The Norman Conquest all over again (but this time Sorathic and global)

JRRT pondering what to do about the Normans...

Long term readers may know that - like JRR Tolkien - I have a pretty strong loathing of The Normans and their conquest of Anglo Saxon England (and, then Britain)!

The motivations of the Norman Conquest, and the new ruling class, were a very horrible mixture of sheer exploitation, vindictiveness and a pridefulness that went so deep as to regard their subject native Saxons as lower beings - of lower value than animals (especially horses!). 

Nearly all of the the monarchs for about three hundred years regarded England as just a playground for their obsession with hunting, and the people as a kind of vermin to be kept crushed (under "the yoke" - only partly necessary for growing a bit of food, and providing henchmen for their favourite sport of inter-Norman war. 

We didn't get a 'good King' - who exhibited a love of the well-being of his subjects, who saw himself as father of the nation - for many generations. Probably, we had to wait until Queen Elizabeth I, before we had such a monarch - one who embodied the national spirit; and 1558 was a looong time after 1066.  

Of course the Normans were very talented at fighting and building; and were more intelligent than the Saxon masses - especially after they had killed or exiled nearly-all the Saxon ruling class and priests. 

But they were so selfish and short-termist, and so lethally thieved and fought among themselves (on and on - the Game of Thrones was 'everyday life in Norman times'); that the once prosperous and delightful Island of Britain was kept-down and held-back for many centuries - at least until Henry VII (1457).

And even then was soon diverted into the typically Norman chaos (Henry VIII etc) and aggressive ventures of Empire (especially from Queen Anne 1665, although she counts as a 'good' queen). The (Norman) British Empire has, since 2020, been transformed into the current global totalitarian System.

Now; everybody is under The Norman Yoke+...   

So, the Normans are still with us and still the same as ever (i.e. servants of evil) - still lineally (genetically) present at high levels among the ruling class; still behaving like the snake-eyed, soulless, demon-loving psychopaths They are; and still crushing the majority whom They loathe. 

But this time the Normans are even worse; because They have gone-further in evil than their pleasure seeking and crushingly-bureaucratic past selves.

Now They have embraced the newly dominant Sorathic form of 'chaotic evil': an evil that sheerly and spite-fully delights in the destruction of Good and the divine creation - merely for the sake of destruction. 

Destruction, this time around, not excused by Their own pleasure, not even for increasing Their own power and control; but merely because They Hate God.   

This is, however, the destiny of the English - and indeed the Scots, Welsh, and at times the Irish; perhaps now the destiny of the world: 

Our destiny to live with the recurring question of how to deal with The Normans? 

How to respond to Them, how to live better than They do by higher and divine goals; in despite of the whole apparatus of state-and-church aiming to persuade, terrify and coerce us into ever deeper evil. 

It is well to remember that this mortal life is not meant to be only pleasant - indeed, since we are ruled by entropy, it cannot be thus. 

Our life is (instead) a matter of learning from experiences - and the Normans continue (now on a global scale) to provide us (but now the whole planet!) with extreme and stark experiences - from-which we ought to be learning, in preparation for the world to come... 

That is, a world where the Norman problem will not exist! - because only those who will commit eternally to live by love, will want (or be able) to enter Heaven. 

The offer is open to the Normans, as to everybody else; but it seems unlikely that many of Them will want to avail themselves of it; so deeply are They in servitude to evil.

But those Normans who do choose resurrection, in despite of their spiritual-lineage and prior choices; may well turn-out to be among the best of all Men...  

One man's reaction to The Norman Yoke

+ Note: There is an excellent description of the truth behind the Norman Yoke 'myth' at the start of Michael Woods' In Search of England (1999) - which is itself a mostly-excellent book; marred only by some incoherent, politically-correct evil-nonsense at the very end. 

Ethelred the Unready and the Norman Great-Reset

Yesterday, I watched Michael Wood's excellent 1981 documentary on Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred ("the Unready"; 966-1016); which crystallized a (more-than-) analogy between the imposition of "the Norman Yoke" on England from 1066. 

Ethelred was a disastrously bad king. His posthumous and punning epithet "unready" actually translates to something like badly-counseled, with connotations of one who made many foolish, or even wicked, decisions; one of which was to simultaneously impoverish England and strengthen the Danish pirates, by truly enormous payments of Danegeld over many years (rather than organize, and fight the invaders)*.

Ethelred had inherited from illustrious ancestors, such as Alfred and Athelstan, an English Empire (i.e. of the Saxon Kingdoms such as Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria), which Wood describes as the wealthiest and most prestigious Kingship in Europe. 

By Ethelred's death, the English nation had been substantially disunited and demoralized by decades of helpless rapine under rule of a spiteful, moody, feckless and cowardly king; and made vulnerable to the Norman conquest a couple of generations later.  

Something I did not fully appreciate until relatively recently, was the way in which the Normans not only tyrannized England; but killed a very large proportion of its people (directly and indirectly), and destroyed its wealth. After William I; it took centuries before England was again wealthy, prosperous, and with her own high culture. 

As I have written before; the Normans were motivated by an elitist disdain of the Anglo-Saxons, who were treated as pressed soldiers, servants and slaves at best; but were exiled, starved and killed in such numbers as severely to weaken the country. 

Much of the North was reduced to depopulated desert, and the rich agricultural lands of the South was converted to semi-wild Forests; exclusively dedicated to the hunting-related recreations of the Norman Masters. 

 

In this respect, as well as in ancestry, the Norman rule resembled the rapacious and destructive piracy of the worst of their Viking ancestors. And resembled too the attitudes and behaviours of the modern alien-cosmopolitan Establishment (many of whom have, and are overweeningly proud of, Norman ancestry). 

When these alien pirates became England's kings and aristocrats; their twin priorities were absolute power on the one hand - with a network of garrisoned castles as the symbol; and on the other hand a short-termist, selfish, and pleasure-seeking attitude to the country and its people - which they regarded as booty of war.  

Their Norman's 'problem', as usually happens with successful pirates, was squabbling over the loot. So that the country was rapidly and repeatedly riven by civil wars; motivated by the selfish power-seeking of the outsider-Lords; and which kept on killing people and dissipating England's innate economic advantages for generation after generation - for no better reason than the choice of whether to be oppressed by Norman de Tweedledum or Norman de Tweedledee...     

The Great-Reset intends a strikingly-analogous economic destruction, depopulation - and conversion of the world (or, as much as possible) to wasteland and recreational territory intended for their exclusive use.

The modern excuses for this evil, selfish and net-destructive power/ pleasure grab are different and dishonest compared with the past: the Normans did not need or bother to justify their deliberate and strategic destruction of farming and industry, with agriculture repurposing to exclusively-accessed wilderness and forests in huge estates which the Establishment own, by anything equivalent to the modern elite's pseudo-environmentalism. 

The Normans killed and starved the peasantry because they wanted-to and could, and because they regarded Saxons as inferior beings. 

But our modern-Norman's pretend to be promoting 'global' public health, defending 'democracy', and preventing 'climate change' by doing so.     

As in Norman times, the problem - but now over most of the world - is an alien and evil-motivated elite; who care nothing for the nations or the people they rule and administer; which they manipulate and torment. 

