Direct Christianity

I have been struggling to find a term to express what I believe is needed in the modern West, here-and-now, for you and me; and the best I came up with was Spiritual Christianity, which I was never happy with since 'spiritual' is such a vague and multi-meaning kind of word.

(And a word that mostly refers to mostly-bad things, and things which are mostly-bad.)

Perhaps Direct Christianity is a better term?

What I am trying to express is that we need to be Christians (first and foremost) - and/ but we need to be Christians whose faith is based primarily upon what is directly-known.

There are two direct sources of knowledge: inspiration and intuition.

Inspiration is direct knowledge of God-without, of God as a separate Being. It is an old form of knowledge - for example Socrates describes very explicitly his inspiration by The God (his daemon, as it is sometimes called). Inspiration may come from prayer, meditation or simply arrive in the mind - the point being that inspiration is experienced as directly knowing the nature, motivations, wishes of God.

Intuition is direct knowledge of God-within, of God within-us - made possible because we are sons and daughters of God, therefore partly divine. Intuition is, I believe, a recent possibility - only possible since we became self-conscious in the modern way - and only made possible by means of the slow developmental-unfolding of the 'cosmic' work of Jesus Christ.

So, Direct Christianity would be something relatively new (only possible at all for a couple of hundred years, and only becoming widely possible more recently) - something that is active and a choice, something only possible by being able to know (consciously, explicitly) the true, divine self we all have-and-are.

For most people, attaining Direct Christianity can only be a goal, gradually and intermittently attained, and of variable strength and intensity. It provides us with the essential experience from which we can learn reality - this learning being a thing that happens at the level of eternal and universal reality (and not within our mortal brains or bodies).

Anyway, the idea is that Direct Christianity is now the primary form of Christianity, and indeed the only truly honest and viable form of Christianity - something which almost all serious Christians actually-do... but more-or-less unconsciously... And to do it un-consciously is not really to do it at all!

What I mean is that to be a serious Christian as a Westerner in The West and Now cannot be the passive and obedient, unconscious and childlike thing that it used to be some hundreds of years ago - and cannot means cannot. Those who think they can, are fooling themselves.

But anyway, we shouldn't want-to - we should want-to move forwards to something better, because more divine, more Christ-like.

Since it can be done - we ought to choose-to do it: but is must be chosen, cannot be compelled.


Note added: If you wonder why I suppose Direct Christianity is possible; one possible answer is that it is necessary. Here-and-now, with psychology, society and churches as they are, it is necessary that we have access to direct and personal forms of guidance - and preferably at least tow such, in case of errors. And because it is necessary, God has ensured it is available. 

Further note: In a simultaneous post, William Wildblood clarifies that (to use the terms above) Inspiration needs to come before Intuition.

Direct Christianity made possible by Christ's presence 'in the etheric'?

One way of thinking about Direct Christianity is that - in this modern era, and due to the limited scope and corruptions of the Christian Churches - we may experience Jesus directly, that is without the traditional sources of revelation such as church, scripture and practice.

I explored this possibility in a post last summer (before I had developed the idea of Direct Christianity) on Albion Awakening, which I excerpt and edit below:

Rudolf Steiner realised that it was God's hope, and the time was ripe, for modern Western Man to move to a new kind of intuitive spirituality of thinking. It was therefore Man's destiny to move forward from the dominant materialism, and spiritual blindness, of the modern era; and if this happened then there would be new and expanded possibilities of direct, intuitive knowing.

One vital and crucial aspect of this was that If Man developed this new spirituality, Then he would come to experience Christ as a living and active personal presence in the world - not by seeing, hearing or touching Christ in his body (this would have to be an imagined Christ, an hallucinated Christ); but instead by a direct, intuitive knowing of Christ in thinking.

What this means, in practice, is that for modern Man it is more important to become spiritual than to become 'a Christian' because to become a non-spiritual Christian is not enough; while to become truly spiritual will also, inevitably, sooner-or-later, lead to becoming a Christian by direct personal experience.

Could it really be that - here and now, in this modern world - well-motivated sincere spirituality of the true self will lead to true Christianity for any serious, seeking individual, without any other input being necessary?

Yes, I think so.

This sounds outrageous at first; but it is clear that merely 'being a Christian' in the usual sense is not enough now (if it ever was).

Modern Christians are often terribly lacking in discernment, and wide-open to demonic deceptions, corruptions and inversions.

The traditions of the churches are wrecked, Biblical interpretation deeply distorted, philosophy riddled with false assumptions; the general culture is one of lies, ugliness and sin-enforced as virtue; many or most church leaders, priests and pastors are primarily secular Left materialists working strategically to harness Christianity to politics; Good to evil...

There are so few safe and reliable sources of Christianity that it seems we must have direct knowledge of the truth - or else what we learn may be worse than nothing.

Specifically: we need direct and personal knowledge of Christ, or we are lost. 

If that is what we absolutely need, then that is what God will surely have provided.

Because we need direct knowledge of spiritual truths, that is now made available to us; and the method by which this is possible should therefore be our first priority.

What kind of 'spiritual experience' should we be aiming for? More on 'direct knowing'

While there are people who continue to have 'traditional' forms of sensory spiritual experience - seeing visions, hearing voices, experiencing answered prayers and personal miracles, synchronicities and pre-cognition (information about the future), or phenomena like channelling or conversing-with spiritual entities - I would regard these as being impossible for many/ most people nowadays (except, perhaps, in conditions of intoxication or mental illness -which cast the validity of experience into doubt)  and as being preliminary and early aspects of a 'modern-era' spiritual life.

The main value of such experiences, I think, is to convince some people of the reality of a spiritual dimension to life. This was, indeed, the case for me - with a few instances of rapid/ miraculous answering of prayers, that were very important at the very beginning of my Christian life. The experiences were a confirmation of the reality of God.

But all of these are sensory-mediated, hence indirect, means of communication between God and Men. We see something, hear a voice saying words... and then comes an evaluation of the experience... Do we remember properly, accurately; was it an hallucination, or a coincidence?

And if we decide it was real and have an accurate record of the experience - then what does it mean for us? What was God trying to communicate, and what - exactly - did he want us to do about it?

So; once we are convinced of the reality of God - what then? After we know that God is real; that is the true beginning of spiritual life. Should we then expect or want the traditional kind of spiritual experiences to continue; are they, indeed, the best way that we can communicate with God?

This is when I return to the matter of what can be called the intuition of the real self or direct knowing. Direct knowing is - I believe - the form of spiritual experience that is available to many/ most people in the modern era. And furthermore it is, in principle, superior to the traditional forms - because it requires no extra layers of understanding and translation.

Perhaps if I draw a contrast, this will be clearer. Suppose someone has the experience of hearing God's voice, speaking words aloud in the mind. He needs to hear and understand the words, he needs to remember them (perhaps by writing them); and then he needs to ponder their meaning and implications.

But if that person was to receive knowledge directly into his understanding; he will already know what that knowledge means for him, and what he should do about it - because it all comes as a package: one moment not-there, the next moment it is there.

And direct knowledge is intended for direct action - it is typically bimodal, yes-no, two-track: either we stay with what we are doing, or else we set off onto a different path which is being given.

Now, there may be problems about remembering the experience, and so forth - but if we have acted-upon direct knowing, then that doesn't matter. And there is a much bigger problem about telling other people what has happened: that requires capturing the experience in language, tailoring it for the intended audience, and that audience will then need to receive, understand and interpret that information. The situation is the same as for traditional spiritual experience.

But direct knowing is the form of spiritual experience that goes with Romantic Christianity; and the essence of Romantic Christianity is that it is based upon direct and personal experience. Since direct experience is foundational, it means that it is indispensable. So that fact that direct knowledge cannot reliably and validly be transmitted in-directly is not surprising! It is why we need (and must have) direct experience in the first place. 

Another aspect is that direct knowing is - as a generalisation, in this mortal life - simple.

And in turn this means that we can receive direct knowledge only when we have formed our question exactly and with the proper motivation; when our mind it receptive to that form of knowledge. there are an endless ('infinite') number of false questions and wrong motivations for knowledge - and only the right questions and the right motivations will lead to direct knowing.

But once the right question and attitude are 'in place' - then direct knowing arises immediately and without any effort.

