selves. 

Post-mortal, pre-resurrected, spirit life is analogous to dreaming sleep

From The Last Battle by CS Lewis - Lewis's vision of the choice confronting post-mortal spirits

After mortal life we die and become spirit-beings - and it is these post-mortal spirits who may choose to become resurrected. 

What is life like as a post-mortal spirit? What will you and I be like at the time when we are confronted by the chance and choice of resurrected eternal life? 

The condition of post-mortal souls seems to have been accessible and known in ancient times; and in the years before Christ; the ancient Greeks left us with descriptions of Hades, while the ancient Hebrews described much the same condition as Sheol.  

The condition of such spirit life can be described in terms of a state of 'dementia' or 'delirium'; but is perhaps most easily comprehended in terms of dreaming sleep. 

During dreaming sleep; our spirit is cut-off from the body, and from the environment. That is, in general; we lose sensations of what is going-on inside us, and in the world around us. 

Our spiritual self mostly breaks free from the body - but in sleep the spirit does not wholly break-free, because the spirit must return to the body on awakening - and therefore there must remain a connection, and this residual connection of spirit with body can be greater or lesser. 

When the connection is greater, then the body and/or the environment around the sleeping body can influence the dreaming spirit; and we find some degree in which the physical shapes our dreams. For instance, a stomach pain or a ticking clock may be taken-up in the dream, and (in part or in whole) become part of a dream. 

But sometimes the connection between spirit and body is diminished to the merest thread; and to the extent that the spirit does break free; we are then in a similar state to post-mortal spirit life. 

What are the characteristic experiences of this kind of dreaming sleep, in a qualitative and formal sense? 

In dreaming we retain our sense of 'self', of being an individual with a personal persepctive, and we remain who-we-are; but the quality of experience changes. 

The typical mood of dreaming is one of perplexity - a sense of insecure grasp of the situation; of our understanding continually slipping-away. 

We forget important things in the dream, and then later in the dream they are recalled with a sense of puzzlement: how could I have forgotten that? Or else we may discover major things of great importance in the dream that, somehow, (in real life) we had never noticed before. 

In the dream we may take-for-granted bizarre situations that we (somehow!) find ourselves in; or conversely, may find ourselves unable to comprehend and function in situations that we would normally find routine. 

Recognition of people and situations is unmoored - much as the spirit is unmoored from the body. For example, we may recognize someone familiar who then turns-out 'really' to be someone else; or else it turns-out that a stranger in the dream is 'really' someone familiar (although they may look and behave completely differently). 

(These dream experiences are very similar to delusional misidentifications observed in psychoses.) 

These kinds of dreaming experiences derive, I believe, from the greatly diminished connection between the spirit and the body during dreaming sleep. If we can imagine this disconnection becoming total and potentially 'permanent'; then we may have some idea of what it may be like to be dead - but not resurrected. 

And it may be from such a dreamlike state - or perhaps more exactly from a temporarily lucid dream state (made possible by divine intervention) - that we make the choice about resurrection. 

That is; a state when the dream situation becomes suffused by an increased self-consciousness and ability to choose; when (perhaps) the dream-self becomes more detached-from dream-experience - and knows it as "a dream" - in other words, knows the reality of the situation. 

Then, it may be, we are confronted by the decision of whether to follow Jesus Christ through the process of transformation that is resurrection, to render us eternally incarnated, and to continue into Heaven.  

Perhaps this transformation can itself be imagined, as if from a dream; as our spirits meeting with Jesus Christ and knowing Him to be Jesus Christ - standing as the Good Shepherd in front of a portal, a doorway - the entrance into the 'sheep fold' that is Heaven. 

We are granted the comprehension that we may choose to follow Jesus through that doorway; and the knowledge that if we do so - as we are solidifying ('condensing') into eternal bodies - we will be taking with us only that which Good; only that which is Love - Love of God, of fellow Men, of divine creation... 

Also, if we choose to pass through that doorway; all that is of sin, death, corruption - will be left-behind. 

What I would emphasize here, is that when we make that decision; it will be from an experienced-situation that is somewhat like a dream, and the decision will be made by selves that are somewhat like our dream selves...

But a dream-like-state that we know to be reality; and the choice will be made by what we then-know to be our real, eternal and divine self.

Why is The Superman considered necessary? From Nietzsche to Shaw to Transhumanism

No, not that Superman...

ANA. Tell me where can I find the Superman? 

