Why mystical experience may be misinterpreted as evidence of oneness

According to most definitions, the mystical vision and experience is about the mystic attaining first a vision of the oneness of everything - that all divisions and distinctions, including time, are illusory; and then attaining a personal unity with that oneness. 

The idea that time is illusory, and that reality is not-time, outside of time, time-less; has no past nor future but Just Is... This idea is, I believe, the crux of the mystical experience. 

And the belief that one has experienced not-time, an 'eternal present', is the root of the mystical interpretation of oneness. It is the basis for the inferences drawn from it.  

My interpretation is that mystics have experienced... something in relation to time; but they have never experienced not-time; because time Just Is, it is a basic metaphysical reality.

At a more 'common sense' level - I find it rather convincing to argue that not-time could not be experienced, because there can be no experience without time, and no memory of that which is not in time without duration. 

But if the mystic did not really experience not-time - what then did he experience? What was the experience that the mystic interpreted as not-time?

My understanding is that the truth of 'not-time' is a very short period of time, averaged. 

When a sufficiently short period of time is experienced, then essentially 'nothing' happens during this time - and this is particularly the case when what-does-happen is averaged into a single 'value'. Then the person feels as if time has ceased; and from this (apparent) stillness he can view every-thing that he can view in a still panorama - all as one picture of 'all' reality. 

Of course he does not actually perceive everything! But the point is that all which he does perceive from his small-and-averaged time-slice is a part of the one still image. 

From this experience, the oneness mystic has an apparent confirmation of the oneness of all things and all times. 

But in fact, the experience itself is merely an artefact of the process of deciding that the shortest possible time-slice, from-which all change has been averaged-out - is 'true' knowledge of reality.  

Analogy: A photograph is not an instant outside of time, it is a slice of time: an average picture of what happened in in the field of vision during a particular time slice (defined by the shutter speed). The real world was moving, but not much over the time-slice. 

Because it was a relatively-small time slice (compared with normal human experience), and provided nothing depicted was moving too fast; the averaged picture on the image is not very blurred, and may appear as if time had been frozen. 

And even when something is moving fast enough to blur (as in almost photographs of a waterfall) what results is a still and sharp picture of a blur.  

A camera has a partial and perspectival view of reality - as does the human mind - neither can perceive everything in existence at once (nothing like!). But if it is assumed that everything-being-seen is every-thing - then the field of view is everything (by definition).

Then the deletion of time (by averaging of the time slice) apparently makes every-thing-one. 

In conclusion; my understanding of the common mystical experiences of oneness, are that they are attained by those who believe in the truth - or at least the coherent possibility* - of oneness - and who are 'looking-for' oneness; and that they are actually a memory of a small slice of time which is being interpreted as a time-less instance; and that the attribution of oneness to every-thing in existence is an artefact of the 'field of vision'.   

*Oneness is Not a coherent belief, because the fact that it is a belief entails that there is Not oneness: we can only 'believe' from a prior position of separateness - which ought not to be possible if everything is one. The common notions of 'ultimate' oneness being concealed by 'illusion'/ maya does not make sense either - because if all is one, illusion should not be possible in the first place. And, anyway, how could we know of oneness if illusion prevailed? It seems to me that although the belief-in ultimate oneness has been common in humanity (e.g. modern Hindus, Buddhists and many New Agers); like many common beliefs it does not cohere, even superficially... unless further assumptions are being smuggled-in unacknowledged, which is, in fact, exactly what happens. 

NOTE: The above is an example of that type of philosophy called metaphysics. My assumption is that fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality are what shape evidence - not the other way around. Thus the 'evidence' of 'oneness' in mystical experience is understood in terms of prior assumptions. If the prior assumption is of oneness, then this type of experience is regarded as evidence of oneness. But if one is a pluralist, like myself - who believes that time is a fundamental; the mystical experience of oneness is interpreted in light of those qualitatively-different assumptions. 

This 'un-disprovability-by-evidence might be assumed to imply that metaphysics is arbitrary, and one set of assumptions is just as good as another; but this is not the case - because different metaphsyical assumptions can be examined in terms of their coherence. Thus I have tried to argue above that the experience of oneness is - in the first place - not a proof of oneness; and in the second place that oneness is an incoherent belief. The incoherence of oneness can be, and is, explained on the basis of further assumptions being introduced - but all of these contradict the prima assumption of oneness - therefore I argue that oneness is incoherent and disproves-itself. 

The same also applies to mainstream/ orthodox/ Athanasian Trinitarian Christianity; which tries to argues simultaneous oneness and plurality. Insofar as the Trinity is taken to be one and every-thing, it is also incoherent and self-refuting; and attempts to cover this by asserting simultaneous plurality are also covert introduction of further unacknowledged assumptions.

Oneness is The System approved spirituality - why?

The possible spiritual paths in The West seem (in practice, if not in principle) to boil down to a choice between Oneness and Romantic Christianity. 

Oneness comes in many guises. It is the standard basis of New Age spirituality. Oneness is also the extracted essence of Westernised Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi mysticism and the like. 

And it is the core of that highbrow, relativised, symbolic, amoral-leftist derivative of mystical and ritual Christianity, popular among intellectual liberal 'Christians' such as Rowan Willams (sometime Archbishop of Canterbury).  

 

Oneness is (as a minority possibility) taught and supported by the Establishment. For instance some major state bureaucracies, educational organisations and private corporations offer Oneness teaching and/or therapy under various titles such as counselling and 'mindfulness'. 

And, at the intellectual and high cultural level; there are variants of the eclectic, syncretic 'perennial philosophy' derived from Theosophy with its anything-but Christianity tendencies - e.g. Prince Charles's Temenos academy or the Schumacher society. 

Positive features on oneness can be found in mainstream Leftist newspapers, on TV, in movies - its practitioners are at least acceptable, and may be accorded official honours and prizes.

 

What are its characteristics? Oneness teaching is against 'the Self'/ Ego, and against 'thinking'. 

It regards all men as One, indeed evrything that is - is One. 

The intention is to lose the thinking self into an apprehension this ultimate One-ness.

(In practice, this state-of-being is intermittent, recreational and therapeutic; and in-between times the Oneness practitioner will typically be well integrated into 'normal life' - which nowadays means The System and all it entails.) 

 

Why does Oneness fit-in-with The Establishment agenda of evil? 

Well, quite simply because the thinking Self - when that Self is our divine nature inherited as sons and daughters of God - is the only thing about us that stands outside of The System. 

The thinking of this divine Self is what we use to discern, judge and evaluate in accordance with God's values. The thinking of this divine self is what motivates us from a source in harmony with God's creation. 

The intention of Romantic Christianity is to locate, become conscious of, use and strengthen this type of intuition, this form of direct knowing.

 

Naturally, The System wants our divine, thinking Self dissolved away into nothingness! 

And is happy to encourage any philosophy which assists in such work!

We should not lose our-Selves in communing with God -- or, at least, only partially-temporarily, as a means of learning... (William Arkle)

Perhaps it is driving the principle too far to say that Being with God is less than Being with Self?

It is something which depends on the way we understand this statement. If we give-up our own individuality in order to be God's own Self - as some, it seems, are trying to do - we simply become God's own Self again, and lose our own identity. This means we are no longer in the context of the statement anyway, as there is no Us anymore. 

If it is a temporary at-one-ment, we can absorb a lot of God's presence quality, and therefore grasp the way His feelings and mind work...

We may still feel that we can know us-being-ourselves better than we can know God being God. It's the Teacher/ Pupil situation again, in which the Teacher wants it to become the Teacher/ Teacher situation - as Friends. 

Excerpted from a letter by William Arkle of 15th September 1995; to Jon Flint. 

This short statement by William Arkle seems to highlight the problem with aiming at oneness with God (or Deity); as so often advocated by Eastern-Influenced spiritual people nowadays; including many self-identified "Christians" whose implicit aims are actually oneness, rather than resurrection and Heaven. 

The problem is that if oneness with God is achieved, then we are no longer ours-selves, and therefore are no longer a part of the situation (the "context of the statement").

And therefore aiming at oneness is a species of the mainstream atheistic assumption that this mortal life is destined for annihiliation. Oneness spirituality may amount to little more than positively embracing the unavoidable annihilation of mind and body posited by secular materialism. 

[Which may be why mainstream secular materialism - even globalist totalitarianism - is happy to advocate and support oneness spiritualties - such as 'mindfulness' and (Westernized versions of-) Buddhism, Hinduism and the like.] 

But Arkle also mentions that a temporary, and somewhat incomplete, enhancement of oneness; can be considered a way of learning more about God's nature and motivations. 

In other words, some partial elements of the kind of passive, immersive, un-selfing, not-thinking meditation advocated by oneness advocates; can be a way of getting-to-know God better. 