Indeed the modern-Normans loathe all nations and peoples, as obstacles blocking them from their proximate and insatiable desire for ever-more power and loot. 

Yet our modern, alien elites are far worse even than the Normans of England - not just in their scale and wealth; but because they are more advanced in their evil - and desire destruction for its own sake, rather than as a means to the ends of power and loot. 

Our modern-Normans would make chaos everywhere, and pull-down the whole civilized world around themselves - even if it makes their own lives less pleasurable, and breaks their own structures of power. 

But merely in order to demonstrate to themselves their own superiority; to enjoy their own callously-sadistic indifference to the planet and all creatures and plants on it. 

Because the modern-Normans do not any more serve their own appetites; but serve a master who is of-spirit and not dependent on the material for survival; and who loathes all of God's creation - including, of course, his gullible and blinkered Norman servants. 

  

*Note: Indeed; it is the many tens of thousands of silver coins with which the Danegeld was paid, time and again; that provides perhaps the most direct evidence of the pre-existing wealth of Etheldred's England. 

What have the Normans ever done for us?

The Norman invasion was the greatest catastophe in the history of England (and of the British Isles); because the Normans (for all their higher intelligence and talents e.g. as warriors, administrators, architects) were basically evil. As a ruling class, and in stark contrast to the Anglo Saxons and Celts; the Normans and their legacy have been unspiritual in nature, hostile to real Christianity.

Even nowadays, it can be seen (in the eyes) and felt (by the heart) that the Norman descendents and those assimilated to them have 'something missing', are lacking in 'soul'. I would regard this as related to their service to evil. Face-to-face, they are not fully human; although often good at pretending.  

Yet, starting from this insight, we can ask why this was 'allowed to happen'. Terry Boardman argues throughought his work that - yes, the Normans were evil, and also they set-up an ultimately beneficial interaction.

This mortal world is not meant to be a paradise of ease and comfort and pleasure - but is designed as a place of learning from experience; aimed at attaining and benefitting our eternal resurrected life.

Thus evil is not just tolerated, but may be deployed for optimal benefit (within necessary constraints of human agency) - and something of the kind happened with the Normans. (Note: The 'process' actually occurs primarily at an individual level, not by groups; and every individual is a mix of good and evil - even though they will serve one side or the other, overeall. Clearly some individual Normans have repented, been on the side of Good, and spiritually beneficial.)

The Norman ruling class provided skills and perspective; a challenge which the English spirit could grow-against; and that led to England becoming a world power and achieving the world-transforming industrial revolution - and at the spiritual level bringing-forth the 'consciousness soul', with its separation of subjectivity from objectivity: this providing the ultimate basis of spiritual freedom (a necessary step towards greater divinity).

But for the English to go beyond the consciousness soul and on towards the destined Final Participation required that the English spirit overcome the Norman - and this has not (or not yet) happened. The Norman-derived English Establishment have instead (pretty much) ideologically taken-over the world (US, UN, EU), and are well-advanced in imposing their long term goal of totalitarian materialism in service of their evil masters.

So, the Normans have done a great deal for us in a spiritual sense, but that good now lies more than two centuries in the past; and it is by now long overdue that the English spirit resisted their long-term idological colonisation; and overcame their corrupt-and-corrupting rulers.

What we need to do is the same whether or not you agree-with or understand the above analysis; but it is helpful to know your real enemy, esepcially when they are so powerful and influential - and therefore avoid mistaking your enemies for your allies.

Lion, Crown, St George - Bad (because Norman) symbols of England

Richard I - rapacious absentee landlord of England, in-himself epitomising nearly-all that is alien about Normanised English symbolism

For about a thousand years, England has been a nation under occupation by a hostile and alien ruling class: the Normans. 

Well... to be clear, this statement is somewhat of an exaggeration! - but it has a solid core of truth, as Tolkien attested, among others. 

Evidence can be seen from several of the the Symbols of England - which are as alien (hence spiritually hostile) as those who imposed them. 

Most countries symbolic animal, is one which actually lives in that country; but England is stuck with a foreign-dwelling creature: a Lion. At best the Lion is a symbol of Empire, not nation - but Empire was an alien project, and the near death of England... So there you have it. 

The Crown - which features all over the place as a symbol, including (alongside the Lion) the sports teams - is of course The symbol par excellence of secular and top-down imposed alien power - of Us under the yoke of Them. 

And then there is St George; a pseudo-Saint from the Middle East, wished upon England by the usual Normans in consequence of their usual Norman warrings*, in their usual Norman pursuit of overseas Empire (since Normans prefer almost anywhere else to England, and almost any other people to the English). 

The Norman-backed "George" then coercively displaced our home-grown Anglo-Saxon Saint Edmund the martyr.

Of course there are some real - albeit inevitably somewhat Norman-co-opted! - English symbols - oak tree, rose, Stonehenge, the flat cap...

But even the primary English folk hero of medieval times, Robin Hood, was distorted into being an exiled Norman aristocrat, and make to work on behalf of a disastrously-typical Norman monarch:

i.e. Richard I - Crowned King of England, "Lion" hearted, and the originator of St George's cult.        

*Normans excelled at two main things: fighting and architecture. However, they had a short-termist psychopathic tendency, so they lacked the capacity for loyalty - even among themselves. Consequently, they spent most of their time fighting each other (and forcing everybody else into it). It was not until after four centuries, when the Barons had exhausted themselves in the War of the Roses, that a monarch with administrative genius (Henry VII)  managed to impose himself on the other Normans... But after just a generation (Henry VIII) the Normans were despoiling and killing each other again; only this time it was so one-sided in favour of the Norman King as against the Norman Abbots, Priors, and Heads of Religious Orders; that the process and outcome resembled unbridled rapine and pseudo-legal execution, instead of the usual civil war.   

The nature of "the Normans": Binge-watching/ listening to John Le Carre adaptations

My spontaneous aversion to England's Norman ruling class goes back a long way; and used to be so strong (in some respects) that until last week I had never been able to get myself to read (or watch an adaptation of) John Le Carre's famously excellent Cold War spy stories; often concerning the classic fictional character of George Smiley - and taking place in the world of the Normans.   

Having found the 1965 movie of The spy who came in from the cold to be thought-provoking and resonant; I then watched another movie, and the BBC TV series of Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People - starring Alec Guinness; and also listened to some more radio play adaptations. A real binge...

I enjoyed a lot about these works, and have found myself stimulated in several directions. 

Yet at bottom I find the whole atmosphere of the social world depicted as alien. I dislike all of the characters - even Smiley -  who all seem to have blunted humanity and zero metaphysical depth. I've had enough for now!

Even the undeniable courage of these Normans, seems to be tainted with a suspicion that it comes from insensibility combined with sensation-seeking (e.g. through sex, drink, violence, sadism, self-humiliation, infighting, betrayal, snobbery etc - anything that rings your bell, to pass the time). 

Underpinning which is a weird sense of Norman tribalism - rooted in their assumed superiority to laws and rules intended for the little people - that destroys any possibility of genuine justice: and indeed any possibility of being personally affiliated to the cause of Good.  

(This combination is seen very early in Norman-English history, for example The Anarchy.)  

In other words; Le Carre's world (at least in these versions) is nihilistic and futile, and is inhabited by men and women who strike me as nihilistic at their very core. 

