The dangerous delusion of 'physicsy' spirituality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passivity to external influences now means assimilation to evil.  

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

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

The primary physics metaphor in New Age spirituality - Energy!

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Following from my comment that Christians (including myself) seem over-keen to use Physics metaphors -

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/why-do-we-so-often-use-physics.html

I remembered that the same applies to many New Age spiritualities, in their focus upon 'energy'. This is particularly striking in New Age therapies - 'Alternative Medicine' - for example explanations of acupuncture focus on energy channels. Sometimes these arcane energies may be felt, visualized, manipulated - even photographed.

Kirlian photograph

This is not always the case - for example, homoeopathy employs pre-modern styles of reason by analogy or 'similarities' and the causality uses a more 'magical' style of reasoning - and the modern theorizations are more chemical than physicsy.

But there is an awful lot of talk about energies in New Age discourse - energy sometimes being used in a manner than is more like 'motivation' or 'drive'.

But perhaps this is always the way when physicsy metaphors are used in religion - they naturally take on more psychological/ biological attributes - as when New Agers talk about the 'balance' of energies (i.e. a non-physics way of talking about energy).

Or perhaps it is more that religious metaphors tend, if not actively prevented, to revert to the undifferentiated explanations which were natural to humans long before science - so they almost never stick strictly to their chosen metaphor; but in usage it becomes less bounded and more generalized.

*

Note: It was originally my brother who pointed this out to me. 

Escape from physics metaphors!

I am trying to escape from physics meatphors in my fundamental understanding of things (also called metaphysics - get it? meta-physics!). But physics metaphors are everywhere in writings on spirituality, consciousness and Christianity.

Consciousness is described as having lower and higher frequencies, or vibrational levels. Classical Christian metaphysics is very physicsy, as I have previously described - when people think of Love they often think of a kind of force-field.

It is terribly difficult to get away from this impersonal, non-living based ways of talking about fundamental things. Another example, when we imagine the beginnings of everything, we tend to see it as a 'big bang' or a massive fusion/ explosion/ condensation etc.

When we think of a religious revival, we may suppose the Holy Ghost (nowadays more often named the Holy Spirit which again is more physicsy) streaming through the earth and the people on it like cosmic rays, or maybe wind.

No wonder that 'Eastern' religions seem more plausible to intellectual Westerners, and in their most abstract forms - because these envisage ultimate reality in physics-like terms, as forces, energies, balance, dynamics - and the like. 

Yet I think that deep down the way things work is personal - not physical. That Christian Love is a personal thing, rather than a physical force - or rather than the physical force conception is merely an abstract model of what is truly personal; and indeed that physics itself is a simplified abstraction of complex personal attributes.

We recur to physics because it is grossly simplified, to the point where we feel we can use the concepts as tools, means to an end - but on the other hand we don't deeply understand physics concepts, because they are alien.

Therefore, I do try not to regard physics as descriptive of underlying reality but only as a radically-incomplete half-way-house kind of explanation - until I can re-frame my understanding at the highest level - which is persons, their character, their motivations.

How might a 'group soul' (e.g. an Angel of England) actually work?

It is interesting - and not easy, I find! - to try and understand just how group souls might actually function. 

For example, how an Angel of England might work to pursue the nation's destiny. 

And, in this, how Not to fall-into physicsy ways of thinking about people en masse!

The first insight is that the destiny of a nation is not analogous to a blueprint, nor a plan; even though this is the first kind of metaphor that comes to my mind. 

I want to avoid regarding the national angel as if part of a heavenly bureaucracy, 'tasked' with  'implementing' some particular aspect of the divine 'strategy', in-line-with God's mission statement. 

So, if that is a wrong metaphor; then what would be better? 

Well, some kind of family metaphor, obviously. 

How could we, for instance, describe the way in which an 'ideal' father would act to pursue his family's destiny; especially the destiny of his children?  

The ideal father would not be operating from plans or towards a blueprint; but instead from the fact of his being in harmonious accord with God's purposes and methods. 

Then, whatever he actually did, would be in continuous interaction with the consequences of each individual child. For example, presumably each child would - from time to time, and indeed frequently - err and sin and start getting out-of-harmony with God. 

The ideal father would perhaps remove positive incentives for his child to sin, keeping the child away from environments that endorse sin (beyond that child's capacity to discern and resist). He may actively try to dissuade wrong-directions and wrong-methods.

But whatever the ideal father did; each of his children would be unique, and would have his or her own unique destiny. The ideal father would try to work from-and-with each particular child's nature. 