However, the knowing does not force itself upon us, overwhelm us, or compel us to do something. It is knowledge of what is right and there is a further decision about whether to embrace or reject what is right; or to argue that it is Not right. This is agency, this is free will - and is a separate 'process' from that of direct knowing. 

Agency comes in in this bimodal fashion: direct knowing tells us what is true and right; agency is concerned with whether we accept or reject this knowledge. it is not a choice between alternatives; it is a choice of 'destiny', or not-destiny.

So, direct knowing itself entails no effort, no struggle; but putting oneself into the necessary 'frame of mind' to receive it is a wholly voluntary and conscious process. Indeed, direct knowing - and to know that this is direct knowing - is possible only to those with agency, with free will.

Direct knowing doesn't 'just happen' to an unconscious person, who is thinking about other things (distracted); it doesn't happen to someone whose fundamental beliefs exclude the possibility of direct knowing... e.g. they don't believe in God, or their idea of deity is impersonal - or they don't believe that knowledge can be directly known. In such situations, there will be no direct knowing - that person is self-excluded.

To put matters the other way about - direct knowledge follows naturally upon the knowledge and love of God and the desire to follow Jesus through death to resurrected Life Eternal in Heaven. And then direct knowledge will provide the specific guidance we need in life.



 

How could Christianity be Romanticised? What went wrong?

Romantic Christianity made a brilliant start with Novalis, William Blake and ST Coleridge - and then nothing-much for many decades until Rudolf Steiner became (strange sort of) Christian in about 1898; to be followed by Owen Barfield and William Arkle in later generations - and there is William Wildblood and myself among current writers. But there have never been many Romantic Christians...

Why so rare, and what went wrong with the intermediate generations? Of course there were plenty of Romantics - but among them hardly any Christians; indeed most of them were either atheists or spiritual anything-but Christians.

A pre-eminent example was Ralph Waldo Emerson; who was an arch-Romantic and who began as a Unitarian minister - Unitarians being, at that time, like Emerson, Christians on-the-way-out. He ended-up as a kind of deist, flavoured with what he had gathered of Hinduism and Sufism.

Emerson was known for his elevation of the intuitive, epiphanic, 'moment' of insight to the highest possible valuation; like most Romantics, he required that all knowledge be derived from direct personal experience. SO why did Emerson not do the same for Christianity as he did for everything else? Why did he not develop a Romantic Christianity built from the kind of direct intuitive insights that fuelled the rest of his wide-ranging creativity? This will be answered below.

My guess is that Emerson accepted the evaluation of most Churches that Christianity must be derived from external authority - or else it is not Christianity. Catholics demand that the individual conform to the teaching of the Church authorities, or the traditions of the lineally descended ancient Church. Protestants demand conformity to the canonical scriptures of the Bible.

But what unites all churches is the assumption that whatever Christianity is, it is located outside the individual. The insistence is that Christianity does not come from within - not from individual experience, not from personal intuition.

Ultimately the task for the individual is to conform to external authority. The church judges the individual. 

If this is true; then Romanticism and Christianity are incompatible. So, how did Novalis, Blake and Coleridge come to believe that they had developed a Christianity based on their inner knowledge? It is mostly a matter of their basic and ultimate assumptions, of metaphysical assumptions. These authors believed that the individual could have direct knowledge of Christianity without it being derived from any intermediary at all; not rooted in church authority, without canonical scripture, traditional, philosophical theology or anything else.

Or, at least, and in conformity to Romanticism; that this direct form of personal knowing should serve to evaluate all other knowledge claims. So the individual judges the church; and may (like Blake, Steiner and Arkle) dispense with all churches - although Coleridge and Barfield were both, in later life,' communicating' (communion-taking) members of the Church of England.

We can see, then, why Emerson did not remain a Christian - because he apparently accepted the assertion that a real Christian must be under the authority of a church. (The only dispute was about which church/es it was correct to regard as really Christian.) It seems that, for Emerson, anyone who claimed to be a Christian outside of a church, was not really a Christian.

But there may be more to it than this - because Emerson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus; therefore real Christians were in error. Emerson's idea of deity was abstract - 'The Over Soul' - and therefore infinitely different-from a Man. The only union of Man with deity, therefore, was for Man to surrender his self and 'melt-into' the infinitude of deity.

So Emerson was a hopeless case! Ultimately, he did not want what Jesus offered; and preferred what Eastern religions offered. And what applies to Emerson, also applies to many other Romantics since. Some Romantics are materialist; but among those who are spiritual - it has mostly been an Eastern spirituality; which ultimately regards the individual self and our mortal world as temporary illusions.

This is the source of the paradox by which Emerson valued the moment of insight above all; yet ultimately he regarded each epiphany as evanescent, soon to be lost in time - and therefore worthless.

Other Christians have had strong Romantic impulses, but retained the conviction that the individual judgement must be subordinated to church authority - GK Chesterton is an example. Chesterton regarded the 'catholic' church (at first the Anglo Catholic wing of the Church of England; then in his late middle age, the Roman Catholic church) as the source of knowledge, of truth. For Chesterton Romanticism was the proper attitude each individual ought to adopt towards this truth.

For Chesterton, therefore, the individual did not have direct and personal intuitive access to knowledge; except for the knowledge that the church was true. The only primary knowledge was that the church was the only source of knowledge. 

Something similar could be said for CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. They were Romantics and also Christians - but their Romanticism was secondary to their Christianity - and was at most understood to be a good and proper (perhaps even necessary) attitude towards their Christianity. The Romantic intuition was not, for them, a primary source of knowledge: that was revelation as communicated by  their churches.

This is why Romantic Christians - by a strict definition - have been so rare. Most Romantics were not Christians, but among those that were; Romanticism is regarded as an attitude but not as a source of knowledge.

It was the great contribution of Owen Barfield - posthumous disciple of Steiner, best friend of CS Lewis, and fellow Inkling with Tolkien - to clarify and emphasise this vital distinction.

As worldly possibilities diminish, do the possibilities for theosis increase? Compensation in action?

We can see clearly that the possibilities for a traditional Christianity have diminished over recent generations, and are now at a very low ebb. Laws and regulations are increasingly anti-Christian; scripture translations and priest/ pastor teachings are deeply subverted or even inverted. All the Western Churches are declining fast; and the possibilities of leading a 'Christian Life' greatly reduced.

However, it is possible that as the possibilities for Christianity in This World has dwindled, we may be being offered the chance of an unprecedented ('compensatory') expansion of scope in our preparation for the life beyond death.


This can be understood in terms of Christianity as a member of a group, contrasted with Christianity as an individual. Christianity as a group-member, as a social activity, is what has been damaged so much - indeed 'damage' hardly covers it; since many self-identified Christian groups are almost-wholly Left-political in their major doctrines and activities; hence actively anti-Christian in their net-effect.

But if Christianity is seen as primarily orientated beyond This World, beyond our biological death, and towards Jesus's gift of resurrected life everlasting in Heaven - we may discover new, unprecedented, possibilities.


For those who want to accept Christ's gift; those who love and trust Jesus to guide them to Heaven - then salvation is assured and the problem of this mortal life becomes focused our our personal preparation - that is, our personal spiritual development towards what God want us to become.

As God wants us ultimately to become full sons and daughter of God (like Jesus), that is to become 'gods' ourselves, within God's own creation; our task is one of development, learning, growth.

This is termed 'theosis' - the process of becoming more divine; and it begins as soon as the gift of salvation is accepted. That is, it begins in mortal earthly life; and continues in resurrected eternal life. 


If it is God's intention that each of us be an unique member of the Heavenly family, then our task here on earth is to make the best of our specifically mortal experiences. Since God is creator and placed us in his creation, for our benefit; we can assume that our actual life contains the experiences we need to pursue theosis in our own unique direction.   

The transition is from Christianity conceptualised as part of a group (i.e. a church), with its primary value of obedience to the group norms (and societal group norms being Christian - as with a Christian monarchy); to what I have termed Romantic Christianity - meaning Christianity primarily based upon personal discernment, direct experience, individual responsibility.

This transition is (to a significant extent) an enhancement of our ability to pursue theosis in the way that is entailed by our own personal destiny; and to learn to rely upon our individual powers of discernment, and to develop our own inner guidance system in direct consultation with Holy Ghost.

Another way of looking at it is that modern Christianity must become much more active; since passive obedience to group norms leads away from Christianity, and towards demonic and even Satanic goals.