I assume this reflects Le Carre's own (considerable) strengths, and limitations, as a Man. In an interview I watched he was extremely intelligent, insightful and interesting - yet underneath I sensed... nothing. 

What I am talking about is something missing - something human that is missing*. 

It's as if, for Normans life is a game - but nothing more than a game. The game is arbitrary (war, seduction, snobbery, diplomacy, sport, literature, careerism - it doesn't matter) - but the game has neither meaning nor purpose; because for Normans there is none to be had. 

Each Norman plays a part, tries to play it well (or, at least, to sabotage the others) because that is the best way to fill-in time - but it is nothing more than a part which is played; and ultimately the game doesn't really matter, because nothing ultimately matters... 

*I assume that this deficiency, and the consequent blankness, is what David Icke et al are getting at when they call these people (and some other social groups as well - Normans are not the only ones) reptilians, lizard-people, or actual extra-terrestrials. I would assume, rather, that it is some mixture of an innate deficiency in the capacity for love; with varying degrees of demonic influence and control. 

"Resenting-the-resenter" - a disguised manifestation of the master sin of modernity

I have often harped-on about the sin of "resentment" - because of two reasons: first, it is seldom regarded as a sin, often considered a virtue; and second that it is the master sin of leftism - which is the basis both of the "Ahrimanic" materialist-totalitarian impulse, and of its now succeeding "Sorathic" motivation of spiteful destructiveness and each-against-all chaos. 

Perhaps the major socio-political movement of the past couple of hundred years has been the creation of ever-more resentment groups: examples include the working class, particular nations, women, non-white races, non-Christian religions, and any sex and sexuality other than married families or celibacy. 

Such groups are formed by their resentment, and are joined-with other resentment groups by the mutuality of their sin. 

There is a resentment-group for everybody now - including the richest, most powerful, and famous people in the world. Indeed, one of the twists of resentment is that it often presents in terms of resentment "on behalf of others".

This has always been a feature of resentment-rooted politics. The ruling class always made-up a majority of influential and powerful communists. Feminist men likewise. And resentment "on behalf of" other races and religions is a veritable industry. 

Resentment-on-behalf-of also disguises personal resentments - which, although covert, may be the true and most powerful motivator. 

  

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of resentment is that it is seldom acknowledged - either to others, or even to oneself; and whatever is unacknowledged cannot be repented.

Much of this is to do with the fact that whoever or whatever is resented always - in a false but often compelling sense - "deserves it"; so the resentment can be disguised as "simply the facts". 

Furthermore, resentment appears under the guise of "resenting-the-resenter"...

Resenting-the-resenter means that I resent some person or group, on the basis that they resent me.

(And therefore are trying to harm me).

The fact that their resentment against me may well be true, is used to disguise the fact that I have myself developed a sinful and motivating resentment. 

(And whatever is unacknowledged cannot be repented.)

What needs to be borne in mind, is that resentment is a sin because of the harm it does to the resenter; therefore resentment is always wrong - and therefore wrong no matter how apparently "factually based" it really is. 

In other words, the facts are nothing at all to do with the sin - except in providing a fake excuse, a false and irrelevant "justification", for not repenting it. 

That is: a person or group may really and truly be dedicated to harming others - but it is still and always a sin to develop an attitude of resentment towards him or them. 

Because the sin harm us - whatever it may or may not do to others. 

Take a (semi-humorous) example from this blog. I often indulge in rants against The Normans. 

I genuinely believe that The Normans are a problem, that they are constitutionally lacking in empathy, and have caused and still cause a great deal of harm to many people in may places (not just in the UK and Ireland). 

I also believe that modern Normans are strongly motivated by resentment - especially against the native English people. 

Those may be regarded as The Facts (from my point of view), and they have various real world implications for choices and actions. But at times I confess that I have fallen into resentment against The Normans... 

Now; I need to be able to recognize when this has happened - I need to recognize when I am actually resenting The Normans. 

Because this always needs to be acknowledged and repented - because otherwise I am doubling-down on a sin.  

 

Nobody "deserves" to be resented - no matter what they have do or want to do - because resentment is not about Them but about Us. 

"Deserving" has precisely nothing to do with it. 

It is a favourite (and highly effective) ploy of Satan to win adherents in the spiritual war of this world; by the false conception of "justified resentment" against his agents. He encourages a resenter; and that resenter then creates further resentment. 

Thus Satan gains supporters on both sides - because both sides are in fact unrepenting sinners, and thus (in truth) are affiliated to Satan. 

My take-home message (to myself as well as others) is simply that: All resentment is un-justified.

Tolkien and the Norman Conquest

From The JRR Tolkien Companion and Guide by C Scull & WG Hammond, page 251:

"Tolkien's antagonism to France, the French and the French language was due, in large part, to his regret that English culture was dislocated and nearly destroyed following the conquest of England by French-speaking Normans in 1066."

*

Comment:

I feel pretty much the same about 1066 as does Tolkien - the worst of the axe blows at the spiritual roots of England.

Probably the second worst was the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry XIII - I didn't really appreciate the gravity of this until I reas EK Chambers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._K._Chambers) biography of Thomas More.

(And this was a book I read about in the above cited Tolkien Companion and Guide - Chambers was a friend of Tolkien's, and a fellow Roman Catholic).

The Cromwell revolution was another axe blow to England's spirit; and the 1914-18 and 1939-45 world wars were two more - mainly because of the huge kill-off and destruction of the cream of young men (especially in the 14-18 war).

*

I watched the first episode of a recent BBC TV programme about the Normans, which programme was very well done, but which I found almost painful to contemplate.

My conclusion? The Normans'... (ahem)... efficiency, was certainly very impressive. They were great (and fortunate) conquerers and highly effective at ruling.

And on the aesthetic side, they built my favourite building in the world - Durham cathedral.

And yet, and yet...

Arthur, Merlin or Robin Hood: the greatest British Folk Hero? And Guinevere...

As a kid, I would have said Robin Hood - for sure. 

This was almost entirely because of the "lifestyle" aspect - I liked the idea of living in the woods, and off the woods, with a gang of my friends: tracking, bows and arrows, camouflaged clothes etc. And Robin Hood was without doubt the premier English folk hero, through the middle ages and up until the past couple of generations. If Robin has a real-life origin, he is English. 

Nowadays, it is Merlin - for sure. But he is not really an English folk hero - being a combination of the Scottish Lailoken and the Welsh Myrddin - with (I believe) the Scottish Lailoken being the historical person (and having nothing to do with the historical Arthur, Lailoken being born two or three generations after the Celtic general). 

Arthur has always been there, but was never first in my interest - indeed I found him a rather lacklustre person (in some versions) or a mere warrior (in other versions) - and not even the best warrior, either. 

The historical Arthur is "British" - i.e. from the time of Celtic England and Wales - but when Scotland was distinct, mostly Pictish. 

The later Arthur is "Norman" - or, more exactly, a product of the Franco-English Plantagenet dynasty; and thus concerned with validating and mythologizing their aristocratic obsessions with cavalry, adultery and celibacy. 

This is why the chivalric knight hero Arthur has tended to be a favourite of the upper classes, while Robin was the people's hero; and Merlin became the collective archetype of the great seer/ prophet/ magician/ sorcerer/ wizard - therefore something of a link between the Celts, English, Scots, and Normans.