He would not try to force all of his children into one mould, nor even into a pre-planned unique mould that took no account of the child's choices; but the ideal father would be continually nurturing that child as he or she engaged with life in a trial and error fashion. 

The ideal father would encourage what he hoped were the best choices, and work to make these choices available - but the child would decide. Bad choices by the child would lead to evil-inducing situation - that turned the child away from God. 

The angel might try to 'engineer' or create situations in which the child might recognize and repent these bad choices and turn again towards God's creative intent. 

But - to be effective - each 'engineered situation' ought to take account of the individual, and the situation in which he find's himself (the situation in-which he has, to some extent, placed himself).

The ideal father would then deal-with whatever choices the child had made; and work from wherever (whatever point) that choice had placed the child. 

Then imagine that this ideal father was placed 'in charge' of a nation as the Angel of that nation; and was tasked with creating choices for individual persons and and dealing with the outcomes of those choices... 

The angel takes into account the uniqueness of individual persons, and of spiritually-coherent and motivated groups of persons; but also the uniqueness of the individual nation of England. 

The angel works much as the imagined ideal father; and therefore seeks to contribute to the alignment and harmony of the nation with on-going divine creation. 

The angel of a nation would not ideally work alone, which would be ineffective; but would be helped greatly by dealing with other angels who had responsibility for various smaller groups. 

Thus the angel of a nation would be analogous to an ideal tribal patriarch - a father-of-fathers; and angel-of-angels (or 'arch-angel'). 

But not by trying to force the nation to follow a pre-ordained path; rather, by knowing what is unique about that nation - nature, capabilities, motivations - and working with-and-from that. 

Because nations are unique, none are 'equal' - except in the spiritual sense of being loved by God as his families. Some nations are better or worse than others, some more or less capable - and the national motivations vary in their Goodness and change in time, including as a consequence of earlier choices. 

A once good and capable Nation may transform, through bad choices unrepeated, into an evil and/or inept nation; or a nation may break-up (or combine with another) for valid, or for evil, reasons. 

(And, of course, some 'political units' that get called nations, are not coherent and destined 'spiritual-nations', and therefore lack a guarding and guiding angel. Such pseudo-nations (probably most of the nations of the world) properly, by God's intent, are under the responsibility of another nation's angel; or else the people ought to disperse to other real nations.)

Throughout, the angel continues to work with the nation - starting from wherever the nation actually is; and with short term aims that are varied in accordance with the consequences of choices. What might be a good choice for a good nation, may become an evil choice for a bad nation. 

The national angel needs continually to take account of what he is dealing-with here-and-now, and how best to encourage that national being to become its best possible self; how to develop the best possible family environment for nurturing God's children; and how that nation (as it is, as it could become) may optimally contribute to God's ongoing creation. 
 

Note: My assumption is that angels are either male or female, men or women; and therefore it seems likely that some nations have a father/ patriarch archangel, while others have a mother/ matriarch archangel. Furthermore, this makes-a-difference; since men and women differ. Alternatively, or instead, it may be that nations are ruled by both a man and women angel united in eternal marriage as a dyad - in the same way as 'God'. Therefore, the 'ideal father' in the above passages may be changed to 'ideal mother' - mutatis mutandis. 

Why do we so often use Physics metaphors in theology? Why not use biology, or psychology?

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I do it myself! - examples are all over this blog: when I am trying to understand or explain God, I feel drawn into using physics-type or mathematical models and metaphors.

Of course it goes back to (what is known of) the earliest Greek philosophers - who regarded ultimate reality in physicsy ways - as elements such as fire and water, in terms of processes such as movement or stasis...

There isn't so much of this in the Bible - but it is there, for example in the use of Light and Dark as primary metaphors.

*

Yet, is this really helpful?

Does it not usually amount to explaining one difficult-to-understand thing, by employing some even-more-difficult-to-understand-thing?

I have myself, on this blog, have tried to explain the peculiarities of mortal life compared with Heavenly Life, and of the nature of dreams, in terms of the theory of General Relativity...

*

Yes, I know that physics and mathematics are capable of great precision of expression; but it is an immovable fact is that not many people really understand these matters - even/ especially the people who deploy physics professionally seldom have a true grasp.

It would surely be better to use biology or psychology as our main metaphors - since these are more comprehensible - but then there is 'physics envy' (analogous to Freud's - nonsensical- concept of 'penis envy'), to which thoughtful biological scientists allegedly tend to be prone...