A good old-word for this is communion - and may lead to making a useful distinction between the Christian seeking of comm-union with a personal God; and the "Eastern" aim of union with an im-personal God (Deity). 

The value of communion is obvious*; even when it occurs on the way to a temporary state of experienced-union - which by definition (if complete) is not experienced, neither is it remembered - because there is no Self either to experience or to remember what has happened.

Therefore communion with God ought Not to proceed to union, assuming we desire to learn and benefit from our knowledge of God. 

Union is good only for escaping from our-Selves, since it annihilates all experience of being...

 

*I would go so far as to say that nothing is more valuable to a Christian than a solid and faithful knowledge of God's nature and motivations; since this can serve as the basis of discernment and guidance though all manner of confusions and deceptions; including those propagated by the Churches.

Monism/ oneness, dualism - and pluralism

The metaphysical idea of monism, or oneness has apparently always held a powerful attraction for intellectuals - at least since the times of ancient India and ancient Greece; and this continues to be the case - including that many self-identified Christians espouse oneness ideas or push Trinitarian concepts a long way in that direction. 

Pluralism, on the other hand, has not been taken seriously as a metaphysical assumption except by William James; despite that (or, more likely, because) it seems to be the spontaneous way of thinking of all children and all hunter gatherers - where it gets called 'animism'. 

The main group of literate explicit pluralists on earth are the millions of Mormons - but they do not seem to be at all interested in the staggeringly radical implications of this foundational assumptions of their faith - and have instead (historically) focused on creating a distinctive church and lifestyle (which is, like other Christian churches under global totalitarianism, rapidly collapsing and being corrupted into The System).

Consequently, monist/ oneness criticisms of dualism, and dualist counter-arguments to monism, take up the whole of the discussion of possibilities that I have come across. 

One main intuitive appeal of monism of the kind that (in the West) is associated with Vedanta Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism and the various syncretic advocates of a Perennial Philosophy - is that it includes everything; and therefore creates a deep and spiritual connection between man and 'nature'. 

Whereas, by contrast, dualistic Christianity focuses almost wholly on God and Man - and modern Christians tend to regard ideas about nature (animals, plants, landscape) as being in fact alive and conscious and in spiritual contact and communication with Men - as being a demonic delusion, a return towards the evils of paganism, magic, etc. 

This attitude of dualist Christians is deep and recurrent, because it stems from metaphysical assumptions - therefore even when Christians personally feel the kind of 'contact' with nature; they have difficulty explaining it it any way which does not subordinate it almost out of existence, which gives it sufficient weight and reality. 

In other words, the dualism of most Christians has been a strong factor working against the kid of Romantic Christianity that I advocate. It can be overcome, and is overcome - nevertheless dualism presents a structural obstacle, a centrifugal tendency. 

If, on the other hand, one adopts a pluralist attitude to reality; which regards ultimate reality as consisting of many, many Beings - with God (the creator) and Men being two of these types of Being; then there is immediately a metaphysical basis for that community with nature which the oneness-advocates put forward as pantheism. 

The difference is that monism/ oneness-advocates regard Man and nature as one with each other only in terms of being aspects of deity - and with the ultimate aim of removing all separation towards an undifferentiated unity.  

Whereas a pluralist hopes for increasing communication and harmony between Beings that shall remain forever and irreducibly separate. The emphasis is on the harmony of aim and methods between Beings, each of whom is alive conscious and with purposes. 

Indeed, the role of God the Creator can be seen as providing the basis for this harmony; so that the pluralist view is 'developmental'. It begins with a chaotic clash of each Being against all; and works towards that harmony of multiple separate Beings which is called Heaven. 

Thus pluralism offers a third possibility - very seldom considered; but which - I believe - combines the best of both monism and dualism. 

Confusing selection-replacement with transformative developmental-evolution... The covertly suicidal impulse in Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism, and Oneness spiritualities

There is a very prevalent logical error that pervades our culture; so thoroughly pervades it that it is all-but invisible, and difficult to understand. 

The error is to confuse annihilation and replacement, with transformational development. 

This error was made clear to me only in recent years and through reading Owen Barfield; but until that point (around 2014) I too was in thrall to the mistake. 

We have a deep, ancient and primary understanding of 'evolution' as a process akin to the development of an acorn to an oak tree, and egg to a chicken, a newborn baby to an adult. 

That is, we understand evolution to be a transformation of the self - while retaining the identity of the self. 

This could be called developmental-transformative evolution. 

In this primary understanding of evolution; the Being remains itself - but changes form. 

Thus, if we (as Christians) imagine our future spiritual evolution from this mortal life to resurrected eternal life; this is a 'process' during which we remain our-self but undergo developmental or transformative changes in both body and mind. 

The result is that our resurrected eternal self is the same person as he was during mortal life. And in Heaven we can 'recognize' others whom we knew in mortal life: they are still themselves.

But from the time that evolution by natural selection became a dominant social paradigm (during the late 1900s) there has emerged a qualitatively different conception of 'evolution'. 

This could be called selection-reproductive evolution. 

The key to this concept is selection acting on reproduction. Evolution of this sort 'happens' after reproduction, and is defined in terms of changed offspring. Therefore it is Not about transformation of the same-self; but replacement of the original parent by following generations. 

With selection-reproductive evolution; a variety of different types - different selves - compete; some reproduce differentially more than others; and evolution has occurred when either one or just-some of the original selves continue to reproduce. 

Meanwhile the other selves have Not reproduced, and their continuity has been annihilated. 

So this concept is based on Darwinian ideas of natural selection; and entails not transformation but replacement. After such selectional evolution, what persists is Not the previous self - but a different self: a different Being; because offspring are different Beings than their parents.  

In a brief phrase: natural selection is reproductive replacement. It is all-about replacing one thing with some other thing. 

Some survive and others do not; and those which survive replace those which do not. 

Because if the identity of the organism is being defined in terms of its genetic composition; then any genetic change is itself a kind of replacement. 

Following Barfield; I believe that many people are often deeply confused between these two concepts of evolution. The seem to believe emotionally that they are proposing a developmental-transformative evolution; when in fact they are advocating replacement of one thing by another. 

For instance; when people are keen on a future based upon Artificial Intelligence, or the Transhumanist changing of Man (by means of drugs, genetic engineering, inorganic implants, links to computers or the internet etc); they seem to suppose that this is an transformational enhancement of Men. 

But in fact such aspirations are simply the annihilation of Men and their replacement. Replacement of Men with... something else. 

In spiritual terms; AI and Transhumanism are therefore advocating covert suicide: suicide, because they themselves (and all other Men) will cease to exist; covert, because this desire for self-destruction is hidden by an irrelevant focus on what might replace us. 

This is closely analogous to a plan to solve the problems of this Earth by exploding the planet - and then calling Mars 'the new and better Earth'. Maybe Mars is better (fewer problems), maybe not - but better or worse, Mars is Not an evolved Earth; it is some-thing different. 

So much is fairly obvious; but the 'afterlife' proposed and yearned-for by many people shares this fundamentally suicidal impulse; because it hopes for the total destruction of the body, the self, the ego and all that is individual - by its absorption into the impersonal and discarnate divine.  

I am talking about the Oneness spiritual movement - which is so much a feature of the New Age in The West. This talks constantly about how all things truly are one, and how separation into persons is an illusion (Maya), and a 'sin'; and separation of Man from God is an illusion and a sin. 

According to Oneness; in reality there are no persons, no Men - only one God; and that God is not a person - because the divine encompasses everything, so there can be no definition or description of God. 

Nothing specific can be said about the divine except for an infinite series of denials of all less-than-total claims of God's nature: i.e. a negative theology of what God is not.

To hope for the 'evolution' of my-self, and Mankind, into One; is therefore to hope-for one's own annihilation and replacement. 

There would be - could be -  no continuity between me-now, and now living Men - and the aimed for annihilation of separateness into divine unity.

Oneness spirituality is not to solve any of the problems of the world; but to destroy the world - to destroy every-thing... and replace it with something else. 

It is solving the problem of misery and suffering in life, by ending all life - by killing everything. 

In other words; Oneness offers exactly the same kind of 'solution' to the problem of Man's mortal life as does Artificial Intelligence and Transhumanism. 

Oneness is just as much a covert advocacy of suicide, as are the schemes of technological replacement of Man by... 'something better'. 

And the reason why this is not immediately obvious; is that our culture has become deeply confused by the two concepts of evolution.

And has erroneously carried-over the spiritual aspirations of evolution understood as transformative-development, into the annihilation-seeking mechanisms of transformative-replacement.

The positive path, forward through life

If oneness is primary, why did oneness allow that oneness be fractured; only to permit or demand the restoration of primal oneness? 