Guinevere - who has never had much of an heroic status, except in the most superficial treatments - has always struck me as even more lacklustre and uninteresting than Arthur. But in marrying Arthur she can be regarded as another linking figure; between the Ancient British Celts of Cornwall, and the Anglo-French Normans - the failure of that marriage is the spiritual failure of the project of Britain. 

Guinevere is a sterile (childless) beauty, who never does much except get abducted and (apparently) falls in and out of "love" with various suitors (especially Lancelot). This hints towards a recent idea (elaborated by Wendy Berg - in Red Tree, White Tree) is that Guinevere is a fairy - and thus a link (or intended to be a union) between the world of Men and Fays. That is why she is fascinating but sterile, and so passive - she is unsuited to the human world. 

Also why Guinevere keep getting abducted by various (disguised) fairies who are her relatives and suitors from faery, trying to get her back. 

But the Anglo-Norman Chivalric Arthur was challenged in my childhood by a more historical Arthur; as the warlord-leader of the Roman-British Christians against the pagan, savage, barbaric Saxon invaders.  This Arthur was propagated widely, via scholarship initially, and later (but not much later!) by romantic fiction, TV, movies etc. 

For may people, this "peoples' hero Arthur" has largely displaced both the Knights and Damsels Arthur; and also Robin Hood; and absorbed Merlin as a kind of druidic figure. 

Arthur is the new Robin!...

Thus the national mythology continued to develop and evolve; even in late 20th century (maybe into the 21st century?) Britain. 

The dangerous delusion of 'physicsy' spirituality

The idea, now so ingrained as to be habitual and invisible, of regarding spirituality as a kind of physics - as a 'physicsy'  phenomenon - goes back at least to Pythagoras, and has been evident in the Platonic stream of metaphysics, which still pervades most religions and theological systems; and which was carried-over into New Age thinking. 

I was listening to an audio-lecture by Sir George Trevelyan; who is sometimes regarded as the grandfather of the New Age. On the whole; I find GT a likeable character (despite being a Norman*!): on the right lines and on the right side (he was an unconventional Christian, rooted in Steiner). 

But Trevelyan, like many others of counter-cultural spirituality from the 1960s, was convinced that there was an ongoing spiritual awakening afoot: an irresistible raising of the human spiritual state to unprecedented heights. 

It was possible for them to believe this, I think, for at least two reasons. 

Superficially and immediately because there was a developing spiritual-consumer subculture which meant that there was an increasing audience and market for 'Mind, Body and Spirit' books, in which spirituality became assimilated to psychological self-help, feel-good, positive-thinking ideas. 

There was significant, and expanding, mass media coverage; and some official recognition from the bureaucracies. 

This meant that professional New Agers could increasingly make a living and make a name; including securing publication; attracting patronage, grants and subsidies; and also getting a viable audience for lectures, therapy, workshops and merchandise.  

More deeply, it seemed possible that there might be a planetary spiritual awakening because the New Age metaphorical structure of spirituality was one in which individual people were driven by large scale, physics-like powers such as energies, vibrations and frequencies. 

Indeed, reality, including humans, were/ are often described in terms of ultimately being composed of energies, vibrations, frequencies and fields - with our surface appearances and properties as illusory. 

This implied that humans were acted-upon by external influences that could 'raise' their spirituality. Thus a spiritual awakening could be induced by some change and enhancement of the spiritual influences that drove spirituality, consciousness etc. 

Other phsyicsy metaphors were also used; such as a 'rising tide' of consciousness or positive spiritual energy/ vibration/ frequency/ field. And a rising tide implies that all individuals (all 'boats') will be floated, lifted, passively-raised-up...

My main point is that there are ways of talking about spirituality, ways of conceptualizing the causes of spiritual development - whether metaphoric or literal - that almost-irresistibly create a picture of individual human spirituality as primarily passively responsive to large scale influences coming from without the person.  

But this is also the case for many traditional and mainstream religions, including Christianity. For example, there have been, and still are, traditions within Christianity that regard salvation as primarily a group phenomenon; and the Christian life as a 'nation' life - the positive influences being external to the individual - the individual Christian's role being essentially passive: to learn and obey. 

Some discussions of Grace, as the means of salvation, have a strongly physics-like flavour; as if Grace were almost like a space-radiation that bathed the earth, or operated on individual Christians like a field. Thus, Christian revivals are conceptualized in terms of an increased power of Grace coming-down from God, and Christian individuals (around the world) as responding to these enhanced spiritual influence - as if fuelled and energized by increased supplies of Grace. 

It seems to me clear that Christian salvation is (and always has been) primarily a matter between God and each individual Man; but that the individuality of Men has changed through history. 

Men began, in ancient times (just as we began in our own early childhoods) as substantially communal persons - immersed-in the group (especially the family and tribe): in such situations, the individual does not wholly differentiate himself from the group. In such circumstances, spirituality and salvation are substantially groupish, communal - hence externally-determined. 

In such circumstances, physicsy metaphors and concepts are a broadly accurate way of describing the human spiritual condition. Models of spirituality as driven by changes in energy/ vibration/ frequency are pretty accurate as accounts of Man's experience.

 

But as we ourselves grew-up, and as Mankind developed through history; there was an irreversible increase of detachment of the individual from the group, from the social - until now the primary reality is one of 'alienation', and all kids of groupishness and external determination are become ultimately conscious and chosen. 

In different words, modern man is voluntarily-affiliated where ancient Man (and children, still) are unconsciously-immersed. 

And this means that the physics models of spirituality are no longer valid, but instead misleading and indeed spiritually dangerous. 

Because, in a world where individual conscious choice is actually primary, it is harmful to encourage Men to regard themselves as essentially groupish spiritual beings, and to wait passively for spiritual enhancement to come from external sources. 

As the New Agers found out (or would have discovered, had they been honest and rigorous in their discernments, which very few were since they were in fact primarily leftist and politically-motivated; and only secondarily spiritual**): general spiritual enhancement did not happen.

Instead of a better and more spiritual New Age expanding from the 1980s, there has (especially from the millennium) been the opposite - an ever-more-extreme materialism; with a world ever-more-dominated by totalitarian bureaucracy/ mass media propaganda and manipulation. 

Passivity to external influences now means assimilation to evil.  

*Note: I would, on the whole, regard physicsy spirituality as being characteristic of the Normans; who have a strong tendency to abstraction that comes from their basic mind-set, or innate deficit. (i.e. Physics metaphors are abstractions, when applied to individual Men, or to groups.) Norman nature lacks something personal, to do with the capacity for real love; which deficit, on the one hand, drives them into abstraction (as lacking the full capacity for spontaneous 'animistic' thinking); and on the other hand, also makes then adept at abstraction (fuelled, also, by their higher-than-average IQ/ general intelligence). Consequently, and with Normans occupying so many positions of power and influence, abstract and physics-like spirituality gets imposed on the masses; as being, supposedly, The Truth. 

**Further Note. Some influential New Agers still believe (or, at least, assert)  that we are in the midst of a global spiritual awakening; and - due, presumably, to innate and foundational leftism; as well as 'vested interest' - are able to interpret even the birdemic as evidence in favour! This astonishing situation just goes to show that evidence is always subordinate to metaphysical assumptions.         