For example, conformity to the goals of any modern bureaucracy (including bureaucracies of the mainstream churches, which are multiply-entwined with the State and other bureaucracies such as law, police, education - all of which are 'converged' onto the primary pursuit of anti-Christian Leftism.

So obedience to almost any group is increasingly conformity to the single global Establishment agenda of evil.


A specific example may help: sexual ethics. In the past (200 plus years ago) a Western Christian would simply have needed to obey the laws of his society and obey the teachings of his church in order to lead a Christian sexual life. Passive conformity to group was pretty much sufficient to attain ethical sexual behaviour. 

Nowadays, political, social, educational, employment, mass media and (most) church norms are aligned towards anti-Christian sexuality: in sum, group ethical values are substantially inverted when it comes to sex and sexuality. So, passive conformity to group (including mainstream church) norms will lead to unChristian sexual behaviour.

Therefore, in order for a modern Western Christian to attain Christian sexual ethics, he will need to develop his own powers of spiritual discernment, will need to take an active role in seeking individual and direct knowledge by consultation with 'God-within' (which we all have by 'inheritance' through being Sons of God) and by consulting with the Holy Ghost in prayer and meditation.

The modern Christian will need to take personal responsibility for his faith, to be prepared to go-it-alone in dissent from social groupings (including many churches); and to operate by an explicit process of intuition. He will need to seek and learn-from his own experiences.


This means that modern Christians are - in order to remain Christians - compelled to develop their autonomy via a direct relation to God and Jesus Christ via the Holy Ghost.

These conditions (the actual conditions of your life and mine) are likely very well-suited to the development of individual spiritual strength, near-ideal for learning spiritual discernment and personal, close-to-perfect for ultimately developing each Christian into a more distinctive divine friend for God.

In sum, I am suggesting that this is an example of what RW Emerson termed Compensation.


Christians may benefit from embracing the possibilities for theosis that have been enhanced by our actual socio-political conditions in The West today.

In this sense, we can see that our times are those of unprecedented opportunities - as well as being times of unprecedented evil.

The necessary difference in attitude seems to be whether:1. We continue to orientate our lives around this mortal life, or 2. Whether we orientate towards eternity.

The modern condition and a direct and personal approach to Romantic Christianity

As an alternative way of conceptualising Romantic Christianity, from that summarised earlier today; there is an approach based on the modern condition and the need for a direct and personal (unmediated) kind of Christianity.

The modern condition is that the Christian tradition is distorted and destroyed, and over-complexified, and layered-upon by so much disinformation; all to such an extent that a typical individual has no way of discovering (short of a prolonged and strenuous quest) what Christianity actually is.

In effect - actual, detectable, accessible Christianity might as well not exist for all the help it is to becoming a Christian. Indeed, it is likely that the culturally dominant 'Christianity' does a great deal more harm than good, in terms of understanding real Christianity.

Assuming (as I do) that this actual world is well 'designed' by God for its purpose - is indeed 'tailored' to the specific needs of you and I and each other person - then the possibility arises that modern Man must become a Christian primarily from his own personal experience. And that God has made this possible for everyone.

In other words, that the kind of Christian we are called to become, is the kind of Christian that a person might become in response to a very simple personal yearning having a direct encounter with the divine.

For Christians, this encounter needs to be one that will lead us to love, believe and follow Jesus through (biological) death and into everlasting Heavenly life beyond.

This means that we ought to be able to learn this from some kind of directly experienced encounter with reality - this encounter would need to be sufficient in and of itself, because the likelihood is that any cultural Christianity would not help, but on the contrary would confuse or contradict it.

This would also mean that the direct experience of knowledge of Jesus would need to be self-validating. (Because culture would not validate it, there could be no cultural 'evidence' for our experience - thus the experience would need to stand-alone and without further 'proof').

This, then, is another 'definition' of Romantic Christianity: that Christianity which any individual could attain to for himself and unaided.

The Christian challenge of modernity - not yet faced

If, as I said yesterday, it is correct that Christianity was bound-to an unsatisfactory (and pre-Christian) metaphysics at an early point in its history - what was the effect?

Well, clearly, for several times and places over the past 2000 years, there have been great, indeed superlative, individual Christians - and there have also been (much more rarely and temporarily) fine Christian societies (albeit of very small scale, by modern standards).

So it could be argued, from its 'fruits' or outcome, that the mainstream Christian metaphysics was true, because it has sometimes sustained good Christians, or that at least it it can't be bad enough actually to prevent someone being a good Christian. Or that Christian metaphysics is irrelevant - because the real thing about Christianity is not metaphysics...


It is quite true that the real thing about Christianity is not metaphysics - otherwise it would not be possible legitimately to discuss the two separately - but that does not make metaphysics irrelevant.

My understanding is that the wrong metaphysics did not matter as much in the past as it does now (and for the past couple of centuries) - although it did have adverse consequences in the long and bitter (and profoundly un-Christian) 'heresy' disputes, wars and persecutions concerning Christology and the Trinity.

The fact that modern Christian churches remain unable to acknowledge the basic wrongness of the early-centuries church reactions to the Monophysite, Arian, Pelagian etc disputes has become something like a fatal flaw at the heart of things. The whole way that these disputes in the early Christian centuries arose, were formulated and conducted is clear evidence of profound wrongness in the way that the Christian churches were set-up from the start...


Christianity was muddling on - sometimes overall-Good, many times Not, until its great challenge began to emerge at about the time of the industrial revolution in the later 1700s: the challenge of modernity.

My understanding is that the challenge was divine in origin - it was the unfolding of Man's destiny that was desired; it was the irresistible pressure to make a Christianity that was conscious, explicit and based in the individual's direct knowledge of God and thus the individual's agency: the individual's autonomous free will.

The impulse behind modernity was the developmental push towards Man becoming more like God, during mortal life.

However, this pressure did not, except in a few individual persons, lead to the God-desired change. Men did not understand the need to develop what I have termed Direct Christianity.

Instead, Western human agency split between reaction and radicalism: between a doubling-down on tradition and conservatism; versus a this-worldly materialist throwing-out of Christianity, and all acknowledgement of the reality of the spiritual, of purpose, of meaning.

Attempts to 'liberalise' metaphysically-unreformed Christianity became assimilated to the secular materialist ideology. Attempts to be spiritual but not Christian very rapidly assimilated to the secular materialist ideology.

Extremely few people apparently understood the need to be both Christian and spiritual, to be individualistic and Christian; to be guided by intuition - but as a tough inner conviction of Good and source of resistance to adverse social pressure - and not merely as an excuse for short term hedonism and careerist or status-seeking self-aggrandisement. 


We now know, 200 years later, that tradition-conservatism failed to prevail or even to defend itself - and the perspective of this-worldly materialism has triumphed in this world. God and the immaterial are excluded from the public realm - and increasingly from private thinking. And the Global monitoring-control system of bureaucracy and the mass media are successfully pursuing goals that are more obviously demonic with each passing year.

The large and powerful Christian churches are by now de facto assimilated into secular materialism and have become fake/ pseudo Christian - while covertly anti-Christian; meanwhile the various traditionalist-reactionary and really-Christian churches are wedded to an indefensible metaphysics, as they have been for up-to 1900 years.
 
(This secular materialism triumphant is 'Leftism' - understood to include all worldly-materialism including the fascism, national socialism, conservatives, Republicans, libertarians etc - as well as the entire self-identified Left. It is the ideology of the entire Global Establishment at its elite level.)


What modernity has done is to probe and probe at the metaphysical flaws and inconsistencies of mainstream historically-dominant Christianity; and because these metaphysical flaws are intractable (they are built-into the assumptions), and because the mainstream theologians are unable or unwilling even to acknowledge that metaphysics is separable from the Christian religion; the mainstream can only double-down on them, and hope that the lethal criticisms will eventually go away.

But whatever (apparently) happens, my understanding is that the deep problem remains that divine destiny, 'the challenge of modernity', has been refused.

We now know in our hearts that while most of modernity-triumphant is evil and evil-seeking; some of the original impulse towards modernity was valid and necessary for man's spiritual development. We know in our hearts that both available sides are wrong - Leftism is wrong and evil in motivation; traditionalist Christianity tries to do Good... but is crippled and poisoned by a kind of fundamental and chronic metaphysical dishonesty.