Contra-oneness: life is linear and the future is open. Therefore; what we need above all is a way forward; and the inner motivation to pursue it. 

Most important in faith is that there is always - at every moment - a positive path ahead. This must be so; or else we would (by now) be dead. 

Avoiding wrong paths  (double-negative living) does not suffice, since wrong paths are limitless in number; and all living would be expended on error and repentance.  

Our path forward is for each of us to find, because it is not, and cannot be, externally provided from any source in this world. It must be sought (which is our responsibility), and be discerned (by our-selves, as much as is possible). 

There can be, and may be, divine rescue and the external imposition of a direction when our own efforts fail; but remember that this is seriously second-best. 

God most wants us to do it, so that we will learn it. Divine rescue may be useless or counter-productive in terms of what we are here for - promoting passivity instead of creativity.  

What is the bottom-line? Not one thing, because we are Beings, and Beings are complex (irreducible) by nature. 

The true complexity of this world derives primarily from the hearts of Beings; secondly from the relationships of Beings. 

In other words; the complexity of this world is rooted in extreme structural simplicity - therefore Not in complex theological-philosophical schemata. 

Unconditional, universal love is a benign disposition towards abstract "thought forms"; whereas Christian love is for particular and personal Beings. 

Personal and abstract are distinguishable, and vitally so; but are not completely separable. 

...Thought forms become inhabited by personal spirit Beings; thus unconditional and abstract love gets personalized (willy nilly); while personal Love contains the expansile tendency to seek more of itself, pressing towards other and (as yet) unknown persons.     

Jesus overcame the world*- but nobody else among Men has come near!

Including not the Saints (by their own accounts). 

Neither you nor I can overcome the world. 

It is a terrible, and terribly common, error to suppose that Men can overcome the world; or, even worse, that we should. 

That was-not/ is-not how the world is set-up in God's creation. It is not how things work. 

There is no such thing as enlightenment - we cannot overcome the world; but there is repentance, which (properly understood) is the path to eternal resurrected life.  

Men are God-intended to know, acknowledge, and repent sin - to learn-from mortal life; that we may thereby become better Men in eternal resurrected life. 

We should not strive to overcome this world, because Christ's "Kingdom" is not of this world.

Instead we should know and follow Jesus: out of this world and into Heaven.  

*John 16:33 - These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. 

"Non-judgmentalism" - an anti-Christian ideal; but one where atheistic-leftism joins with Western "oneness" spiritualities

Mainstream modern atheist-leftist discourse has tried (all-too successfully!) to impose non-judgmentalism on Christians - largely by 'proof-texting' with Bible passages, removed from their 'supernaturalist' and salvific context. 

But the truth is that "non-judgmentalism" is a profoundly non-Christian notion; instead it is an anti-Christian - indeed Antichrist - idea, which will first subvert any attempt to lead a Christian life - then ultimately invert Christian values to lead to the ex-Christian actively taking the side of Satan. 

Christians not only can but must judge - as does everybody, all the time - even/ especially those who affect to advocate non-judgmentalism. 

In particular, we must choose either to affiliate-with God, the Good and divine creation and the values of truth, beauty and virtue --- or else (as of 2021, and things having-come to a point) we will (whether passively and unconsciously - or by conscious choice) find-ourselves on the (dominant and pervasive) demonic side, which opposes all of these. 

A neglected aspect of the need for judgment is that those Westerners who advocate an 'Eastern' spirituality of non-judgmental 'oneness' (mostly selectively derived-from Buddhism or Hinduism) have converged-with and joined the mainstream materialistic left-atheists. 

The convergence is not simply due to the intrinsic dishonesty of making the judgment that judgment is wrong - then denying that a judgment has-been made; but is a very fundamental problem deriving from the detachment of an Easter 'spiritual philosophy' from that taken-for granted context of a traditional Eastern way-of-life - within-which all actual Eastern religions (such as Buddhism and Hinduism) have operated. 

This is how it works: Having extracted the ideal of oneness from its real life context of pervasive traditional morality - the advocate must deny anything and everything that discerns (discriminates). In the modern world, this cashes-out as lumping-together every-thing as one-thing; and (most crucial) opposing all who try to detach them-selves from that one-thing. 

Since all serious Christians must detach themselves - spiritually - from that unifying evil which is The System; oneness philosophy always (sooner or later - but nowadays typically sooner) reserves special contempt and condescension for Christianity (any serious form of which, oneness demonizes as 'fundamentalist'). 

In particular Christians are demonized for the sin (but they deny sin!) of being judgmental - for example when Christians recognize the existence evil in the world, and identify those persons who are serving the evil agenda. 

What this means is that - as of 2021, when major church leaders have apparently all joined or support the Satanic Establishment - the serious Christianity of individual persons is all but alone in its opposition to the operation of evil in the world...

Because (pretty much, in The West) only Christians will discern, identity, name, expose and oppose evil. Almost everyone else - whether atheist or Western-Eastern-spiritual - prohibits the discerning judgment that is necessary to know and reject the operations of Satan. 

What is The worst thing in the world? The devil or the human ego?

I am surprised that so many self-identified Christians disbelieve in the devil; not only because there are so many biblical references, but also because a devil makes strong sense both metaphysically (in terms of an explanation for the world as a whole) and empirically (as an coherent way of explaining and predicting the specific occurrences of this world). 

I commented some time ago that a Christian who was as scholarly, influential and respected as Charles Williams; nonetheless didn't believe that the devil was real. 

I found this confirmed in my current re-read of his novel The Greater Trumps, where the character Sybil (who is clearly intended to be the depiction of a very-near Saint - although not convincingly to my mind) says this in her internal monologue:

She did not, in the ordinary sense, "pray for" Nancy; she did not presume to suggest to the Omniscience that it would be a thoroughly good thing if It did; she merely held her own thought of Nancy stable in the midst of Omniscience. She hoped Nancy wouldn't mind, if she knew it. If, she thought, as, the prayer over, she put on her other shoe - if she had believed in a Devil, it would have been awkward to know whether or not it would have been permissible to offer the Devil to Love in that way. Because the Devil might dislike it very much, and then... However, she didn't believe in the Devil...   

Elsewhere in the novel in several places, it is clear that Williams regards the most evil thing to be the Ego, the Self; because the characters who are depicted as doing Good are expunging their sense of self of agency, of separateness. 

This is a common trope, indeed, among many self-identified Christians through the past 2000 years - I mean that being a "Good Christian" entails a destruction of any recognition of oneself as a separate being from God - the goal is to merge with God, or at least allow God and Goodness to flow through oneself. The self is ideally to become transparent, immaterial - the self standing aside and - eventually - being discarded. 

In other words; I am suggesting that among those who regard themselves as Christian but who do not believe in the devil; it seems usual to believe that - in effect - The Ego is the devil. 

Sometimes this is even stated explicitly; but even when unstated it seems to be implicit in analysis and discussions of evil; because the attribution of evil tend to converge upon the separate and strong ego of a person - often the separated selfhood of the Christian himself is regarded as the primary evil in the world.  

This substitution of the devil by the ego in a context of the primary desire for oneness is, I think, one path by which someone who regards himself as Christian can come to deny the reality of the devil.

This fits with a metaphysical theology that all Good comes from God, and (therefore) for Men to become Good, requires that they cease to offer any obstacle to the shining forth of God's Goodness. 

When God is regarded as omniscient and omnipotent, it seems logical that Men can add - from themselves - nothing to Goodness; which is (by definition) already complete and perfect. 

Since Men can add nothing to Goodness but only obstruct Goodness by their innate evil; Men should, ideally, therefore become empty, become like conduits for the expression of divine Goodness.  

What I am getting-at here is that this is another version of my old bugbear "oneness spirituality" - the only officially- and totalitarian-approved modern spirituality - once again confusing people and masquerading as Christianity. 

I tend to think that oneness spirituality is a point of convergence both of Christians who really-believe in in a mono-omni-God with whom the Christian ought to assimilate; and those adherents of 'Eastern religions' (Hinduism, Buddhism) who believe in a more pantheistic and abstract non-personal deity - that is 'everything'. 

The conceptual gap is bridged by the soaring abstractions and infinitudes of 'Classical' Christian theology (i.e. using concepts from pre-Christian Greek and Roman philosophy - especially Platonism and Neo-Platonism). In other words; abstractions and infinites applied to God conceptually-merge the person of God into a de facto impersonal deity. 

I mean the "mainstream Christian" theology that has, as fundamental, assertions of the Oneness of The Trinity; God's supposed attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence etc.; and an infinite gulf posited between creator and created.   

What I am saying is that someone who takes seriously, and rigorously pursues the implications of, Classical Christian theology; will find that - one the one hand - he is converging towards a oneness spirituality (and the stance of 'perennial philosophy'); and on the other hand will disbelieve in the devil specifically and the operations of purposive spiritual evil more generally - and will regard Man's self/ego as the biggest spiritual problem in the world. 