Robert Graves as an extreme instance of "projection"

I have often written of Robert Graves, because - with GB Shaw - he was the first grow-n-up writer I engaged with after Lord of the Rings had opened the door to adult literature for me. Both Graves and Shaw were recommended by my father; Graves because of I Claudius and my burgeoning interest in history. 

I have - very gradually - come to realize that Graves was almost the opposite of what he claimed to be; but that his claims were believed (by me, and many others) because he was a superb (the word is intended descriptively) non-fictional prose writer. 

Graves claimed to be primarily a poet, a lyrical poet; in opposition to those well-connected and socially-endorsed Apollonian versifiers of intellect and scholarship that Graves contemptuously dissected and vilified in his critical writings. 

But in truth, Graves was not a lyrical poet, and was instead exactly the kind of poet his writings rejected. He was an upper class, academic, uninspired clique "poet" - one of a closed circle of mutual admiration and log-rolling.

Contrary to his own claims; he expended great energy on un-poetic/ anti-poetic activities such as wire-pulling, self-promotion, image-management and the like. He acted a part of an impoverished wild and Celtic bard; yet was actually a wealthy and influential - and hard-working - bohemian Norman; doing exactly the kind of stuff that bohemian Normans had been doing for generations.     

Outside this group of not-poets, none of Graves verses have achieve the spontaneous endorsement and love of those who are a part of the (now extinct, apparently) tradition of English lyrics (i.e. the Palgrave's Golden Treasury tradition) 

Graves has several great qualities - including an unexcelled prose style. In a sense he was a great critic of historical poetry - although his judgement of modern (20th century) poetry was so wrong as to be inverted.

But Graves was fraudulent in his nature; he lived a lie. At one level (although nothing like so deep as he claimed) Graves wanted to be something he was not, a poet; but pretended to be it anyway, and worked to persuade as many others as possible. 

In this respect he resembles Charles Williams - although Williams was lower middle class, not a Norman. Williams wanted to be a poet but wasn't; and expended great energies on literary, critical and educational activity to persuade others to endorse himself as a poet. And yet also, he did not want to be a poet as much as he pretended to himself, because he dissipated most of his time and energy on hack works - apparently undertaken so that he could have extra income for a more self-indulgent lifestyle. 

In sum; Graves was himself exactly the kind of pseudo-poet, fake poet; whose verse is not divinely inspired but instead the consequence of scholarship and intelligence; skeletal structures decorated with borrowed or stolen plumage taken from real poets.  

Graves's critical strictures were therefore projection; he publicly excoriated in others his own unacknowledged faults, deficiencies. And by this means Graves concealed from himself (?) and others  - his own innate nature, origins, workings, status, and stature.  

Graves's great advantage over his fellow not-real-poets came from his prose non-fiction - works such as The White Goddess, his brilliant and calculatedly-dishonest autobiography Goodbye to All That, or his critical lectures and essays such as The Common Asphodel. 

Critical and historical prose by which Graves created a mythology of which he was arbiter, and by which he was defined as a true muse-poet. 

It is, apparently, all there, all explained, all in-place... except for some actual real poems!

**

The lesson I draw from this is general. It is, I think, easy to be misled by propaganda, including self-propaganda; and especially when it emanates from a ruling class who control so much of the social institutions, and whose members often operate in mutually reinforcing cliques and factions. This misleading can go even so far as inversion: such that what is supposed is the opposite of what is actual. 

A supposedly beautiful person, building, or piece of music may actually be soulless ugliness; an alleged truth-breakthrough of science or medicine may actually be a tissue of invention and calculated;  distortion; a promoted pattern of virtue in a person (or institution) may be actual evil of a very extreme kind.  

And such inversions are often achieved by implication and projection; by such double-negations. Those who are most self-consciously the opposite of Good, have insider knowledge of the workings of that which opposes good; and can therefore provide convincingly detailed analyses of the projected evils of their enemies.

Political leaders, for instance; very often do in actuality precisely those things that they vocally and theoretically eschew; and absolutely do not do anything effective to deter or suppress those phenomena they rhetorically oppose. 

This is why it is so often observed that those active in charities against specific abuses; often themselves engage in exactly these abuses - and indeed use the organization and resources of their charities the better to prosecute these vices. 

In such a world as we now inhabit, this phenomenon of projection is very general in the high status officialdom and media; to the point almost of universality. 

Consequently, it is vital to look behind the rhetoric; to observe what is actually done (and not done) and consciously to deploy our innate capacity of intuitive inference. 

The causes of gratuitous wars

It is fascinating (as well as alarming) to see the British political system, bureaucracy and mass media; combining forces to justify and escalate full war on behalf of a remote and disconnected not-ally - including explicit and repeated demands for re-armament, a war economy, and mass military conscription (something not seen here for some 70 years). 

The same is happening over most of Europe. 

And this has been building-up for nearly two decades; by lies upon lies gradually building-up the image of a necessary cartoon super-villain that "must" be fought - or else we shall all be doomed...

(Or rather, even more doomed than we already are by the nakedly evil plans of our national rulers.) 

There have been many gratuitous wars throughout history. One of the most famous is that described in Shakespeare's Henry V; which is depicted as having been due to an insulting gift of tennis balls! 

Much more likely, the war was proximately due to the multi-generational yearning of England's usurping Norman Kings to rule in their native France - a country they have always (and still do) prefer to what they regard as the uncouth English. 

The tennis ball incident was just an excuse to "justify" something Henry wanted to do - like happened again in WWI and WWII, with their pseudo-altruistic (but not actually done) excuses of saving Belgium, and Poland. 

Plus that the Normans were addicted to war as the supreme form of sport (and they were usually very good at it). 

That kind of motivation doesn't really persist in the West, now; yet the current leadership class of the UK and Europe are very keen to engage their nations in all-out gratuitous war. 

There are similarities between past European wars and this current one; but also there are enormous differences. 

One difference is that current national and regional leaders altogether lack the personal prowess, courage and decisiveness of an heroic character like Henry V. They are, indeed, both pathetic and despicable individuals - and collectively. 

The leadership class has for decades been marinated in a cultural soup of pacifism and suicidal altruism. 

Also the mass populations of the West nowadays are (to put it mildly!) not longer trained for war (no compulsory longbow practice! The military have low status, and do not appear in public in uniforms.) - and have been thoroughly demoralized by atheism, materialism and cultural destruction. 

The Western masses are by now docile, distracted, self-destructive - utterly repelled by the idea of war insofar as they even think about it (which is very little).   

Yet, as so often; the "justification" for such a war is gratuitous, profoundly unnecessary, without any possibility of average-overall national benefit; therefore the "need" for war must be built on long-term, systematic deception and untruthfulness - and lying misrepresentation of the actual purposes. 

What interests me is the different motivations that seem to be operating at different levels of The System. 

At the lower and middle levels (the managerial and intellectual classes); the push for war seems to be just another manifestation of their system of incentives - such people behave in ways that they believe will provide them with the greatest prosperity, security, and status among their kind.

When The System is set-up such that supporting war is advantageous to such persons, they will support war - in the usual way that they "support" any other System-priority such as sustainability, antiracism, "equality"; that is to say; they approve and develop and inhabit bureaucratic structures and processes; which are supposedly directed towards that end.   