Since no group in the modern world is prepared to tackle this matter head-on and explicitly - and indeed it is possible that no actually existing group can do so - since in this time and place groups may exist to serve the individual in his spiritual development, rather than the other way around... Then the implication seems to be that each individual person needs to take-on this heavy responsibility for his own spiritual development and theosis.

Our great fortune is that we are children of God the creator of this world and he would not leave us bereft of help. What we need to do we can do.

This is not, and cannot be, a matter of replicating the strategies of an earlier era - building churches, ideologies - persuading via the spoken and written word - getting power and protection... If it is truly individual, and truly based upon direct knowledge of the spiritual and the divine - then we have nobody to 'persuade' of truth, except our-selves.

 

"Being a Christian" is hierarchically-above practicing any specific religion

It seems to me that Christianity - as I understand it, is qualitatively different from "religion".

I regard Christianity as in essence the commitment to accept Jesus Christ's offer of resurrected eternal life in Heaven, through following Jesus post-mortally. 

For a Christian, therefore, life after death involves both a personal transformation (resurrection) and also (implicitly) a qualitatively different existence in a Heaven that is understood in terms of a Second Creation - a creative Heaven entirely motivated by love; and without death, entropy or evil. 

This post-mortal expectation therefore provides a frame for everything else in reality; and especially for this mortal life of ours.

But Christianity does not fill our mortal life. 

Being a Christian does not provide us with a blueprint, rule-book, ethical code, or detailed external and objective guidance for all important matters...

In other words (properly grasped); it seems that "being a Christian" is not really "a specific religion" 

The "religion aspect of life" has been provided by many and various churches through history and today - some of which churches include following Jesus to resurrected life in Heaven as a core element - and these are validly "Christian churches"; but who all in addition offer various and detailed blueprints for daily living. 

Guidance overlaps among validly Christian churches, but it also varies. 

But each church offers, to a significant degree, that specific and detailed life-guidance in terms of principles, practices, necessary obediences etc. which religiously-inclined people seek; and that complex societies and civilizations required in order to function, and be sustainable. 

What I am saying is that "being a Christian" is distinct from being religious; because being a Christian focuses on what happens after we die; while a religion focuses on what we do during this mortal life. 

I am also saying that the relationship between the direct Christianity of what happens after we die, and the "blueprint" religion of what we do in this mortal life; is indirect and uncertain. 

On the one hand; Christianity-itself does not have many very hard entailments -- and on the other hand; most of the multitude of detail in rule-books, ethical codes, and theologies lacks any solid basis in Christianity. 

The true relationship between Christianity and religion is that Christianity comes hierarchically first, above all else, and is the framework for understanding our life and ultimate reality. 

Within that framework of aspiration and faithful expectation; there will inevitably need to be something like a religion.

But the scope and details of any religion, even a genuinely-Christian religion, are-not and cannot-be an entailed consequence of Christianity. 

Note added: This does not mean that all religions, or even all validly-Christian and self-identified-Christian churches, are equally valid. Some will be more Christianity-compatible than others. But it does mean that one could probably be-a-Christian (i.e. by intending to accept the post-mortal offer of Jesus Christ) while practicing a pretty wide range of religions. And this was, of course, the actual situation among the earliest Christians, before a distinct "Christian Church religion" arose - who, after conversion, seem to have continued practicing (for example) their Jewish, Samaritan and Roman Pagan religions. 

My core argument for Romantic Christianity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on the spiritual experience of Direct-Knowing

The idea of Direct-Knowing has an important place in my understanding of the world; because I think it is the proper and best kind of 'spiritual experience' for the typical consciousness of a typical modern, Western Man.

Another important principle is that God wishes us to be active in our spiritual lives - to be conscious, to choose our direction. 

Because we live these mortal lives in order spiritually to learn (i.e. theosis) - and active learning is the most effective learning; when we meet life half-way, when we discern and interpret the lessons of experience. 

Active learning is indeed perhaps the only truly effective, kind of spiritual learning. Passive learning is unconscious, unchosen, and therefore essentially irrelevant to Christian theosis; because Christianity is an opt-in religion, and cannot be imposed. 

Real Christianity is not a social practice nor a habit; it must itself actively be chosen (sooner or later). 

Putting together direct-knowing with the principle of activity - I suggest that the usual way we experience direct-knowing is when we receive an intuitive affirmation of the validity* of some thought that we are currently thinking.

In other words, we ourselves must first think the thoughts. 

We - by our own efforts, or explorations, need to come-up with some kind of conceptual or factual knowledge - and this is 'directly' affirmed: it is endowed with a sense of valid insight. 

Direct-thinking is therefore not an emotion that accompanies a thought - it is a cognitive quality of validity... 

A recognition of such validity may be followed by an emotion, probably will; and this might be joy or excitement, or alternatively the emotions could also be shock or dread. But the apprehension of knowledge is separate from our emotional response to it.

Also; direct-knowing does not typically mean that we experience an 'alien' thought 'appearing' in the stream of our own thinking. 

More often the direct-thinking arises in the context of an ongoing stream of consciousness, which may be very mundane and non-valid - and the particular thought is plucked-out of" this stream. Emphasized. Highlighted. 

This is the necessity of spiritual striving; because - by reading, conversation, thinking, having particular experiences etc; we must firstly have the thoughts that become recognized as direct-knowing. 

*Validity does not mean necessarily-true (and, anyway, truth can only be conceptualized in a partial way, and the part is only a part of the whole creation). What is happening in direct-thinking is that there is a mind-to-mind contact; at that moment we are thinking the same thoughts as another Being. Most of our relationships is indirect, via communications that must be transmitted, received, interpreted... But with direct-knowing, we have the experience of knowing some-thing of another Being. The value of this knowing depends on the Being - but it is always valuable to know, rather than - as usual - to make indirect assumptions merely.

Living Jesus, historical Jesus (or, Romantic Christianity in a nutshell)

It is a distinctive aspect of Christianity (as I understand it) that Jesus was an historical person, who changed the world - such that things were qualitatively different after Jesus than before. 

Being located in history, Christianity is a religion that has a time-line. For Christians, time is quite naturally understood as sequential - before Christ; his life and death, and what came after. 

This is why I find fundamentally wrong the long-standing, classical and mainstream theology, desire to make Christianity into a quasi-Platonic spirituality, rooted-in a God conceived to exist in timeless/ out-of-time eternity.  

However necessarily historical, Christianity is also about the living and future Jesus Christ. This is expressed in many ways - but the essential point is that Jesus is alive and active in this world; and can be felt by those who follow him as a daily, hourly, influence, guidance, inspiration.  

The historical and living Jesus have mostly been combined by practices like Holy Communion (whether as re-enactment or as memorial), reading the Gospels, reflecting on the life and teachings of Jesus, and by iconography and symbolism. 

But all these share the primarily backward-looking perspective: the living Jesus is experienced by first attending to the historical Jesus. Whatever the subsequence experience, this is to regard Jesus at one remove, the present seen through the past. 

And therefore all these share the disadvantage of requiring assertions about the past, which have by 2021 become extremely clouded by a vast accretion of rival interpretations - whether theological, traditional, scholarly, or whatever...

My conviction is that from here and now we need to strive for a contact with the living Jesus Christ that is primarily direct, and therefore independent of the historical evidence and theories. 

Having established such primary, direct, living contact; it can (and for most people will) be strengthened and enriched secondarily with whatever is found valuable - and this is where scriptures, churches, and the vast mass of practices, symbolism and art through the ages may come-in. 

But some will probably find that many or most of these referents of the historical Jesus are unhelpful or counterproductive; and certainly a primary focus on the historical Jesus can be very off-putting to the prospective convert, for whatever reason - anything from personal or aesthetic preferences to socio-political prejudices; or simply from the confusing and disorientating morass of controversy that surrounds every statement. 

The search for Jesus Christ has thereby, I feel convinced, become an unprecedently personal and experiential matter. As such, there is always the danger that Jesus will simply be invented to support pre-existent socio-political assumptions. 

Yet nowadays this is less of a problem than ever before; since the evil of the mainstream, official and dominant socio-political assumptions is so extreme and separate from that Good which we know by inner intuition of our divine selves and from direct contact with Jesus Christ (by the Holy Ghost); that confusion and conflation by a sincere, truth-seeking and virtuous spirit is ever less likely, with each passing month. 