Firstly, both of these are harmful in the context of the spiritual challenges for Christians in 2023. Because the Western Christian churches have been corrupted and enlisted on the side of evil; this implies that such a fact will be invisible to one who disbelieves that there is a 'side of evil'.

Furthermore, when the churches are corrupt, the individual Christian must operate from that which is Good in his own self/ ego - as the basis for discernment and seeking spiritual guidance. Unless there is the possibility of recognizing and committing to the Good within us, we cannot discern God's guidance from without-our-selves. 

If, instead, we are trying to dissolve our selves into the Omni-God, or into the divine-which-is-everything (it makes little practical difference which); then we are trying to destroy the only thing that might save us in an institutionally-evil world. 

 

Addendum: I make further speculations about what Charles Williams may have been up-to in this passage, in an Note to the mirror copy of this post, published at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

How oneness spirituality is supportive of mainstream materialist-atheist-leftism: traditional mysticism versus the 'primary thinking' of Rudolf Steiner

I regard Rudolf Steiner as having first made explicit one of the core tasks of modern Western Man: which is to become conscious of the thinking of our real-divine selves, and to make this the basis of a modern and unprecedented kind of 'spirituality' (or, by a new definition: mysticism). 

Or, in other words, our task is each to develop a spirituality of conscious thinking (which I have termed 'primary thinking'). 

Steiner's was a complete break with, almost a reversal of, the traditional and ancient aim of 'mysticism' - which was directed against thinking; against consciousness and 'the self' or 'ego'. 

Both traditional mysticism and Steiner are united in deploring the mundane and meaningless materialism of modern consciousness; but their suggested answers to the problem are almost opposites; and their interaction with materialism is also in stark contrast - with mysticism de facto sustaining, but Steiner's spirituality opposing, materialism. 

The traditional mystic attempts to return to the ancient state (and early childhood experience) of ceasing to be dominated by thoughts, ceasing to entertain 'ideas', discarding the self, losing individuality: ultimately immersing oneself unconsciously in life/ the divine - without separation, restoring primal oneness. 

At the end of his life; Steiner wrote a biography in which he attempted to reconstruct the movement of his thinking through the 1890s, when he realized that the revival of traditional mysticism would be mistaken. 

Steiner was convinced that the fullest and broadest possible awareness of the world of our ideas, of what is here termed the 'ideal' world could be the basis of a new spirituality or mysticism. In this passage 'ideal' thus means of the nature of 'ideas'

(I have somewhat edited this passage, hoping to enhance brevity and clarity.)  

**

At the close of this first stage of my life it became a question of inner necessity for me to attain a clearly defined position in relation to mysticism. 

As I considered the various epochs in the evolution of humanity - in Oriental Wisdom, in Neo-Platonism, in the Christian Middle Ages, in the endeavours of the Kabalists - it was only with the greatest difficulty that I, with my different temper of mind, could establish any relationship to it. 

The mystic seemed to me to be a man who failed to come into right relation to the world of ideas, in which for me the spiritual has its existence. I felt that it was a deficiency in real spirituality when, in order to attain satisfaction in one's ideas, one plunges into an inner world void of all ideas. In this I could see no road to light, but rather a way to spiritual darkness. 

The mystics desire living contact with the sources of human existence. And yet it was also clear to me that one arrives at the same kind of inner experience when one sinks down into the depths of the soul accompanied by the full and clear content of the ideal world, instead of stripping off this content when thus sinking into one's depths. 

By contrast; I desired to carry the light of the ideal world into the warmth of the inner experience. 

The mystic seemed to me to be a man who cannot perceive the spirit in ideas and who is therefore inwardly chilled by ideas. The coldness which he feels in ideas drives him to seek through an escape from ideas for the warmth of which the soul has need. 

As for myself, the warmth of my soul's experience increased in proportion as I shaped into definite ideas the previously indefinite experience of the spiritual world. 

I often said to myself: “How these mystics fail to understand the warmth, the mental intimacy, which one experiences when one lives in association with ideas permeated by the spiritual!” 

The mystics seemed to me to strengthen the position of the materialistically minded observer of nature instead of weakening it. 

The materialist objects to the observation of the spiritual world, either because he does not admit the existence of such a world, or else because he considers human understanding adapted to the physically visible one. He sets up boundaries of knowledge at that point where lie the boundaries of the physically perceptible. 

Yet the ordinary mystic is of the same opinion as the materialist as regards human ideal knowledge. He maintains that ideas do not extend to the spiritual, and therefore that in ideal knowledge man must always remain outside the spiritual. Since, however, he desires to attain to the spirit, he turns to an inner experience void of ideas. 

If anyone enters into the interior of his own soul without taking ideas with him, he thus arrives at the inner region of mere feeling. Such a person then says that the spiritual cannot be reached by a way which is called in ordinary life a way of knowledge, but that one must sink down from the sphere of knowledge into the sphere of the feelings in order to experience the spiritual. 

With such a view a materialistic observer of nature can declare himself in perfect agreement. He then sees in his system of ideas directed toward the things of sense the only justifiable basis for knowledge. For the materialist, the mystical relationship of man to the spirit is something merely personal, to which one is either inclined or not inclined according to one's temperament, but of which one can never speak in the same way as one speaks of the content of a “positive knowledge.” 

For the materialist, therefore; Man's relation to the spiritual should be relegated entirely to the sphere of “subjective feelings.” 

While I held this before my mind the forces within my soul which stood in opposition to the mystic grew steadily stronger. The perception of the spiritual in inner mental experience was to me far more certain than the perception of the things of sense; to place boundaries of knowledge before this mental experience was to me quite impossible. 

I objected with all positiveness to mere feeling as a way into the spiritual. 

I sought association with the spirit by means of spirit-illuminated ideas, whereas as the mystic seeks the spirit through association with the non-ideal. I also could say that my view rests upon “mystical” ideal experience.

**

My note:

Here we can see that Rudolf Steiner, writing about himself 130 years ago, was already aware that traditional (oneness-type) mysticism was compatible-with - indeed complementary to - the materialism of modern life. 

We can nowadays see that the 'oneness' spirituality of the kind extracted by Westerners from Eastern Religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism (known to Steiner from Theosophy) - and as now espoused by by New Age gurus, 'Perennialist' philosophers, and the 'mindfulness' trainers of corporate bureaucracy - comfortably goes-with and supports modern atheist-materialist-leftism. The 

Thus, on one side, the oneness spiritual people are nearly-all leftists who fail the Litmus Tests and thus support major strategies of the totalitarian-evil agenda... 

While on the other side; the leadership class of the leftist globalist totalitarians quite often espouse mystical/ oneness forms of "feeling but non-thinking" spirituality (King Charles being a prime, and topical, example).   

Therefore, Steiner enables us to understand how it is that generic 'spirituality' is insufficient either to resist, or to provide a positive alternative to, the crushing bureaucratic-media Matrix of these times. 

Indeed, it actually makes matters worse!  

The agnostic Matrix versus real-reality and truth: The world versus You and Me

There has been a long-term (multigenerational) Establishment-backed strategy of convincing 'the masses' (i.e. as many people as possible) that this world is some kind of simulation, hologram, a un-rooted surface, virtual world, a fake - the Matrix. 

This goes with the idea that there is no truth - or that the truth is inaccessible to the human senses, mind and thinking; and the only dangerous people are those who believe there is a truth and that they can know it. 

There is a dominant ethic which has it that agnosticism is the highest virtue; that not knowing and knowing that one does not know, is the only really valid basis for life; that doubt is a higher state that knowing -- and, again, that the only really dangerous people are those who decide, take responsibility for their decisions, and act upon them. 

("Fundamentalists" - in other words, to use the jargon.)

Of course it can with equal truth be shown that the Establishment also desire that the masses should believe absolutely and do obediently... whatever the Establishment are telling them, today. 

And that this "today's truth" and today's "must-do morality" are absolute and permanently valid - because the fact they differ from last year, and may be reversed next week - does not affect the overwhelming factuality and ethical imperative of the present moment. 

This is our world. 

But such a world, in its own reality - perfectly complements the prevalent, "living in a simulation'', know-nothing agnosticism. 

As soon as any subject or 'issue' has been raised, there can be no knowledge vacuum - raising the subject (and the frame in-which it is raised) itself intrinsically assumes prior knowledge and values. Thought has content, and content assumes its own external reality and conceptual interpretation. Neutrality is incoherent because concepts always include values. 

Hence what is being asked of the masses (non-judgment, eternal doubt) is strictly impossible: therefore it does not happen. 