At a higher level - say, that of national leadership of large institutions, organizations, corporations - there is need for individuals who will actively construct false narratives, suppress truths, engage in multiple immoral and illegal activities; so at this level the motivations need to be cruder, more personally corrupting, more consciously sinful. 

These middle-leadership-level people need (at some level of awareness) to give their allegiance, or at least their obedience, to the strategies of evil purpose. 

This is why we can observe their personal corruption; their strange emotions and reactions, their snake eyes or zombie eyes - all evidencing that they have-been through some kind of shock-and-awe, brain-washing, blackmailing, or spirit-breaking - that guarantees their allegiance. 

For such people; engineering gratuitous war is just "politics as usual". Plus, war has a direct personal appeal of providing for greater opportunities for power-grabbing, abuses with impunity, enacting revenges and torments, self-enrichment and self-gratification - and suchlike abuses, which are always made easier by war. 

Beyond this level of societal control and war-mongering, I am not aware of the identities of human personnel involved; and the spiritual powers (demons) become dominant. 

And because these are unembodied spirits, their motivations are different from those of humans. 

These spirits with direct affiliation to the side of evil are primarily engaged in a spiritual war. 

The realities of spiritual warfare are strategically focused on the damnation of Men in accordance with the motivation of their leader (i.e. Satan); but also are tactically motivated (more individually, in the shorter term) by a kind of vampirism of spiritual energy - an enjoyment in feeding-off the evils of the human condition, and from the destruction of souls.  

At this highest and more strategic level; the purpose of war is very different from that of national leaders. 

For instance; the strategists ideal is a war that is unwinnable, interminable, and constantly escalating into greater extremes of mutual destruction, resentment, lying - and despair. 

Such a war would be intended grow to include as many as possible of the national leadership class who engineered it; as well as the managerial/ intellectual class who justified it to the masses. 

Indeed these bureaucrats of war (i.e. the national institutional leaders etc.) provide greater spiritual energies to vampirize exactly because they have given their souls to evil; than would the unwilling, unenthusiastic, driven-masses who would experience the greatest sufferings and casualties.  

 

John Fitzgerald's essay Resistance and Renewal

On his blog Deep Britain and Ireland, John Fitzgerald has a written version of a talk he presented a few days ago to a small gathering that was partly inspired by the Albion Awakening blog (currently dormant) which was a joint venture of myself, John and William Wildblood. Also present were Terry Boardman and Andy Thomas, whose work has featured here.

(Unfortununately, I couldn't be present because my chronic health problems prevented the necessary travelling to the far end of England.)

This essay is a major piece of work, and deserves full attention. I recommend copying, pasting and printing-out a version - as I did.

Here is a taster from the concluding section towards the end, which I hope will inspire you to read it:

Christ tells us in the Gospel that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed then we can move mountains. Faith is the most important element of all - far more than any head-based strategising or planning. It's difficult, because the anti-religious, anti-traditional currents of contemporary life claim the opposite, but we have to believe in ourselves, in each other, and in our country. All three levels - the personal, the communitarian, and that of the country or homeland - were conceived in the mind of God and have a divinely-imprinted destiny to fulfil.

Countries are real. They are living, concrete entities, not abstractions or so-called 'imagined communities'. Lewis shows us this brilliantly at the end of the final Narnia story The Last Battle, where, from the vantage point of eternity, we see all the countries in all the worlds - including England, including Narnia - jutting like spurs from the mountains of Aslan's country, shining like jewels, more solid and real than we ever perceived them down here in the Shadowlands.

Each country has its own inner essence - its charism, its individual gift - which needs, for the good of the whole world, to be drawn out and championed. As Ransom puts it, 'When Logres really dominates Britain, when the goddess reason, the divine clearness, is really enthroned in France, when the order of Heaven is really followed in China - why, then it will be spring.'

The Imagination - with a capital 'I' - is what we're especially blessed with in Albion, I feel. We see it in William Blake, of course, in Shakespeare, Milton, and Traherne, and, in more modern times, poets such as Kathleen Raine, George Mackay Brown, Edwin Muir, and David Jones. Tolkien, Williams and Lewis, as is well-known, conveyed profound Christian truth through the media of poetry and story. How right Williams was then, to portray Logres as the eyes - the visionary hub - of his reimagined Byzantine Empire.

Imagination, however, is not exciusively or primarily concerned with the writing of novels and poems. These are the fruits of our Imaginative labour but they are not its most essential aspects. What is absolutely key is the ability to see through and beyond the Sturm und Drang of daily political and social life and dig down deep to what is truly real. This is just what Ransom does in That Hideous Strength. To MacPhee's annoyance, he doesn't react to the grubby power-plays of the NICE. He doesn't launch a raid on their premises or expose them to the government or call in help from overseas. He refuses to be drawn. He declines to play the game on this tactical, newspaper-headline level. He knows that he is engaged in a spiritual conflict and that the real war goes on in Heaven. He waits, therefore. He watches and prays. He sits at the Lord's feet with Mary, while Martha (MacPhee) complains. Like Taliessin in Mount Badon, he sinks into contemplation and receives the help he needs from planetary angels who operate at a level far above that of the parry and counter-parry of political strife.

The problem, as I see it, is that all these figures - poets, novelists, fictional characters, ourselves too - have been swimming against the tide for a long time now; since 1066, in fact. My contention is that King Harold's death at Hastings was the moment when this country lost its spiritual bearings, and this turning away from the Good has become increasingly pronounced ever since. The Normans brought an expansionist mentality with them and a certain rapaciousness, which had previously been absent in England's ruling class. However noble - jumping forward a few centuries now - the motives behind the Reformation and the challenge to Charles I's authority might have been, the net result, in my view, was to encourage and exacerbate this mindset, flinging open the door to that mercantilism, industrialism, and mechanistic thinking, which Blake railed so mightily against and with which we continue to contend with today.

It hasn't always been this way though. In the last few hundred years before Christ, as Blake well knew, Britain, through the strength and influence of the Druids, was a centre of great spiritual power, with a reputation for the numinous which stretched far beyond Albion's rocky shore. This age came around again - on a higher, deeper, baptised point of the curve - in the Anglo-Saxon era, after the arrival of St. Augustine at Cantiisburg. The island then became a land of genuine saints and scholars, with monastic founders like St. Aidan, St. Hilda, and St. Cuthbert, and missionaries to Europe such as Willibord of Northumbria, Boniface of Wessex, and Alcuin of York, who became Charlemagne's chief adviser. We had high class historians and writers, St. Bede of Jarrow being the shining example here, who penned the highly influential History of the Church in England, plus artists of the highest calibre, as can be seen, for instance, in the wonderful patterns and pictures of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

King Alfred the Great, after the depredations of the Danish invasions, rebuilt our schools, had old books copied out, rewrote the law, and established excellent relations with the Pope and other European monarchs. His sons, Edward and Athelstan, were warriors and statesmen who created the conditions for political and national unity, while the reign of Edgar the Peaceable (959-975) saw a remarkable reform and revival of monastic life across the country.