Also, the kind of person who wants a Jesus to fit and sustain the assumptions of this modern world is not likely to want Jesus very much; except as an expedient pseudo-belief to support a job or position: that is, as a religious leader. And we observe that Christian leaders (as with leaders of other religions) are almost all exactly thus corrupted. 

But for someone seeking Jesus for himself or herself and who will not profit by it in terms of salary or status; there is a greater chance of knowing the truth of Jesus primarily by inner and direct intuition than ever before. 

Note added: the above can serve as a brief encapsulation of what I mean by Romantic Christianity. 

A recipe for Christian revival - God the Father and Extra-Sensory Communication

Christian revival has proved impossible for many decades. This is understandable since Christianity alone is not enough to answer the most urgent spiritual needs of modern man.

Christianity is true, purposive, meaningful - but it is, in general, alienated.

The Christian typically lives in a world not much different from his atheist neighbours, in the sense that he communicates by the same channels - the difference is that in God he has someone significant to communcate with (creator of the universe, and also specifically concerned with him as an individual, and loving of him as a child).

The modern Christian metaphysics has become located within the Positivist, materialist, scientistic framework that assumes the only valid sources of information are those known to physics and apprehended through the senses. Physical communications.

(All other claimed communications are framed, a priori, as psychopathic, psychotic or due to feeble mindedness.)

In modernity, physical communications boil down to The Mass Media (mostly) - and this is intrinsically anti-Christian as a medium, as well as anti-Christian in nearly all of its specific content.

Living almost exclusively in this secular world of communications, regarding all other communications as either unreal or spiritually-hazardous - modern Christians usually feels just as alienated as everybody else.

(Even their view of Heaven seems alienated - hence unconvincing as a heaven.)

Modern Christians are typically trapped by the same subjective versus objective dichotomy as everybody else. Their world lacks magic, enchantment, awe and wonder - their surroundings are as cut-off, remote, impersonal, dull, mundane, dead, purposeless and insentient as the world is perceived by everyone else.

And indeed the surrounding world may be experienced as deader for Christians than it is for New Agers, Neopagans, and those 'seekers' explicitly involved in spiritual and occult movements.

Therefore Christianity on its own does not seem like an answer to the despair of modern man.

Conversion is blocked.

*

What Christianity requires is first acknowledgement, then emphasis, then training in habitual attention to the reality of extra-sensory communcations.  

There needs to be a Christian discourse which focuses on, then eventually regards as common sensical, a life of frequent and significant communications with the invisible spiritual world (that world imperceptible to the usual senses, undetectable by physical instruments); there needs to be an expectation and reality of daily miracles, prophecies, synchronicities, messages and revelations from the divine.

Christians need to acknowledge the significance - and become more aware of the high frequency - of non-physical, extra-sensory channels of communication in the likes of personal revelations from the divine, healing, visions, dreams, spiritual impressions, telepathy, ghosts, dowsing, divination, 'speaking in tongues', near death phenomena, and many kinds of 'paranormal' and magical experiences.

Such communications, which affect primarily 'the imagination', with or without detectable external sensory input, ought to become the daily discourse, the way of thinking, of Christians (as they used to be in ancient times) - in contrast with and detachment from the dead, detached, despairing discourse adopted from secularism.

Thus Christianity will be not only true as an objective, but alive as an experience. Conversion will solve not just the lack of purpose and meaning of modern life - but also the alienation and spiritual deadness which is even more powerfully and urgently experienced.

*

Such Christianity will not merely be true as secularism defines truth, but also true in a direct, personal and experiential way. the Christian will not just be aiming in a new direction, but also immersed in a new discourse.  

This is not easy, because it goes against the ingrained habits of thought, inculcated and sustained by mainstream culture.

A bad ingrained habit can only be defeated by replacement with a good habit. And such habits can be attained by individual agency - indeed all such social changes must begin with the summation of individual changes.

*

What is stopping this? Christian suspicion (or hatred) of magical, occult, paranormal things (sometimes, a belief in the end of revelations) - which have (chicken or egg?) also long been anti-Christian.

So we (mostly) have on the one side Christians offering the true goal of religion but no new communications (religion but not subjective transformation), and on the other side spiritually-seeking New Agers offering the appropriate communications but no transcendent goal (the goal of personal transformation gets reduced to merely 'therapy') - each is ineffectual against the tsunami of secularism; and each at war with the other. 

But insofar as Christianity has Incorporated extra-sensory communications - such types of Christianity tend to have been the growth areas during the modern era  - Charismatic denominations, Pentecostal Churches, Mormonism - it is clear that the combination of Christianity and non-physical communications retains the power to convert and inspire even in the most modern and alienated societies.


On the other hand, Christians are also among the most zealous and vigorous of the anti-extra-sensory communications groups - as the campaign against the Harry Potter novels demonstrated to the world. This will not change unless Christians understand that their effectiveness in gaining conversions is being blocked by what is, in fact, residual secularism.

A Christianity which does not address the necessity for re-connecting modern Man with the invisible spiritual world via direct non-physical communications is going to be a merely a distorted and incomplete semi-religion: true, but only minimally so.

Therefore I recoemmend a two-pronged evangelical strategy - neithere minimal Christianity, nor godless New Ageism - but both, presented together, mutally reinforcing, mutually interdependent, synergistic.

Both true and enchanting.

  

An attempted definition of Romantic Christianity

Romantic Christianity could be considered that Christianity which regards directly-intuited understanding (or heart-thinking) as our primary knowledge... 

By which I mean an experience of understanding which is clear and conscious in the mind; therefore not primarily in words, symbols, concepts, principles, abstractions or any other indirect or representational medium. 

Thus, for a Romantic Christian - the fundamental basis of his Christianity is not in the reports of other people nor any kind of history; not in tradition or words; not in any external authority or person; nor in accounts of theological or philosophical reasoning. 

Instead, the basis is the experience of a positive, affirmative grasp and knowing; and it is this which needs to be applied to the 'secondary' sources of Christian knowledge that are described above. Our true faith, that sustains courage and supplies Hope, is to be derived from that which is primary. 

For example, the primary truth of a passage of scripture (or history, or commandment, or rule...) may be apprehended and known by experience in this primary way - by a process which is distinct both from 'reading the words' and distinct from the words-meanings being imposed-upon the mind by the act of reading. 

And when such a direct apprehension and understanding is lacking, then the scriptural passage (or whatever) should not be regarded as primary. 

In sum; Romantic Christianity is rooted in active and creative thinking; and the passive and absorptive is recognized as secondary. 

It also follows that the expression of Romantic Christianity can only be in the secondary forms; because the primary and intuitive, direct-knowing of the mind cannot wholly be captured or fully-communicated by any expression of it in words or any other medium. This is what makes it primary. 

What is relatively 'new' about Romantic Christianity - that 'Romantic' impulse that seemed to emerge incrementally only from about the middle 1700s in Europe, and later in other places to become dominant now (apparently) everywhere - is that the engagement needs to be both conscious and chosen. 

The possibility and effectiveness of a life passively-guided by true bit unconscious tradition, has dwindled; and has by now essentially disappeared among adults. Unconscious, spontaneous instinct is likewise both enfeebled and corrupted so as to become both impossible and undesirable. 

We are active, conscious, choosing Christians - or we are not Christians. 

Modern Man is in a new and unprecedented situation deriving from both his deficits and his capacities. Either he will choose consciously to base his fundamental (metaphysical) Christianity upon Romantic and experiential foundations; or else he will become assimilated to The World - which is (in 2021) atheistic, materialistic and (most importantly) subject to global demonic strategies. 

The Romantic Christian can thus be of any denomination or none, in his practice of Christianity - according to the guidance of his experiential discernments. 

But the Romantic Christian must always be in a process of rooting his faith in the personal and experiential - and this is the fact which enables him to discern and adhere to the good and Godly among the great mass of evil and Satanic influences that increasingly permeate and dominate the world of public discourse (including all the 'Christian' churches).    

Note: The above was stimulated by brooding upon a marvelous and inspiring talk by Archbishop Vigano - where the Abp seems strongly to imply the need for individual discernment, yet does not explain or state it explicitly. My belief is that such matters require detailed discussion. In the past - there were internal mechanisms to deal with top-down problems; but now the evil is active, globally applied and enforced (with the coordinated aid of the secular powers: finance, government, corporations, media etc) and the corruption extends through a majority of middle and lower hierarchy and through the 'masses' and the RCC laity. Unless discernment is conscious and consciously regarded as primary, it will not suffice to combat the an onslaught of evil. 