And that is why the Matrix says one thing ("believe nothing!"), but people do the opposite (i.e. believe everything the Matrix says, currently) - and that is exactly what the Matrix intends! The Matrix-masses combine maximum cynicism, and total obedience!  

The Matrix is experientially the world we live-in; and we also are told - by the Matrix itself; sometimes explicitly, and in a thousand indirect ways - as well as in hundreds of analogical and hypothetical ways (by 'fictions' in TV, movies, novels...) - that the Matrix is the world we live-in. 

But why, how, did this Matrix happen? 

Well, there can be no 'because' in agnostic Matrix world; therefore the Matrix Just Happened - just goes-on happening, under its own internal logic - aiming... nowhere in particular; because a Matrix can have no purpose.  

Thus, a further very popular, heavily propagandized back-up theory is that Matrix-manipulators do not exist because... stuff just happens due to 'emergence', the market, chaos-theory, forces and laws, historical cycles, progression or degenerations, and so forth. 

There is no covert purpose, no hidden hand, no intent of evil...

Ultimately "because" randomness. 

The only permissible and high-brow spirituality is oneness. This claim labels the Matrix as a this-world, temporary - because Time-bound, fake and illusory reality - As contrasted with a claimed knowledge derived from standing outside the Matrix, in an ultimate, eternal, changeless, unity. 

Oneness spirituality - supposedly derived from Hinduism, Buddhism and the Mystic East - feeds this agnostic Matrix view of reality, because every-thing is actually the same thing, good and evil are illusions, as are truth and lies, innocence or blame. 

For oneness; this life is all illusion and no truth; the enlightened Man realizes that he knows nothing; his thoughts are deceptions, his discernments are just ego; his self is actually not a self but just a minuscule part of the one - our hope should be that our self should cease to be differentiated from that one - then illusion will fall away - including the illusion of our own suffering...

Oneness says: cheer up! You are not really miserable - because you are too brief, insignificant and deluded for "your" "misery" to mean anything!   

So much for the negatives...

Then we must ask:

If Not; Then What? 

If not the agnostic Matrix - what else is possible, or better?

We can only legitimately recognize the evil of the Matrix from some other place that is Not a part of the Matrix world; just as we can only recognize agnosticism from having-made decisions about what assumptions are correct. 

Indeed, the whole Matrix operates - all the time - by creating and dissolving temporary and Matrix-expedient rules, truths, values, assumptions - and everything else positive. 

Or else - there is nothing, nihil, nihil-ism, and ultimate despair.

From where we are here-and-now; it does not work to wall-off some part of the Matrix, in hope that it will then operate on different lines. 

The Matrix covered the world in 2020, for all to see; and has neither been repented nor repudiated anywhere - not even in its essentials, let alone wholly. No nation has escaped the Matrix; no nation has clearly said they even want to escape: no nation, nor even any institution of size and power enough to be able to do it. 

Meanwhile here we are, you and me. 

We surely can't wait for 'other people' - whether a nation, a region, a locality, a church - to create a real world that we can inhabit.

Life goes on - and must be lived with some purpose, or else it will be as futile as the oneness-Matrixites tell us!

Death approaches... 

Therefore; we must find reality and truth for ourselves; starting from what we know we know; and ignoring the secondary and separate question of whether we can convince others, whether we can create a community of like-minded others... 

Ignoring; because we very probably cannot and will-not be able to share our truths - the world being what it is.   

And this is where Christian faith comes in. 

And it must be Christian faith. 

Because only the Christian God is creator, good, and our loving Father - so can be depended-upon and able to make possible whatever is necessary for our salvation, and to make our continued mortal life worthwhile from an eternal perspective - and only Jesus can guarantee that eternity to those who genuinely want it.   

The Matrix is everywhere and very powerful. But we can nonetheless, on our own, you and me; confidently defy the vast fake world of the Matrix; can discern and think our way to a sufficiently-solid basis of correct information, positive values, and therefore true knowledge. 

The alternative?

Well, living in the agnostic Matrix is worse than living in the Matrix of the movies - because, unlike there, the masses of the world in 2023 know that they live in a fake reality. The masses know this because, unlike in the movie, the Establishment who operate the Matrix tell people they are living in the Matrix; tell them over and again! 

And that is the other crucial difference between the movie and this life. In the movie, the masses are being exploited as sources of energy; therefore it is better they are kept in ignorance. 

But here and now, in this world, the purpose of the Matrix is damnation of Men's souls. It is therefore valuable that the masses inhabit the Matrix, and are aware of the fact - thus Men may be induced to despair. 

And despair is the surest of all paths to damnation. 

When men inhabit the Matrix, and when they also know that the Matrix is what they inhabit - they are consenting to the Matrix. 

And when the Matrix is evil by intent and design; then Men are consenting to evil. 

This is what the Matrix manipulators need to happen. Need, because of the work of Jesus Christ means that it is only when Men consent to evil that they will refuse salvation and are damned. 

(Jesus came to save sinners, and sinning is no bar to salvation - so long as sin is acknowledged as such; and the Man desires the resurrection offered by Christ.) 

This is, ultimately, why the Establishment make sure that We know what They are doing to Us; and then try to ensure that We accept it - accept, that is, that what-They-do is for-the-best. 

What blocks the Christian possibility for modern people? At Least Two things...

One of the reasons that argument and persuasion (in general) are ineffective with modern people; is that their wrong ideas are based upon more-than-one false assumption. 

This means that if just one false assumption is challenged (and an argument can only do one thing at a time); the error remains - because held in place by the (currently unaddressed) false assumption. 

Modern Man begins with a conviction that death is annihilation - that death of the body (including brain, and all brain activity) entails total destruction of that person. 

Thus; rejection of the desirability of eternal resurrected life by following Jesus Christ, is held in place by the modern person's materialism; his unbelief in even the possibility of life after death; unbelief in a spirit (or soul) that can exist without the body and after the death of the body. 

To become a Christian, a person first needs to cease to be a "materialist". 

But, when a modern person is persuaded that there is more than "the material" the spirit is real, that there is a world of the spirit; then this is not sufficient to direct him towards becoming a Christian. 

Those who newly believe in a world of spirit are presented with - on the one hand - a Christianity that is manifest in the materialism of this-world, including the bureaucratic-institutional reality of the churches... 

And on the other hand, the newly 'spiritual' individual is culturally offered a variety of pure-spirit, 'oneness' ideals* - whereby the spirit is presented as a separate and superior realm of being, and the individual self (and our  thinking) as this-worldly incarnation-caused delusions that need to be overcome in order to enter fully the realm of spirit. 

Repelled by the bureaucratic materialism of Christian churches (each of which presents itself as essential in order to achieve salvation after death)...

The newly-spiritual person is told that he needs to leave behind his ego-self (and our thinking). 

Therefore; the idea of bodily resurrection after death becomes regarded not so much as nonsense; as actively undesirable - a 'clinging' to the delusion that is the body, and an egotistical refusal to give-up the autonomous thinking agent.   

This is important: After (and this is a difficult transition) a modern person becomes convinced that there is a spiritual realm; that the spiritual is eternal and therefore superior to the corruption and death of this world; and that he will survive bodily death in a spirit form... Then he is inclined to regard the Christian offer of bodily resurrection as a childish thing, a kind of simplistic regression, a step backwards not forwards.

The newly-spiritual person is likely to regard with disdain (or dismay) the Christian ideal of remaining a separate being from God - both physically separated by having a body, and mentally-separated by retaining selfhood and the capacity for independent thinking. 

While Christians regard love as existing between free-individuals; the newly-spiritual modern person is more likely to understand "love" as being universally-directed at the entirety of reality; and a state of complete absorption-into "the divine", which is also "everything".

For the newly spiritual modern person; 'spirituality' implies a giving-up of individuality, and a return to an original state of undifferentiated oneness. 

So, instead of the self being annihilated at death by ceasing to exist (as mainstream modern people believe); the self is annihilated after death by giving-up its selfhood and autonomy, and all capacity for thought - by assimilating-into-universality.      

My point is that the Christian finds himself at (at least!...) two removes from conversion of a mainstream modern materialist. 

One (big) step being to induce belief in the realm of spirit; but then there comes a whole other business of trying to explain what resurrection means, why Christians want it, what Heaven is like...

And why Christians desire to retain personal agency, the capacity for thought, and gain a "new body" after death. 

*Oneness spirituality may also appear in the guise of a quest for 'wholeness' or 'holism'; under the assumption that anything less than everything is incomplete, and thereby insufficient. Christianity is about eternally loving relationships, (and with each loving relationship unique, irreplaceable) - not about attaining oneness/ universality/ wholeness/ holism. 

Oneness spirituality is aggression against God, creation, Christ - and Men

The idea that everything is All One - and that meditation reveals that underlying reality is this one - and is timeless, nameless, stillness, peace... and entails a loss of self-awareness and indeed all thinking and consciousness...