THE DEVIL. He is not yet created, Senora. 

THE STATUE. And never will be, probably. Let us proceed: the red fire will make me sneeze. 

[They descend]. 

ANA. Not yet created! Then my work is not yet done. 

[Crossing herself devoutly] I believe in the Life to Come. 

[Crying to the universe] A father—a father for the Superman!

From Man and Superman by Bernard Shaw

As a late teen, I was deeply influenced by the work of Bernard Shaw; and followed the trajectory of the man himself by beginning as someone who sought nothing more than gradual improvement in living conditions (by means, I assumed, of Fabian socialism); to a recognition that - even if wholly successful - this would leave the fundamental problems, the fundamental unsatisfactoriness, of life unaddressed. 

In other words, no amount of tinkering with The System could overcome the inadequacy of Men. 

(And indeed, how the The System ever really be improved when Men - even the best of Men - were so profoundly and ineradicably flawed?)

In other words, a better world is not enough. Our heart's desire is for a qualitatively different and greater mode of living. 

As a typical leftist radical; Shaw's thinking was built-upon the rejection of Christianity - what I have called the attitude of "anything but Christianity". 

This attitude (which I shared for most of my life) is prepared to search the world, and consider almost any metaphysics, ideology or philosophy - except Christianity. 

Such radicalism (which is nowadays mainstream, normal, almost universal in The West); is thus rooted in a negative and oppositional motivation; which is what makes radicalism able to tolerate almost infinite incoherence, and which makes it always tend towards destruction. (As we may see all around us.)  

Shaw, therefore, sought the greater life in the context of this mortal world. The idea behind the play Man and Superman is loosely derived from Nietzsche, who invented and popularized the concept of The Superman as a qualitatively superior Man - and the best/ only hope for the future. 

In other words; Shaw assumes that there is only this world (and that Jesus Christ's promises of resurrection and Heaven are untrue); therefore our only grounds for hope (or only honest way of staving off despair) lies in improving this world.

Shaw recognizes that this world cannot be sufficiently improved because of Men: Men are Just Not Good Enough to make or inhabit the kind of world that would justify life. On the contrary. 

Since Men are the limiting factor; it is Men that must positively be transformed. 

Hence The Superman: he is what Man must become if life is to be worthwhile.

This is why The Superman is considered as necessary. 

Indeed, if The Superman does arise, then he will be that which transforms society for the better; because Men-as-they-are cannot really know what changes to make, nor are current Men properly motivated actually to make good societal changes.

And attempt to make a better society without The Superman will therefore be undermined by corruption of comprehension, motivation and conduct; and 'reform' will merely become what it always (covertly) was: a mask for new forms of exploitation. 

So, it seems to be the case that The Superman must come first.   

So The Superman seems to be necessary - but what exactly The Superman might be, and how he might arise, has always been contested among those who propose the idea.

Shaw was apparently never able to make up his mind. Sometimes he thought that The Superman might be evolved, from the right kind of 'breeding' - as with the above excerpt from Man and Superman. 

In that play, and its supplementary 'preface' and 'appendices'; the idea recurs that if the best women and the best men are able to reproduce - then the right combinations may lead to The Superman - either gradually or in a single vast evolutionary leap. 

Shaw's socialism is put forward as a means to this end. By eliminating all barriers of class, wealth, education etc; Shaw envisages that the best men and women can find each other, and that they will have the best children - and they will not be troubled by the raising of these children because that also will be done by a socialist society. 

In other words (at least when this mood was upon him), Shaw apparently regards The Superman as a quasi-genetic problem, and the solution as a matter of 'selective breeding'.

And yet, when he states this materialist perspective; he tends swiftly to contradict it as both inadequate and wrong-headed; because Shaw had a strong and almost 'spiritual' aspiration, and also a pessimistic understanding of Man's limits and possibilities.

This came-through in Back to Methuselah - in which higher forms of human consciousness emerge due to 'creative evolution'; which is envisaged in deistic terms; as a property of reality. 

The idea is that it is part of the nature of things that the universe strives first for life, then for consciousness, and then self-consciousness. 

Part of this is that life-span is extended, until it becomes immortality at the point when bodies are discarded and ex-Men become pure spirits of consciousness.

This is another vision of The Superman. 

And this is driven by the Life Force; which is mentioned several times in Man and Superman in (implicit) contradiction to the 'selective breeding' idea - as if Shaw cannot decide between them, or wants to cover all bases. 