Why is it necessary that Christian awakening be spiritual? What does 'spiritual' mean in this sense?

Spiritual is a dirty word among many serious Christians; yet it is necessary that the Christian revival I so much hope and work for be a spiritual Christian revival - or what I have termed 'Direct Christianity'.

The meaning of 'spiritual' as I use it here is not a matter of surface beliefs of a spiritual type; it is about metaphysical assumptions. I believe that mainstream Christianity, indeed official Christianity through much of its history, has shown a tendency towards abstraction that has been a factor in its demise - this needs changing, indeed such change is more than two centuries overdue.

(By needs I mean that this is the path of divine destiny, this change - which is a theosis - is what God wants from us; a vital part of what Jesus came to bring us.)

'The opposite of abstraction' (and what we need) has no generally-accepted or respectable name - it is something-like 'animism combined with anthropomorphism'... I mean the understanding that reality is alive, that nothing is 'dead' and everything is conscious (to some, usually limited, degree) - and also that everything is purposive; either having its own purpose (as Men do) or else a part-of something that is purposive (as a grain of sand, or a leaf of grass).

So to be spiritual is not to have certain specific beliefs about, say, spirits, ghosts, telepathy, meditative trances, communication with the dead or whatever; rather it is (or should be) the baseline and permeating conviction and (ideally) experience of Life, the Universe and Everything as alive, conscious, purposive and with everything in relationship with everything else.

The 'metaphysics' is our explicit description of such a reality - and in modernity we must have expicit descriptions, it is a necessity of our phase in order to move towards maturity of thinking - then the task is to make this metaphysics the baseline and permeation of our lives...


The work of Owen Barfield has made me aware of this matter; and how this correct understanding is blocked by unexamined metaphysical assumptions that are all-but universal in modernity; including among Christians - and it is this, as much as anything, which blocks the Christian awakening we so much need (as individuals - and by individuals as a society).

I mean that modernity assumes (without explicit awareness that this is an assumption, and could be changed) that everything is naturally dead - assumes the universe began as lifeless and devoid of consciousness; assumes that everything is essentially random or deterministically caused (hence has no purpose); assumes that isolation of consciousness is primary and that all relationships are a later development, and must be generated and sustained by communications...

Our modern mainstream Christian understanding of Genesis seems to validate this materialism - with God creating the dead stuff, plants and animals and with the first sign of consciousness (Men) coming at the end... Taken this way it is not all that different from the Big Bang cosmology and evolution by natural selection.


Yet before the making of the earth - there was spiritual awareness, consciousness, purposiveness, being... As pre-mortal spirits we inhabited a world of universal communication, universal relationships, universal meaning and purpose... And (as Barfield tells us) the movement was from this, and towards separation-off of individual consciousnesses (such as you and me) in order that our free will, our agency, be developed.

The new thing, the later thing, is free will and agency - communication and relation were the backdrop, taken for granted...

It is this baseline, background, implicit-in-everything animistic/ anthropomorphic understanding that is spiritual - and which we need to restore. 'Restore' because it is spontaneous and natural to us as young children, and seems to be the 'religion' of all the simplest nomadic tribal societies - but unconsicous, naive, unarticulated. But this time restore voluntarily, with explicit understanding, chosen because it is true.

Christianity ought not to be seen in opposition to this; but for much of history the developmental focus was on individual freedom; and the animistic aspect was neglected. Only from the late 1700s with the advent of Romanticism were we ready for the balance to swing back - but it did not happen.  Instead we got a pagan or atheistic spirituality and a Christianity based on impersonal abstractions that saw most of reality as 'dead', determined, random...

It needs to happen from now - Christianity needs to build on a different and animistic metaphysics. It is that which is intended by the term 'Spiritual' Christianity.

Romantic Christianity and morality (especially the sexual revolution)

I should first say that Romantic Christianity is for adults, for post-adolescents. It is, in other words, a product of the modern adult consciousness.

It is for all Western adults, because all modern Western adults are Romantic; and all may (if they want it) choose to accept the gifts of Jesus.  

But I need to say this because this means that Romantic Christianity is neither intended-as nor suitable-as a Christian way of bringing-up children - raising kids is still, essentially, pretty much the same as it was in the era of traditional Christianity. In other words, for pre-adolescents guidance must necessarily be external, and therefore a Christian environment is the key (home, school, church, books, 'media' etc).

But beyond adolescence lies the destiny of a Romantic consciousness, and the new thing needed is that this be a Christian consciousness.


One major concern about Romantic Christianity relates to morality - and in these times and this place, this means primarily sexual morality. Traditional Christianity was pretty clearly defined in relation to sexual morality; and mainstream modernity has as its (perhaps) core value the Sexual Revolution in its various dominating phases.

The Sexual Revolution is, of course, ever 'advancing' its scope (despite the contradictions) via advocating positively divorce, extramarital promiscuity, abortion, feminism, homosexuality, sadomasochism, transexualism and so on 'forward' toward paedophilia and I don't know what next - the stages of dominance of which define modern culture.

Traditional Christianity is clearly against the sexual revolution - on various grounds: for example the teachings of scripture, the authority of the church, the primacy of tradition, the rigorous implications of theology. Now, all of these grounds are 'external' - so Romantic Christianity requires that they must be validated by internal and intuitive understanding and assent.

The problem has often been that the Romantic impulse has, since the time of Lord Byron and Shelley, often been used as a reason to reject traditional sexual morality - by simply claiming that one does not find intuitive confirmation of 'conventional' morality; and that - on the contrary - inner conviction validates unfettered expression of one's own current lusts and desires.

This 'morally relativistic' way of reasoning has become 'official' over the past several years; so that the sexual revolution requires no greater validation than that claim that it would make some person or group unhappy, or simply unfulfilled (here and now) if they were prevented from doing some sexual thing that they currently very much want to do. If, that is, the 'thing' is currently approved-of by the mainstream sexual revolution at that particular point - and this has changed, and reversed, through recent history. For instance, 'Weinstein-type' promiscuous behaviour was strongly supported, positively-media-depicted, and leftist-advocated in the late 1960-70s, when 'hetero'-sex was officially regarded as merely a pleasurable type of physical exercise; not to be taken seriously.

This validation of extended sexuality began by being applied only to 'consenting adults in private' and was presented as toleration; but has swiftly been extended to public situations and to children of any age and it is now necessary that extending the sexual revolution (in officially approved direction) be actively and publicly embraced - and this positive attitude is compulsory. 


It certainly seems (to traditionalist Christians) as if Romantic Christianity is either sure to be distorted to rationalise the sexual revolution (as happens all the time among the mainstream churches, and by 'liberal' Christians'). But then, the fact is that anything can-be/ has-been/ is-being perverted to rationalise the sexual revolution - whenever the motivation to do so outweighs the desire for truth.

The way I think of it is that the intuitions of Romantic Christianity do not merely 'validate' the truth of sexual morality as it is (partially, with some distortions) represented by the various traditional Christianities (which situation would suggest that the intutions are not necessary, because we could take traditional moal codes as a short-cut to where we wanted, ultimately, to go). Instead, what happens is that by Christian intuition we are able to know for our-selves that sexual morality arises-from ultimate and universal reality.

We personally tap-into the very source of morality, in the nature-of-things - that is in God's creation. 


But this direct knowledge of ultimate sexual morality is Not in the traditional form of general laws and rules about collectives of people; instead (as Rudolf Steiner makes clear in Philosophy of Freedom).

What would be (can be) discovered is that morality is on the one hand absolutely specific to each situation, and also absolutely objective - there is always just one right thing to do, and one only.

And this we can know for-ourselves, and can only know for-ourselves - although equally the judgement of what we may say or do is open to the unique and direct evaluation on others who love us*.


*But only those who love us - because only such have the ability to know directly concerning our souls - by contrast, with other strangers and secondhand observers, they will merely be applying general principles to general situations.

  

Nietzsche's The Antichrist - the argument extended

Frederick Nietzche is generally known as one of the most vehement and radical foes of 'Christianity' - certainly he described himself as such in his last main book The Antichrist. 