This is an occult attack directed-against God, creation and all of life - against all Beings, including Jesus Christ, all Men, and all hope of resurrection to Heaven.

This, because oneness is another word for primordial chaos, the chaos of purposeless-meaninglessness before divine creation, before any-thing. 

To desire oneness is therefore to desire nothing: to desire that God, creation, purpose, meaning and all that is beautiful true or virtuous... be rendered to nothing. 

To seek oneness is to seek that which is as low as may be conceived; and yet to call this the highest wisdom!

Such inversion of real-values is the hallmark of Satan. 

The specific identity of God and Jesus Christ is a fact (not logically necessary and nor entailed)

There is one God who created this reality. That is the proper meaning of 'one' God - despite that I believe the one God consisted of the dyad of Heavenly Father and Mother. 

Beyond this, and apparently since shortly after the death of Jesus Christ, Christians often feel a need to argue monotheism - that there can only be one God, that the oneness of God is entailed, that God is an indivisible unity.

However, my metaphysical understanding is that the oneness of God is a simple matter of fact. The fact that one God created this reality within which we dwell. 

There is one God because there is one God. 

What about Jesus Christ? There was one Jesus Christ who - again as a matter of fact - was the person who made possible our resurrection and ascension to Heaven. 

Before Jesus, resurrection was not possible; after Jesus it was possible (including for those who lived and died before Jesus). 

But did The Christ have to be Jesus - or could it have been someone else? 

What 'qualified' the pre-mortal individual spirit called Jesus to become incarnated and become The Christ? 

My understanding is that Jesus was the first and only pre-mortal spirit who could become The Christ, who could do the job. God always knew there was this job to be done, presumably this was known among the pre-mortal spirits; and it was some time before any of the pre-mortal spirits were ready and capable of doing the job. 

Jesus was the first and (at the time) only pre-mortal spirit to be fully-aligned with God's plan of creation - to be willing to do the job in full accordance with the plan. 

So Jesus was - as a matter of fact, but not a matter of necessity - the saviour. 

But... if that particular personage of Jesus had not been the Christ, then presumably - later on - somebody else, some other pre-mortal spirit - might have been able to do the job. 

I regard it as a deep philosophical error that so many Christian, for so long, have felt the need to argue that the oneness of God and the oneness of Jesus are necessary in some kind of ultimate philosophical-metaphysical sense; rather than as matters of fact. 

This error apparently came into Christianity quite soon after the death of Jesus - but after the writing of the Fourth Gospel; which is our only written source of what Jesus did and said written by an eye-witness, and one of the closest disciples. 

I presume (but don't know) that what became the Fourth Gospel was not known by Paul or the authors of Matthew and Luke - who provided the philosophical basis of later theologians (plus their carry-over of fundamental assumptions from Judaism and/or Greek-Roman pagan philosophy).  

By my understanding, the explanations of God and Jesus ought to be much simpler and more common-sensical than they have since become. There is one God because one God made this creation and we dwell in a creation made by one God. And there is one Jesus Christ because he was the first pre-mortal spirit who could do the job and wated to do the job - and now the job has-been-done, so there will never be "another Christ": jesus was the one and only. 

Monism ("oneness") teaching and theory is (in practice) always Dualism

I've written recently about 'oneness'- distinguishing it from what I believe to be the correct understanding of Christianity.

But I should clarify that the teaching of oneness as an ideal always entails duality in practice: monism is always really dualism.


And this has been the case since the very earliest, pre-Socratic philosophers and Plato and the Neo-Platonists; Hinduism and Buddhism, and the Platonic-influenced but mainstream versions of Christianity... Some of these claim variously to be monisms, but all actually are dualisms.

This can be seen in the attitude to change and changelessness. All assert that ultimate reality is changeless, outside of time, unified and perfect.

But all are forced to account for the fact that the world as we know it is changeable - characterised by with disease, decay and death - and im-perfect.


This is regarded as an illusion (maya), a temporary misunderstanding and/or misinterpretation (eg. due to sin, perhaps due to a 'fall') - nonetheless, this claim only kicks the can; because if all is truly one-ness and perfect - where/ why/ how, then, does illusion come-from?

Sooner or later, some kind of dualism of reality must be introduced; and always is introduced.


Total reality is - in effect - divided into two abstract categories; one true real-reality and the other erroneous mere-appearance. The key assumed fact - needed to complete the basic picture - concerns the source of that error. 

*

The only alternative to dualism (or the ultimate two-ness of reality) is not oneness (which simply does-not-work), but pluralism: more-than-twoness. I am a pluralist, and my ultimate category is Beings, which are living/ conscious, eternal, many, and remain them-selves - through whatever transformations they undergo. Other pluralisms are possible (e.g. pluralism seems to be the spontaneous assumption of children and hunter-gatherers; and is proposed theoretically by William James and Mormon theology), but the assumption has never been popular among philosophers; and is regarded as a mere mistake in reasoning by the vast majority. Regardless, I believe it to be true!  

What do you think about Bodies?

Is the idea of God as an old man in the sky intrinsically ridiculous? If you think so: why?

What do You think about bodies - because there is so much confusion and incoherence on the subject that you probably need to think this through for yourself.

What is wrong with bodies? Well, in the first place, our mortal bodies are subject to change - to decay, disease and death; so our mortal bodies as-they-are can be only a temporary solution; and should indeed be seen mainly as transient vehicles desgned to provide changing experiences to enhance the possibilties for learning.


But what about everlasting bodies? That is a different matter... yet there is a strong and wide-spread religious aversion even to this idea - the idea of resurrection. 

Those who crave the spiritual, and oneness (including some who self-identify as Christians), dislike bodies and hope to become pure spirits. Oneness is only possible without boundaries - so that every-thing can merge to one - and bodies are all about boundaries.

Oneness-seekers love that which is name-less and form-less - and therefore implicitly reject Christianity; which is all about a specific person (the Christ), with a specific name (the name of Jesus); who was a man, had the body of a man; and what is more, Jesus was resurrected to have a man's form for all of eternity.


An eternal body implies eternal boundary... eternal separation, autonomy and agency. Since Jesus asks us to follow him through these transformations; this implies there will be an eternity of many persons-with bodies - and Not of boundary-less one-ness...

Since Christians regard Jesus as divine and he is eternally incarnated with an indestructible body; then the idea that Jesus's Father (God the Creator) also has a body should not be regarded as silly or blasphemous! It is, on the contrary, both a plausible and coherent inference.

But bounded bodies imply a physical location; and a Heaven of eternally alive persons is not found on earth; so it must beelsewhere: 'in the sky'.


In other words; if you are a Christian, you should be careful about adopting spiritual-oneness beliefs that are incompatible with the bodily resurrection of Jesus and of our-selves. We need to think of ourselves as - ultimately - embodied eternally.

And if you are a Christian; it is also worth considering the implications of resurrection: what this fact implies about Heaven, its inhabitants and locations - and the nature of life in Heaven. Because - from the fact of resurrection, Heavenly life must surely be a kind of being involving separate, incarnate, embodied individual persons.

In sum; the only thing genuinely wrong about the supposedly ridiculous (because 'anthropomorphic') idea of God the creator as an Old Man in the Sky - is that God is not necessarily old-looking, and God may not be solitary and a man.

Even Heaven isn't ideal... Total and perfect completion is not even conceivable - let alone achievable

One of the reasons that some people do not want salvation and post-mortal eternal life in Heaven; is that Heaven is imperfect and incomplete. 

For example, not everybody gets to Heaven, so that some people we want to be-with in Heaven, will not be there. 

A related imperfection is that some of those who won't be in Heaven will be suffering - and this can be seen as an imperfection - in that we can imagine a reality without suffering, and yet some kind of hell will continue to be forever. 

So, for these and other reasons Heaven is incomplete and imperfect, and may be rejected on these grounds. 

Yet if Heaven is rejected as a goal for such reasons, then (presumably) this is because something better is imagined and desired?  

However; all conceivable situations are incomplete and imperfect. We cannot coherently conceptualize a state of perfection and completion, and therefore cannot really desire it. 

For instance; the idea of oneness spirituality is an attempt at conceptualizing a state of perfect completion - the idea that in reality all is one and there is nothing lacking.

Yet this is incoherent because there is, at least, the fact that we recognize a lack of oneness in our yearning for it - and if all is really one there could be no such lack, or yearning, or even self awareness. If our dissatisfaction is put down to delusion, then how could there be delusion in a state of oneness? 

If reality really was one, there would be nothing else. 