Whereas selective breeding as conceived by Men, and organized (mad possible) by strategy; the Life Force uses Men in its blind gropings and experiments to attain The Superman - which is the abolition (or transcendence) of Man. 

It uses Men impersonally; and when each experiment is finished, casts them aside onto the 'scrap heap' (implied to be annihilation of the self, along with the body). 

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

(From the preface to Man and Superman - Shaw speaking as himself.)

The morality that Shaw proposes is one in which Men willingly serve the Life Force, and willingly sacrifice themselves in the quest for The Superman.

What has happened to The Superman in the 21st century? Has he disappeared from culture? 

No. Instead he has been down-graded into Transhumanism. 

Instead of a qualitatively superior man, perhaps a Man of higher and more spiritual consciousness; one who will discern and lead us to a better society; Transhumanism has reduced The Superman's capabilities to the level of emotions. 

Transhumanism starts with the feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances; and takes seriously his complaints that the world will not devote itself to making him happy - and Transhumanism envisages exactly a world that is genuinely devoted to making the 'selfish little clod' perfectly happy!

Transhumanism envisages a world without suffering, and consisting entirely of varieties of gratification; and this is to be attained by material means such as drug usage and other therapies; and genetic engineering (which replaces Shaw's hope for selective breeding). 

Transhumanism dispenses with all residues of the spiritual, all deistic concepts of a universe tending towards higher consciousness; and instead aims at an eternal life attained by the abolition of sickness and ageing - aiming at the defeat of entropy by correcting random error and outpacing degeneration with repair. 

The Superman of Transhumanism is at the opposite pole from Nietzsche's hero of action and self-expression, or from Shaw's Man of higher morality who embraces his own destruction in pursuit of abstract perfection of contemplation - instead there is envisaged a passive 'consumer of emotions' (implicitly being protected and sustained by an uncorrupt and well-motivated, all powerful ruling elite).

What matters to Transhumanism is how the world seems, not how the world is.  

**

Well, such are the terminal destinations of reflection on the Human Condition, when "anything but Christianity" is the baseline assumption. 

The pity of it, is that great creative intelligences such as Nietzsche and Shaw did not turn their abilities and motivations onto Christianity itself. 

Such thinkers deployed a double standard against Christianity. About anything except Christianity they would expend great effort, over long periods, to wrestle with concepts and ideologies in pursuit of the Good Life. 

They would think and debate endlessly over what 'socialism' really was, what was its essence - and what it ought to be; but the reality of Christianity was accepted secondhand, as a pre-packaged parcel - with barely a second thought. 

When it came to Christianity; Shaw and many others simply accepted that the proper and necessary definition and conceptualization was... pretty-much whatever stories they were told in their childhood; or whatever the worst of pseudo-Christian hypocrites did rather than said. 

So whereas other ideas were understood in terms of their potential, or ideal attributes; Christianity was judged by the worst of its worldly corruptions. 

Whereas everything-except-Christianity was approached as a core creative project; Christianity was regarded as something fixed and already-defined. 

This tendency was reinforced by the fact that defenders of Christianity - such as Shaw's great friend GK Chesterton - regarded Christianity in the same way; that is, the understood Christianity as something eternally unchangeable in its nature. 

Something beyond human creativity. 

Something, moreover, about which the creative genius had to defer to history, tradition and (above all) The Church (whichever church that might be, for present purposes).

The genius grappling with Christianity could therefore go so-far - and no further. Only in Christianity was the genius trammeled. 

Thus Christianity was - and remained - what it was and untouchable; and creative geniuses should look elsewhere when they strove to understand and re-describe reality. 

  

This meant that very few of the great geniuses-of-ideas in modern times were Christians. There was no scope for them in Christianity. 

They were confronted with a "take it or leave it" attitude about Church-Christianity - one that implied Men of the past had got-it-right in all essentials, and any dissent was necessarily error and Not Christianity. 

Yet genius is predicated on the assumption that achievement is not constrained by what is; and that no matter what the quality and eminence of past Men was or may have been; there is always the possibility of creative breakthrough for one whose motivations are true, and to the extent that these motivations are true.  

If Nietzsche, Shaw, and the modern Transhumanists would have expended a tithe of their efforts on grappling fundamentally with Christianity, in understanding What It Is experientially (each for himself and from himself); in the deepest and most sustained way of which they are capable...

Well, the history of the world would have been very different - and probably much better.