Yet as I read Nietzsche's argument in The Antichrist now; it seems to be directed against mainstream, modern, Establishment materialist Leftism - against 2020 systemic totalitarianism triumphant - rather than against Christianity as I understand it.

Indeed, read this way, The Antichrist is a brilliant exposition of the dominant reductionist and secular negative- ideology that has infiltrated, subverted, inverted and (since the global church closures of least year) all-but destroyed institutional Christianity. 

Nietzsche's criticism's of Christianity are characteristic of modern, mainstream, secular, bureaucratic Leftism: The morality based on resentment; the incoherence of equality; that mass inculcation of 'pity' which is designed to paralyze with guilt; and to induce self-hatred, nihilism, despair and the desire for death (eg. abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide).  

Nietzsche's assumption was that there was only 'this world' and he failed to recognize that, if true, this negated all possible justifications for Life of the kind he sought. His diagnosis of Ahrimanic evil was exact and prescient. 

But - at the time of his final dementia and mutism - he had not recognized that his alternative of a morality of Life (by which he meant individual spontaneous instinct) was subhuman, selfish, destructively short-termist - and by nature and merely atavistic, regressive and Luciferic. 

In other words, Nietzsche had not got beyond a negative critique based upon unexamined assumptions. The development of human consciousness means that the Luciferic is unattainable (even if it were desirable) and the Ahrimanic inevitably defeats it. Thus the German National Socialists (who revered Nietzsche, and issued Zarathustra as a Bible-equivalent) began with a philosophy of Life; but inevitably ended with escalating bureaucracy. 

This failure of the Luciferic is why the actual effect of Nietzsche on the atheistic anti-Christian culture which followed, has been to lead towards the Sorathic world of spiteful destruction - a program of civilizational/ national/ personal annihilation - instead of his hoped-for fantasy of pagan strength, courage and dominance.   

What Nietzsche should have done (and perhaps would have done - given more time; and an intuitive recognition of such realities as God, creation and life beyond mortality) was to move on from his negative critique of historical-actual church-dominated Christianity, to apply his creative insights - his direct-knowing - to remaking Christianity instead of trying to destroy it. 

As things stood; Nietzsche was using a double-standard - applying his 'methods' only against Christianity; and not against the assumptions from-which he critiqued Christianity. 

Nietzsche's own method, if thoroughly applied, would have led him back to Christianity - but Christianity of a very different nature than the one from which he began. 

Also, as I have said before, I think it likely that Nietzsche was himself 'saved' - i.e. that after death he chose to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

Why? How? Well, in a nutshell, what Nietzsche had against Christianity was that he believed it was not true. 

If when, after death, Nietzsche discovered that Christianity was true; then a Man of his creativity and honesty - and with his passionate human motivations - would likely have chosen active, eternal, interpersonal Life in Heaven; rather than the anti-Life lies, ugliness and sordid sins of Hell; or the living-death, un-conscious, blissed-out passivity of Nirvana.  

Christianity: complexity versus simplicity

Traditional and orthodox church-based Christianity is extremely complex; and so are many of the 'occult' forms of Christianity involving graded initiations, rituals, symbolic systems, and training of the mind. Indeed, in a generic sense; traditional churches and occult Christianity can be seen as variations on the same theme: aiming-at the same endlessly-complex way-of-living as a Christian.

There are many advantages in making Christianity endlessly complex! 

For instance, such Christianity is inexhaustible, there is always something else to do - indeed always many possible things to do; so that the complex-Christian can always find something to do to suit every mood and circumstance. 

So what the complex Christian 'needs to do' is always far greater than what he has-done or could-do. There is scripture to study, and liturgy and other rituals in which to participate. There are many forms of prayer to be learned and practiced - some of these very difficult, some very tough. There are ascetic practices, and celebrations. There is a vast world of scholarship - learning Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Aramaic; individually and comparatively with historical context... There is history, archaeology - and these stretch over many places and times going back thousands of years. And there is a massive world of socio-politics in relation to the church - from the international and geopolitical to local congregational matters and everything in between. There are intellectual and abstract matters of theology and philosophy; and there are matters of personality and relationships...

The above only sketches out the limitless complexity of "Christian living" as it is conceived by many of its major representative institutions; and traditionally through most of history. 

What all these share in common is an emphasis on the external location of Christian life. The complexity creates an external world which the Christian inhabits. Much of the power lies externally, and therefore 'happens-to' the individual Christian. 

In a sense, the Christian invests himself (potentially without limit, because there is always more-to-do) into this external and complex world, in order to be able to draw-upon it: in order to be positively affected by-it. 

Furthermore; Christians can share in this external world - it forms a tangible and material link between Christians; and via this physical instantiation of Christianity, individual Christians and group-Christianity both relate to all the activities of society and culture generally. 

There is no aspect of culture that cannot, in this way, be linked with Christianity: politics, the military, law, the arts, science, education... In principle, there are (or can be) Christian aspects and relations of all these. 

When Christianity is thus complex and external, everything in the world is a part of it; and can be seen to be a part of it by all participants. 

 

But this conceptualizing of Christianity as external and complex carries several disadvantages - both innately and in current/ modern practice. 

The current/ modern practice is that - because this kind of Christianity is external and complex; it has been infiltrated, subverted, and then destroyed or inverted in multiple ways and from multiple directions simultaneously - such that the major churches have all been enlisted in the mainstream, secular, leftists and totalitarian agenda. 

This was evident during early 2020, when church leadership willingly (avidly) suspended the core activities of their churches - without time limitations. 

But even if the churches had not been corrupted and conscripted; there are still innate problems with the idea of Christian living as ultra-complex and externally located. 

There is a price to pay for the many advantages listed above; and that price is the habitual subordination of our self to external influences and causes, to external powers. 

Whenever there is an intermediate between our-selves and God, or the divine in any manifestation, then that intermediate has power over us: whether than intermediate be symbol, ritual, hierarchy, scholarship, intellectual discipline, learned abilities, or whatever. 

Although complex-external Christianity does not exclude direct, personal and experiential aspects; these are subordinated-to (embedded-in) the complex forms. Thus the experiential aspects are intermittent (because there is So Much else that must be done); and therefore the Christian often lives from memory, rather than in the here and now.

And vast complexity ties each Christian to the mundane. 

...The experienced consciousness is held in the mundane stance, for all of the time that a Christian is participating in that huge range and intricacies of the "Christian world". 

In a nutshell; the problem with complex-external Christianity is that it is mostly (indeed, nearly-all) discourse about-God, about-Jesus, and about-... everything else that it includes. It is largely secondhand. It leaves the central 'problem' of Life untouched. 

What Christians most need (and often crave) is not mundane discourse about God but experience-of God; and we desire that this be continuous not intermittent; here-and-now and not mere memories that we once-upon-a-time had such experience.  

What we need and want is somewhat like a young child's relationship with his living and loving parents. 

The child ideally (and sometime in practice) experiences that parental love as a continuous factor in his life; ever-present; confident and trusting; a background, a safety-net, an enfolding medium through-which the child moves. 

So, this represents a simple and inner-derived, experiential Christian path through life, to contrast with the complex and external. 

Such a simple path is rooted in knowing the nature and motivations of God - who is creator of this world and strands towards us as a loving parent. 

The inner Christian path is based in having a loving relationship with this God; primarily individual, but also as member of a family of Christians.

And the relevant Christian spiritual activity is directed towards recovering this primal simplicity; discovering, clarifying, and choosing, this loving and personal relationship: recovering it when we go astray.  

Complex external Christianity aims to steer us through life by means of multitudinous sources of guidance - some exact, other generic and with rules of extrapolation/ interpolation. 

Simple and inner Christianity works instead from a strong sense of God's nature, motivations, purposes, and love - and that which is divine with each-of-us -- and it is prayerful meditation directed towards such personal "sources" which provides needful guidance... When that is not already obvious. 

Me-Here-Now versus History - what kind of Christian are you?

Christians will find themselves - sometimes again and again - at a point where there is a stark awareness and apprehension of Me-Here-Now - a situation of direct and 'intuitive' knowing; rooted in a personal and first-hand experience, and a person to person relationship - typically in relationship to Jesus Christ. 

 

This contrasts with traditional church-based knowing; which is rooted in historical discourse and 'scholarship' of various types; and is therefore second-hand (or third-/ fourth-/ fifth-hand...). 