This is the best of Britain, I feel. This, deep down, is what we're all about. These are the saints we need to pray to and the sovereigns we should strive to emulate. This is the mentality and worldview to tap into if we are to see the dawn of a third golden age - a synthesis of the previous two - a harmonisation and taking up of Britain's Christian and pre-Christian patrimonies. Lewis, again, shows us the way in That Hideous Strength, where Christ (Maleldil, as he calls Him) stands at the centre of the universe like the Sun, with the old gods - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter - circling around Him in the guise of the planetary angels, working in concert with Him for the transfiguration of our fallen world.

Read the whole thing...

Were William the Conquerer's Norman invaders *much* more intelligent than the Anglo Saxons?

*
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-highly-intelligent-normans.html
*

Who are 'we' English?

I was fortunate enough to have been brought-up on the children's history of England as a moral story - with goodies and baddies interacting to provide a clear, comprehensible and memorable narrative. (The one that was mocked, in a way comprehensible only to informed insiders, in Sellar and Yeatman's humorous book: 1066 and All That.)

In this history there were three-and-a-half main invasions that were clearly moralised in terms of the peoples: the Roman invasion of the Ancient Britons (we did not talk much of 'Celts' at that time); the Anglo-Saxon and Jutes invasion of the Ancient Britons; the Viking/ Dane's half-invasion of the Anglo-Saxons; and the Normans invasion of the Anglo-Saxons.

Among these the 'goodies' were the Ancient Britons both times; and then the Anglo Saxons. The interesting thing is that 'we' were first the Ancient Britons and then, after they had been defeated, 'we' became the Anglo-Saxons.

But this is not modern - the same shift can be seen in the earliest chroniclers of British History from the Saxon times up through into the medieval era - the general stance is that the goodies were the Britons/ Celts and the baddies were the invading Anglo-Saxons, even when written from the Saxon victors (or Nomran occupiers) perspective. The whole Arthurian and Merlin legend, always popular, is based on this implicit assumption.

I think the key to this is that sometimes the moral good is derived from patriotism - so that the resident English (i.e the Ancient Britons get the moral approval when against Romans - despite druidic human sacrifices and the benefits of Roman Civilisation'); but that this aspect is trumped by religion.

Religion trumps patriotism.

So that when there is a Christian versus a Heathen conflict, then the Christian side will always be the goodies. This is why the Ancient Britons were the goodies in the post-Roman conflicts until the Anglo-Saxons became Christian; and why the Christian Anglo-Saxons were goodies against the pagan Vikings (despite that people such as myself - i.e. the blue-eyed - almost certainly descend from the Scandinavians, because that was where the blue-eyed mutation occurred).

When it comes to the final invasion of 1066 - and the Anglo-Saxons versus Norman conflict - we have Christians versus Christians for the first time in our island history.

Therefore, the Saxons are strongly felt to be the goodies, and 'we' are the armies of Harold, defending against the alien William the aggressor and usurper - because when both sides are Christian, 'we' defaults to the resident Anglo-Saxon English, i.e. on patriotic grounds.

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester by Rupert Brooke

Say, is there Beauty yet to find? 

And Certainty? and Quiet kind? 

Deep meadows yet, for to forget 

The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet 

Stands the Church clock at ten to three? 

And is there honey still for tea?

These final lines of Rupert Brooke's 1912 poem are perhaps the most famous, because so yearningly evocative, expressions of Edwardian nostalgia - which seem to foreshadow the terrible losses (and in Brooke's case, death on active service) suffered by the gilded youth of the English upper classes in the 1914-18 War. 

And of all such youth, Brooke was certainly the most gilded! - since he was so perfect an example of the then-ideal of male beauty as to have become the centre of a considerable and worshipping cult (and being English upper class, this was from both sexes). 

All of which does not much endear him to me! Brooke was, indeed, a Norman among Normans...

Yet; in his longish poem "Grantchester"; Brooke achieved a marvelously enjoyable and satisfying piece of verse. The whole poem is actually of considerable complexity; having the epigraph "Cafe des Westens, Berlin, May 1912" - so the set-up is of Brooke, sitting abroad in Germany, miserable, and remembering the happiest year of his life living in Grantchester - a village situated a few miles along the river from Cambridge University where he was an undergraduate.   

What is startling after this introductory section - which contains another section that has entered common parlance:

Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through, 

Beside the river make for you 

A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep 

Deeply above; and green and deep 

The stream mysterious glides beneath, 

Green as a dream and deep as death. 

Is that there arrives a section of superb comic verse: 

God! I will pack, and take a train, 

And get me to England once again! 

For England’s the one land, I know, 

Where men with Splendid Hearts may go; 

And Cambridgeshire, of all England, 

The shire for Men who Understand; 

And of THAT district I prefer 

The lovely hamlet Grantchester. 

Yet, despite his hyperbolically expressed love of Cambridgeshire (albeit knowingly-inaccurate! Because Grantchester is not a hamlet but a village; a parish, with a church!); Brooke then (with deliberate absurdity) lists many towns and villages near to Grantchester, and waspishly (and arbitrarily) satirizes them for their various supposed inferiorities. e.g:

And folks in Shelford and those parts 

Have twisted lips and twisted hearts, 

And Barton men make Cockney rhymes, 

And Coton’s full of nameless crimes, 

And things are done you’d not believe 

At Madingley on Christmas Eve.  

Light or Comic Verse must exhibit technical perfection - and this does; and more generally "Grantchester" is remarkable for the way in which its short line rhymed couplets remain continually interesting and surprising; despite that this is probably the dullest of all verse forms - witness most of the 18th century English poets - Pope, Dryden, Johnson... who I find all-but unreadable.    

Probably my favourite humorous section of the poem comes somewhat earlier; describing a ghostly fairy-tale scene, set in the immediate surroundings of the Grantchester Old Vicarage where Brooke dwelt during his glorious year: 

And in that garden, black and white, 

Creep whispers through the grass all night; 

And spectral dance, before the dawn, 

A hundred Vicars down the lawn; 

Curates, long dust, will come and go 

On lissom, clerical, printless toe; 

And oft between the boughs is seen 

The sly shade of a Rural Dean . . . 

 

I would indeed classify "Grantchester" as verse, rather than poetry (as I understand it) - it is an exemplar of the classical rather than romantic tradition. Its considerable delights are not at the very highest level. 

And, as for Brooke himself - he is best appreciated as the original basis of what soon became an archetypal ideal. 

By contrast; I find the historical-biographical "reality" of his life among the Cambridge Apostles, the "Bloomsbury Group" and Fabian Society to be repellant, sordid, corrupt.

Best ignored; or viewed through a rose-tinted retrospectoscope!

And, of course; properly understood and responded-to, the legend is what matters most. 

***

This post was triggered by a couple of visits to Grantchester over past months; eating lunch in the Orchard Tea Garden that contains a little Rupert Brooke museum. 

And then picking-up (from a sales display at St Andrew and St Mary's church, Grantchester) a very enjoyable photographic and explanatory edition of the poem (done by a couple of the local residents) which I recommend to anyone intrigued by my comments above:

Rupert Brooke's Grantchester, by Francis Burkitt and Christine Jennings (2010).  

Problems with my name...

I suppose everybody has problems with their names; because we use them under such widely varied situations and among so many strangers and in unforeseen places. Whereas, originally, our given names would have been used only by those few - maybe a few hundred at most - who already knew us as individuals. 