If the incompleteness of Heaven, the fact that it leaves-out some (or much) of reality, is to be solved by conceptualizing a future state of the perfection and harmonization of every being, including every being and thing left-out of heaven; then the necessary (divine) power to perfect and complete reality is being assumed to be constrained by delay... for some reason. 

And that reason is itself a breaking of oneness/ perfection/ completeness.

If all is one, why has perfection and completion not already been achieved? 

(Why must we and others continue to suffer its lack?)

For that matter - if perfection and completion really are attainable by God, then why create anything else that perfect completeness? What is the point? 

Why should deity create this imperfect and intermediate world with its entropy and evil, and where all gratifications are incomplete and temporary?

That itself, whatever the answer proposed, is a break of perfection and completeness.  

My point is that, although we may imagine and desire perfection and completion of all reality; this wish is incoherent and cannot - even theoretically - be attained. 

The insistence on total, perfect completion is indeed, a disguised form of double-negative ideology. 

I mean that "perfection" is actually the negation of our divine impulse towards creative love; which is a dynamic and developing thing, future orientated. 

Instead of regarding this fundamental quality of being as an attribute of reality - the lack of a permanent state of perfect completion is re-interpreted as a problem. A problem that is insoluble, because it negates creation, life, consciousness, love... 

The same for completion. Completion is a negation of the potential for eternal growth, development, increase of love. There is no end to creation... But this possibility is being re-interpreted negatively, as a current state of incompletion. 

The insistence upon completion is, again, a denial of the most profound nature of reality - which is why it leads nowhere but paradox. 

In sum: when people reject Heaven because it is incomplete and imperfect; they have fallen into a trap - a spiritual prison that has no escape... 

Incoherence is a reductio ad absurdum - a conclusion revelatory of false premises. 

No escape except by becoming aware-of, examining, and rejecting their most fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

 

Mindless mindfulness, and the meaning of (real Christian) meditation

I wrote a few years ago about 'mindfulness'* - and that kind of empty meditational practice; which is at best an analgesic, but is probably being pushed by The Establishment for much more malignant reasons.

This came to mind in watching one of John Butler's recent videos. I find him interesting because he exhibits the best and the worst aspects of the (Hindu/ Buddhist-derived) perennialist oneness spirituality as it affects the Western mind.

JB says much that is wise and valuable in the early part of the vid - and then towards the end demonstrates a stunning lack of discernment that comes through in supporting the vacuous 'mindfulness without God' fad, and references his dumb-evil belief in CO2-global-warming-totalitarianism that nowadays goes with New Agery. And the equally dumb-evil assumption that the rise in billionnaire-funded, mass media and state bureaucracy supported, mindfulness-training and climate-hysteria are steps in the right direction, that JB personally supports!

I mean, how unwise, how dense, does someone need to be to suppose that anything good for people, good for the planet, would really be emanating from such people and sources?


(The chap who interviews JB - Phil Shankland - is an Extinction Rebellion activist, who can be seen on his Facebook pages taking part in demonstrations. So much for the spiritual benefits of knowing and spending loads of time with a contemporary wise man, and meditating for hours every day - plus an active life associated with a liberal-'Christian' church!... JB himself - in other videos - apparently takes for granted the validity of Warmist claims to be able to predict and control the world climate by a - necessarily totalitarian - global government; empowered to monitor and control all human activity.)


Of course, if a oneness, Nirvana seeking, anti-ego meditator were trying to be consistent; he would have no political views at all; and no interest in other-people or the way that things apparently happen in this - by definition illusory - mortal life. He would have No Morality - because morality is regarded as just as much part of the illusion of This Life as is everything else we think is real. 

However, in practice, such folk mostly seem to be on the stupid and ranting extreme of Leftist moralistic posturing; and when followed-up through time (which, in theory, they also regard as illusory) exhibit a stunning inability to learn from life experiences.

That is what oneness spirituality seems to do to Westerners - it makes them indifferent to personal experience, and indifferent to the truth (i.e. indifferent to the maya / illusion of this changing mortal life) - but just to a sufficient extent to prevent them from taking life seriously enough to learn from the experience! Just to a sufficient extent to reject the reality of traditional sexual morality; but not quite enough to reject the moral imperatives that justify the ever expanding claims of the modern sexual revolution.

Somehow the effect of oneness and loss of ego is never quite enough to induce them to set-aside mainstream, approval-seeking, virtue-signalling, fashion-dominated Leftism...

*

I would say that meditation does indeed begin with self-remembering, being here-and-now; knowing the 'presence' of God. So far, JB is valuable, helpful. But meditation then should - instantly - move-on-to being aware not of God as a diffuse omni-presence (analogous to our immersion in the sea, or floating in air); but to knowing God as a person: indeed knowing God as our loving parent (here, now, with-us)...

(Knowing, that is, God as a Being - not an abstraction.)

And meditation should not be seeking to annihilate 'the ego' or 'the self', nor to dissolve it into the abstract one-ness of deity - but to bring forth our true and divine self.


(What would be the point of God creating mortal life if its purpose was to annihilate the body and the self? Better not have mortal life in the first place! No - the purpose of this our mortal life is to experience and learn from temporary incarnation and self-hood, so that we may be able to choose - or reject - Christ's offer of immortal incarnation and divine self-hood.) 


And meditation should be about our true-self meeting-with a Being: such as our Heavenly Father; or other divine, spiritual or other presence - perhaps the beloved dead.

And why should we meet such? Not for happiness, coping, to kill pain or reduce anxiety - But through love; that's the proper reason. It is indeed the proper reason for meeting anyone. Love of that person, or love of of God's creation.

And inter-personal love - between Beings; not love understood as a kind of gas, force-field, or high frequency vibration! 


Also, meditation should Not be about trying to sustain itself as a solid lasting state; but about (when needed, at will) touching-base with this underlying reality to reorientate ourselves in life.

We are not - clearly, from the design of this world - meant to spend our lives suspended in a static-state of meditation or prayer; but (mostly) in loving and creating. And meditation is in order to make this possible, set us on the proper direction etc.

What I (personally) aim-for: is to be able to meditate and pray often, on demand; but not continuously. As Arkle says; God does not want us to be thinking about Him most of the time; but God wants us to do what we are here to do; live in the way God wants us to live (roughly: loving and creating).

Broadly; we best serve God by doing what God wants us to do (and that is an unique destiny for each person), not in continuously contemplating God.


Meditation and prayer are therefore best 'used' as ways of reminding our-selves of this situation; and of clearing away that evil addiction to fear that JB so well describes early in this video.

To leave aside fear is necessary; but not an end in itself. Unless detachment from the temporary and irrelevant concerns of worldly angst is only a first step; then meditation becomes just a drugless Valium.

Context is everything; the meaning of meditation depends absolutely on the spiritual, religious, metaphysical assumptions that are used to understand it, and its purposes. 

We ought then to move straight-on to consider this mortal life in terms of our faith and hope of immortal resurrected life, through following Jesus. 


*Note: Mindfulness is meditation without religion, without God. Mindfulness is thus meditation embedded-in an the assumptions of mainstream, materialist, Leftism. It is meditation reduced to pure technique. Hence mindfulness is directed merely at human happiness in this mortal life, to the individual in the present moment. This amounts to, as I say, merely a non-drug form of painkiller, anxiolytic or antidepressant. It is a way of 'coping' with the incrementally-escalating psychological evils of totalitarian Leftism - which then, of course, is able to grow unopposed and unabated.

Are all religions fundamentally the same?

When you get something false (because it is false) asserted as often as that "all religions are fundamentally the same" - it is usually because of an unexamined, perhaps unnoticed, assumption. 

Disagreement arises among those who do not share this assumption - yet the root of the disagreement is too seldom unearthed in the heat of argument. 

I think that people started saying all religions were (at root) "the same" when people started focusing (almost exclusively) on this-worldly aspects of religion and began ignoring (or simply not thinking about) what happens to us after death. 

In essence: The disagreement over whether religions are "the same" hinges around whether we assume a religion is defined by what it says and does about this mortal human life on earth; or whether we assume a religion is rooted in what it says about the life of our soul/ spirit after we have died. 

For atheists (and therefore the mainstream of public discourse in the modern world), of course, death is The End; so it is unsurprising that their comparisons of religions focus entirely on the psychology and social behaviour of various kinds of religious people. 

Since there are many broad similarities in the behaviour of people of various religions, then - by these assumptions - it seems reasonable to assert that all religions are fundamentally the same, and that differences are superficial and contingent. 

The other group who assert religions are fundamentally the same are those Westerners who advocate The Perennial Philosophy: some "oneness" spirituality that draws upon mystical (often "Eastern") religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism or the like; and upon the tradition of Neo-Platonism or Gnosticism (for example) either with a pagan or Christian vocabulary. 