Church-knowing is indirect knowledge-about... rather than experience-of. It is something we learn and strive to remember... rather than apprehend with instantaneous clarity and conviction. 

Because modern Men are self-aware, because we are conscious of our own consciousness; we distinguish these two 'ways of knowing' whereas at times in history these would have been regarded as aspects of a unity...  

Indeed they were not distinguished, because the individual was then immersed in the group's thinking; and often had experienced none-other; his beliefs were spontaneously and unconsciously those of the social group, and these beliefs were apparently stable, apparently 'eternal'. 

Man in the past did not distinguish even the possibility of himself having direct and personal knowledge that diverged from knowledge he absorbed insensibly and by training and education from his society. 

Therefore in the past - when Men's consciousness was different; the basis of Christianity rooted in a church was natural, inevitable, and right. 

But Now we experience self-validating truth for-ourselves, intermittently; in flashes, or 'epiphanies'; yet brief because we are then in a state of self-awareness that of-itself interrupts that which is being-observed. 

As soon as we know we are knowing - that consciousness slips-away into mere knowing that we know...

But anyone who has known by this kind of directly-apprehended, wordless intuition; is aware of its utter distinction from those vast masses of external and historical 'knowledge' which constitute 'a religion' or 'a science' or 'literature'...

The question then arises; why should we believe secondhand church-knowledge? 

Such a 'why' question would not have occurred in the past - but now it has; and it demands an answer; that is, assuming we are to give some version of church-knowledge absolute primacy* over all other contesting knowledge-claims... 

For a Christian, we see on the one hand an enormous, heavy, complex system of historical claims which constitutions a denomination or church; all of which includes the claim that this is (in some essential fashion) the unchanging truth, and our job is to worship and obey. 

Or job as a church-Christian is primarily to learn-about this body of historical material - and submit-to it. 

Therefore, Me-Here-Now and (what feels like) direct knowing; must be fitted-into - and submit-to - this mass of external stuff. 

 

For a church-Christian; Nothing we might ever possibly experience, think, say or do - past, present or future - can ever affect the directionality of that relationship. 

The Church - and therefore History - is absolute and primary; we our-selves are contingent and secondary. 

(And the same applies if, for instance, The Church is replaced by Scripture, or Tradition - it's all History, ultimately; all external - all given-us by a particular body of Men, all based-on historical claims.)

So, this is the crux. We have our own most intense, most real, most true and most important convictions - rooted in (what feels like) a direct-knowing of reality...

Or we have (what feels like) a secondary, second-hand, submission to (what purports to be) a vast bulk of mixed historical claims - cross-referencing the validity of authority, scriptures, traditions and practices, beliefs etc. 

These two possibilities (for many perhaps almost all) people have separated, their combination was a consequence of unconsciousness - and now we are conscious - and they have been split apart by this consciousness.

Thus Romantic Christianity became a possibility, and the decision concerning ultimate authority became a necessity. 

We can either acknowledge or deny the crux - but denial is dishonest. 

What to do we do; where place our primary loyalty, where look for salvation? By submission and obedience to History (i.e. Our Church)?

Or; do we instead start the process of re-knowing, re-learning, re-making Christianity from the basis of the primacy of intuition, direct-knowing, heart-thinking (whatever we call it)...

(Which is (for Christians) intuition of the divine within us (as we are children of God), and our apprehension of the Holy Ghost without?)

 

The crux is: Do we trust our-selves and personal-knowing primarily; or we we trust... whatever we have been told by our favoured historians concerning church-history, and organize everything else around that?   

Is Christian faith to be rooted in the Here-and-Now experience - or in curated historical claims? 

Romantic of Traditional? 

*Note: 'Primary' and Primacy' are used here to indicates which comes first and is foundational. It is not a matter of either/ or Romantic versus Historical Christianity - but which is primary and foundational; about which judges and discerns the other. Thus a Romantic Christian may be a full church member and believer - but at root he will have intuitively-discerned and evaluated the truth of the church's claims (at least; those which are of core importance to him), and consciously chosen to accept them. The Historical-Church Christian may experience intuitive direct knowing, but will accept or reject such insights in accordance with his primary obedience to the church - therefore no personal knowledge could ever (as a matter of principle) challenge or overturn the church's instruction and teaching. What a church-Christian experiences and knows here-and-now, will only be allowed validity when it supports the church's 'historically-based' understanding; and any other insights will be rejected as erroneous or evil. 

How may we meet Christ in Direct Christianity?

How may Christ be personally-encountered in Direct Christianity? 

The traditional ways of 'meeting' the living Christ is by means of 'sensory' contact - seeing a vision, hearing a voice, feeling a sensation...

Such contact now seems rare; and when-it-happens for this to be in circumstances open to doubt - for modern people, schooled in tactical doubt, seeing is Not-necessarily believing (and most of what is 'perceived' and believed comes via the systematic lies of the mass media).

Modern people are paralysed by their need to 'convince other people' of their claims, and since modern people can doubt absolutely anything, even as they can believe obvious lies - modern people are trapped, held fast, locked-into despair and fear because they refuse to believe anything good, meaningful, purposive, and coherent.


In brief - many modern people yearn to know Christ; but they/ we have rigged the system so that this is impossible for them.

Any way a modern person might actually know, Christ he has already categorised as unreliable and prone to self-deception... meanwhile displaying truly mind-boggling credulity when it comes to slavishly-conforming with the incoherent and manipulative lies of the ruling Establishment of evil...

Still, the question remains - if people regard a sensory experience of Christ as some combination of wish-fulfillment, the hallucinatory and the spiritually-obsolete; then how might a real encounter with Christ actually happen?


What is vital (for us, in this era) is that we have a free and agent relationship with Christ: a relationship of agency and freedom.

That is, we must not be overwhelmed by the experience, must not be numbed into unfree passivity - because that would be absolutely contrary for God's plans and hopes for our personal spiritual development. We must have an adult relationship - Jesus as our elder brother.

(Not with us as beaten or begging children - and Jesus as a wicked step-father, Totalitarian Tyrant or Hanging Judge...). 


It does not matter that people (including modern people) may yearn to have Life sorted-out for them, have Jesus step into their lives, make all decisions, provide all motivations, or whatever.... God (for us Christians) certainly does not want us as obedient puppets or programmed robots.

(If that was what was wanted, we would just be made that way - easy for God!)

So we must be free, therefore we personally must choose - therefore the circumstances must be such as to allow choosing.


This rules out many of the 'traditional' ideas of confrontations with Christ; which are suitable for transmitting information (like the commandments, or instructions, or prophecies) - but are not suitable for developing our spirit in the direction of agency.

So... in a putative modern encounter with Jesus Christ, we must remain clear-headed, and in-control of our own thoughts - we must meet Christ on a level where we are helped by not overwhelmed; certainly we must not be compelled, either by terror or by being stunned with glory and power...


The conclusion seems to be that Christ must appear in our thoughts, insinuate into our stream of thinking; in an authoritative and intuitively-valid, yet modest and reasonable, fashion.

I suggest that this may be the place and fashion where we (nowadays, people like you and me) ought to be 'looking-for' an encounter with Christ. We may direct our thought towards Christ, and he appears - not as words, nor as pictures, but as the content of thinking.

For example, we might ask a question - in a form sufficiently simple and clear; and the answer appears in our thinking as a direct and unmediated Knowing.

Such knowledge is not compelling nor overwhelming us - it is the thinking equivalent of a wise, calm and decisive opinion, suggestion, clarification... (but it is not a voice, we hear nothing - it is a thought).

To refuse the divine destiny of Direct Christianity is (ultimately) to allow Leftism into your heart

Leftism insinuates where Direct Christianity fails to be chosen. When there is no direct link with Christ, then that is the way-in. This is how Leftism is now everywhere...

Because if all of a Christian's information/ knowledge and influences come at second-hand, in-directly, via institutions, writings, talking and practices... then each and all of these institutions, writings, talking and practices can be (already have been, and will continue to be) corrupted.

Corrupted, that is, by the usual infiltration, subversion and eventual inversion...

Only direct knowing of reality can - even in principle - combat and defeat ever-more-universal corruption.

(There seem to be two basic ways of directly knowing reality - by prayer for external revelation, or by mediation for revelation from God immanent. In practice these need not be distinct, but may be reciprocal, mutually reinforcing, or fuse to a single activity of meditative prayer.)