In general I have been very happy with Bruce Charlton - but there is a long-term and recurrent problem with Bruce. When speaking the name - say in a classroom, or over the telephone - people can't distinguish it. 

I have better-than-average diction (as a consequence of lecturing and some acting) but I still cannot make Bruce clear aurally - people hear it as Buu or maybe Buuss. Inevitably, I need to spell it out...

In Scotland, where the name comes-from (via the French of those dreaded Normans, I'm sorry to say) there is a rolled R, to assist with the earlier part of the word; turning the English monosyllable into almost two syllables: Brrr-ous. 

Ideally, though, to make the word clear aurally would require breaking it into three: Ber-us-ah, maybe...

Charlton has been less of a problem; and the surname was well known in my childhood from the footballer Bobby, who was perhaps - with Pele - the most famous soccer player in the whole world - indeed one of the most famous Englishmen.  

(e.g. - This really happened - Foreigner from the Far East: Where do you come from? Answer: England. Far Eastern Foreigner (smiling and gesturing): Ah - Bobby Charlton!) 

The surname is Northumbrian, and common around here; although rare in and around Bristol where I grew-up (there were only two or three Charltons listed in the phonebook).

Aurally, the name is usually clear. Although, when I lived in Scotland I had, of course, to pronounce it with the rolled R which broke it into three - Cha-rrrul-ton.

The only problem came in the USA, when I was a visiting medical student at Harvard, and used to get paged as "Dac-tor Carlton"... 

A pronunciation that was, frankly, inexcusable; given that Charlton Heston was one of the most famous American film actors of that era; and his name was always pronounced pronounced properly - with an initial Chu, not a Ku. 

But that is a problem with Americans - not with Charlton!

If Americans can pronounce a word wrongly: they will. A good example was pointed-out by my brother. 

English spelling is, of course, difficult/ irrational*; and the floating, bouyant, navigational device is pronounced Boy, but spelled Buoy. This confuses English children when encountering the written word; and they often mispronounce it as something-like Boo-oy, or Bu-oy. 

The Americans decided to mispronounce this strange spelling of Buoy, but in a way that is not phonetic! As Boo-ee!

'Nuff said. 

*Thanks, largely, to classically-trained and Francophile lexicographers; who insisted upon spelling spoken-words (including many place names) in forced-accordance with their idiosyncratic and erroneous etymologies. 

Divergent English attitudes to the French

Following on from the previous post about the Norman Conquest, I have noticed that attitude to the French is a major cleavage point in the English class system.

*

The English upper class are, and always have been, pro-French (presumably because they - originally - were culturally and linguistically French, and used to hold lands there).

They like to speak French, holiday in France and own homes there - maybe retire there, regard the French as more sexually attractive than English (upper class English men regard French women as more beautiful and sophisticated; u-c English women regard French men as more charming), regard French food as the best in the world, and the upper classes are pro-European Union (which the British regard as an essentially French thing).

The upper middle class (professionals - doctors, lawyers, professors, senior civil servants and senior public sector managers, the media etc) mostly have the same views as the upper class - and presumably adopted these in emulation of the upper classes.

But the majority of people below this level, in so far as they have any views at all, are somewhat anti-French - but especially the lower middle class (trades and crafts, private sector workers etc).

For Tolkien to be anti-French was therefore unusual for an Oxford Professor - and was probably related to Tolkien's unusual, impoverished, 'scholarship boy', Roman Catholic and lower middle class up-bringing. 

*

(The anti-French feeling in England is pretty mild - mostly a kind of impatient irritation - it is not a gut-level hatred or fear: that is reserved for really alien nations. For example, after the experience fighting in the Far East in WWII, there was a real visceral horror and incomprehension at the behaviour of the Japanese - for example the treatment of English inmates in the Japanese prisoner of war camps - which surpassed that of any attitude towards other enemies or allies.)

*

Reciprocal to this is the attitude to America (the USA): the English upper- and upper-middle-classes are anti-American, while everybody else is reflexively pro-American.

The English lower classes tend to favour American women and men (e.g. movie, pop and films stars), emulate US culture, adopt US slang, tend to buy American food (pizzas, burghers etc.), would visit the US (eg New York City or Florida) in preference to France.

In the military, the rank and file would rather fight alongside 'Yankees' than 'Frogs'.

If they had been asked, the lower class English would have preferred to become the fifty-first state of the USA than to join the European 'Common Market'.

*

You could see this immediately post-9/11 - ordinary lower-class English people had a spontaneous and attitude of sympathy and solidarity with the New Yorkers; the upper classes had a highly 'nuanced' response, and (within a few minutes of the atrocity) swiftly recovered from their transitory shock, and then were clearly much more worried about a possibility of a US retributive 'backlash' than they were about the thousands killed and injured.


*

Interestingly, post-WW II, this negative attitude to the French persisted, even (or especially) among the military who had served overseas. The French allies were blamed for their incredibly-rapid capitulation to the German invasion, which stranded the English Army in Dunkirk; while the German enemy were (despite everything) grudgingly admired for their exceptional military discipline and courage.

*

Of course the Anglo Saxon English were Germanic, while the Normans were (culturally) French - so maybe this 'us and them' distinction has persisted in an underground populist way for a thousand years since 1066?

The Northumbrian church project: Anglo-Saxon churches

St Andrew's Church*, Bywell

We have recently begun a project to visit old churches in Northumbria; starting by getting suggestions from a little book by the legend that was Stan Beckesall ; backed-up by a copy of "Pevsner" for Northumberland; plus whatever booklets or leaflets we find in the churches we visit.  

Several of these churches, I have visited before; but they are well worth seeing again! This time we are spending about an hour per church on locating - and trying to understand - the architectural features. 

We began with several churches that contain Anglo-Saxon features; and Bywell St Andrew's (illustrated above) has an exceptionally well preserved tower from that era. 

I am, for the first time, beginning to learn and recognize the distinctions - and gradations - between Anglo-Saxon, Norman (c1066 to middle-late 1100s) and Early English (late 1100s to late 1200s). 

Naturally, there is a technological trajectory; with older churches being simpler in construction, visibly cruder in shaping and selection of the stones, and later churches having innovations such as buttresses to stop the walls bulging/ collapsing, multi-stone round arches instead of single stone lintels over doors; then (with Early English) pointed arches (enabling greater height for the same width of supports). 

The evil Normans must be acknowledged as great builders; and their rapid impact on architecture is very evident. I now recognize at a glance the typical EE "lancet" windows - tall and narrow, often paired, usually deep set on the inside.

However, there is always a special excitement of finding Anglo-Saxon features, maybe a font for baptisms - chiselled from a single block, a lintel shaped into a slight arch, or even just a few irregular stones at the corners ("long and short" quoins):

* My new knowledge of church architecture would lead me to recognize that the lowest window in the tower - the long thin, "lancet" with a pointed top - was inserted later. This is because such windows were not done in A-S times, and are usually a feature of the Early English style; also the disturbance to the horizontal lines of the stonework can be seen. However, the window is not genuine Early English, but a later pastiche.

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Today we visited St Mary's, Corbridge which is mostly Early English, filled (it seems) with aisles of pointed arches; 

...and with an actual Roman (not Roman-esque) arch, later inserted into the A-S tower; having been scavenged by the medieval masons from the nearby Roman town of Corstopitum/ Coria.