Such people do believe in existence beyond death; but this existence is impersonal. Survival is without ego, without personality; perhaps pure passive contemplation, perhaps by assimilation into The One (from which all originated). Oneness spirituality regards this mortal life as secondary, temporary, superficial; indeed an illusion ("maya") - the only real-reality is in the permanence and changeless stillness of oneness.  

Therefore, from the Perennialist/ Oneness perspective; all specific religions are this-worldly, ego-focused, and delusional: therefore all religions are fundamentally The Same - i.e. wrong!

But if instead we assume (as I personally do) that the fundamental nature of a religion is defined by its account of what happens after this mortal life: that is after death - then we get a very different understanding. 

If the main thing about a religion is supposed to relate to this mortal life and world; then we may well conclude that the similarities are more important than the differences; and that all religions are - near enough - "the same". 

But if instead we focus on the nature of life after death - as I believe that we should - then we discover that there are many, qualitatively distinct and mutually incompatible differences between religions - and differences between any religion and other types of world-view and ideology. 

For instance; if we expect or desire to reincarnate after death there are several very different models of how reincarnation works (re-cycling of souls, spiritual evolution, operations of karma etc).

If one of these reincarnations happens to our soul, then the others don't happen! And therefore the religions are different.

Like wise with other possible outcomes. If like the ancient Greeks or Hebrews, every soul is assumed to become a demented ghost dwelling forever in an underworld; then this post-death outcome is absolutely distinct-from and incompatible-with  the Christian belief in resurrection of the body to eternal Heavenly life.  

In sum; all religions came be regarded as very broadly "the same" if we focus wholly on our bodies, on human psychology and sociology, during this mortal life on earth; but there are many distinct religions (and non-religions) if, instead, we define a religion primarily by its assertions concerning the nature or absence of existence of the soul or spirit after death.  

Primal oneness... Yes, and No

There is a common metaphysical assumption (and described mystical or intuitive experience) of an original state of oneness. 

I would distinguish between the subjective experience of being immersed in one sea of consciousness, each mind essentially passive; with minds open to one another to make a single pooled mind... The only agency being (to various degrees) an awareness that this is the situation...

And on the other hand that this unity of "will" is only that of passivity and incapacity, and does Not result from individuals sharing in God's creative purposes.

Because each mind is part (and "always" has been) part of an individual being. This being has some potential to develop individual agency, but this entails becoming cut off from passive immersion in the group mind... becoming Free. Such freedom is necessary if an individual being is to contribute something from-himself, original, new... to ongoing divine creation.

Thus here we are!

There was indeed a primal oneness of subjective experience, but there was and is a primal multiplicity of beings - thus multiplicity of 'interests', goals, selfishnesses...

God's"problem " was/ is to develop the creative agency of the many beings. 

It would be futile to return to primal passivity, therefore Men must choose to *enlist" in God's creative-project... To bring each his own creative free agency to the expansion of creation.

Therefore we do not seek oneness, but harmonious multiplicity.

What is the spiritualization of matter? (And why do we *resurrect* into Heaven, with bodies?)

Several authors I respect, and from-whom I have derived valuable lessons regarding the evolutionary-development of consciousness (e.g. Rudof Steiner, Owen Barfield, William Arkle), assert that the future and desired state will be one in which (in some way) Matter will become spiritualized. 

Something similar is often asserted by Christians about Men after resurrection - that the resurrected body is spiritualized. 

I entirely agree it is God's intention that in some sense matter will become spiritualized - if Man makes the destined choices in his spiritual development. 

But some people mean by this "that matter will become 'less material'", 'less solid', more 'ethereal' - as if our solid matter was to sublimate into a gas; albeit that such 'spiritual gas' would hold-together into something shaped like the human body. 

So (to caricature, for the sake of clarity) some people regard resurrected Man as if a spiritual-gas; and this is how they try to imagine that immortality is maintained. 

However, I find this unsatisfactory because (by my understanding) it goes-against the spirit of Christianity; such as what we know of the resurrection: of Lazarus, Jesus and what Jesus taught. 

Also, it goes-against a consideration of what advantages it would be in Heaven to have resurrected Men rather than wholly-spiritual beings (i.e. 'angels' as most people think of them). 

There must instead be (I think) reasons why resurrected Men can do positive and God-desired things that are impossible for spirit-angels; or else, why would God bother with creating the whole rigmarole of mortal life?

I think we all should (as a matter of theosis, and because this is the destiny of the development of human consciousness) consciously be willing ourselves towards the spiritualization of matter. 

We in fact increasingly need to do this - if we are to avoid taking the fork towards damnation; because the demonic spirits are working their plans via the modernist 'spell' that all matter is material, and there is no reality to the spiritual realm. 

(Whereas the truth is that the spiritual is primary - and all matter is spiritual: all 'things' are actually spiritual.) 

To believe (as so many do) that there is a separate and superior spiritual reality does not suffice - as we can see in the world around us; where such people are following the demonic lead, and affiliating to The System by deed and word (while, intermittently, affecting detachment from The World). 

Separation of a superior spirit realm (implicitly, or explicitly, regarding matter as evil) does not suffice because it provides no positive reason for this mortal life; this mortal incarnate (embodied) life is merely a test, or a thing to be endured - perhaps a punishment of some kind (whether karmic, or for original sin)... 

Such people merely yearn to die, to lose The Self, and to become wholly spirits absorbed-into the divine. For them, mortal life has no function - it is merely illusion (maya) - an evil to be tolerated. 

What instead we need is not the abolition of matter; but the spiritualization of matter... but what does this 'spiritualization' mean if not 'conversion to spirit'? 

First, that all matter is known as alive, conscious and purposive. 

We first need to recognize all matter, all 'things' as Beings (or as parts-of larger Beings). This could be termed the 'animation' of matter - matter is recognized as animate. 

Secondly, we need to enter into relationships with these (newly recognized) Beings. 

Recognition and relationship.

The point of wanting resurrection into Heaven (of choosing to accept this gift of Jesus Christ) is that we recognize eternally separate-Beings, and strive for a wholly positive and harmonious relationship with these many Beings. 

This is the nature of Heaven. There are many Beings in Heaven; and all present have-made an eternal commitment to live by Love; and therefore their relationships are wholly harmonious - all the Beings share the same aims, which are given by God's primary creation.  

In Heaven we remain our-selves, and live eternally as separate selves with separate wills - but (unlike mortal life) we eternally choose to align these separate wills in loving harmony. 

(What would this be like? Well, we get important glimpses of the loving harmony of separate selves from our experience of (or imaginations of) an ideal human family: and that is the best model for Heaven.)

 

To understand the spiritualization of matter (including bodies) I think we need to reconceptualize what bodies are, and what they are 'for'. 

I assume that our pre-mortal selves in Heaven were spirits without bodies (i.e. our pre-mortal selves are the same as 'angels' as conceived by orthodox Christian theology). We then lived immersively 'in' Love, in a state of one-ness with God; and that we were broadly incapable of free agentic will. 

Before the work of Jesus Christ; all spirit-Beings in Heaven worked-together for a single 'end', and there was no possibility of an individual spirit-Being making a personal contribution to God's ongoing creating. 

From this baseline, we can see that mortal life is about getting 'bodies' to add-to our pre-existent spirit-selves. And death-resurrection is about enabling our bodies to become eternal, and enabling our real selves (our souls) to make an eternal commitment to live by love. 

Bodies open-up a whole new world of possibilities! The 'spirit possibilities' (i.e. of immersive oneness towards a single, God-defined goal) remain possible - but these need consciously to be chosen; because our true-selves have (through the course of evolutionary development) become separated from the primal state of oneness. 

This separation of our personal consciousness from immersion in divine consciousness is a major purpose of mortal life; which is why 'oneness' aspirations are anti-life. And, in these modern times when our consciousness Just Has separated from God's; the aspiration for oneness is both impossible, and harmful in the attempt - leading to alignment with The World (which is extremely and increasingly evil).  

We should understand bodies as an extra way of interacting with other Beings (including God). 

Bodies bring the possibility of a qualitative enhancement of our interactions in heaven. Without bodies there is just the singe creative will of God; with resurrected bodies (in loving harmony of will) are added first each individual person adding his personal-creativity to that of God's; and then the many creative interactions-between resurrected Men. 

The more Men who are resurrected, the greater the possibilities of creative interaction in Heaven - which is always being-harmonized by the eternal commitment to live in-love and to fulfil the implicit goals of divine creation. 

In conclusion, yes we need to spiritualize matter - including bodies. 

But this is Not a process of 'dissolving' or 'sublimating' the-material; it is working towards the permanent creative enhancement of Heaven. 

Because 'bodies' are a positive gift - made permanent and Good by resurrection; and bodies are not about any particular type of substance; bodies are instead about enabling and increasing the creative interaction of Heavenly Beings.