*

And perhaps, especially among intellectuals, there is a yearning towards impersonal abstraction as being the bottom-line of life - as the final and secure escape from mortal, worldly suffering: this seems like the motivation behind the main 'Eastern religions' such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and behind the deisitic/ Platonic religion of physicists such as Einstein and Roger Penrose.

But Christianity is about a personal God, and His personal incarnate mortal life, and has at its centre the personal 'emotion' of Love.

So what is Christianity doing, dabbling in physics as its bottom line explanatory model?

Good question!

*

Consciousness raising? Communications and direct knowing

It is interesting to reflect on how many proposed 'methods' there are for 'raising consciousness'. 

In the mainstream, this refers to use of the mass media, education and propaganda to manipulate public opinion. It means, roughly, getting people to think about some-thing - in either a positive or negative way. 

For example, to become aware of some rare type of disease, so that they might contribute money to organizations purporting to 'do something' for sufferers or carers. Or to turn public opinion against to actual or virtual group of people by linking a name with alleged acts of meanness, crime, terrorism. 

This stuff is the staple of daily public discourse in all modern institutions (including most Christian churches). 

A small version of the mechanism can be seen in this blog, or any communication medium including speaking. 

I used to think of my writings as potentially able to spread to almost anywhere, on the basis that such things have happened: a few words written in a specific place have propagated and been reproduced to reach vast numbers of people (who maybe 'needed' them, or alternatively were vulnerable to them) - and these communications (words, images, music etc.) have an apparent effect on them.  

Another version of the idea is that God works through us - and God can and will amplify our works to reach many people - when this is helpful for God's purposes. The creator need not worry or concern himself about 'spreading the word', or 'reaching an audience', but only about creating some good communication - and God will do the rest. 

In New Age type spirituality circles, raising consciousness often refers to a proposed mechanism whereby the spiritual level of large numbers of people (or all people) is lifted by some kind of external effect. A divine being or tendency may increase the frequency or vibrational level acting-upon human - which is presumed to awaken or spiritualize their thinking and living. 

Or an individual who meditates (in the proper fashion) is assumed to have a very general and beneficial effect on everybody in the world; implicitly perhaps by some (probably very small) enhancement of an sort of 'spiritual ether' that is 'bathing' all our consciousnesses... 

So when that medium of consciousness is enhanced by the mental efforts of one or many spiritual persons, it is suggested that we all experience this enhancement (or could do, if we became attuned to it).

I think of these are 'physicsy' ways of thinking; which regarded spirituality rather like the radiations of the sun, incident upon the earth - perhaps some kind of cosmic ray that passes through the earth but potentially interacts with welcoming or susceptible minds en route. 

The way in which I tend to suppose consciousness can be raised posits a 'world of thought'. Or, more exactly, not all thoughts (which are mostly trivial, passive, 'automatic') but a world of 'real' thought, primary thoughts, thoughts that originate from our true and divine selves when we are living as free agents. 

This world of thoughts is contributed-to by many thinking Beings (living and 'dead', incarnated and spiritual, human and otherwise). This world of thinking may be accessed by anybody (any Being) who actively chooses to communicate with it. 

Such a concept privileges thoughts and their direct sharing or interaction, mind to mind; above the indirect and multistep processes of public communications and media. This I call 'direct knowing' and I regard it as the basis of genuine intuition. 

By this account, if I have an idea or an insight; then it is the having of it that matters more than the physical expression. For instance, it is implied that having the idea for this blog post was more important than writing and publishing that idea.  

Did I then really need to write and publish this post? Would it not have been just as good - maybe better (because more direct) to think but not publish it?

Yet there is a middle ground; which is that (for me, anyway) writing is thinking - at least to a significant extent; and further that writing-thinking is (for me) improved by the intent to publish, or share, it. 

In a sense, often (but not always) I do not really know my idea until I am writing it, or have written it. The process of writing seems to accelerate the evaluation and clarification of ideas. 

So consciousness is raised primarily by thinking, and this may secondarily amplified by communication. 

And at the other end - the way in which we may each directly attune to the 'world of thinking' is (for most of us) difficult, intermittent - and only able to cope with simple concepts. 

For instance, by direct thinking and knowing it is much more likely that we can discover a 'Yes or No' answer to a simple and precise question like 'should I quit my job?; than we could discern a plan of action in response to a question like 'what should I be doing with my life?'

Thus, given two Beings, both aligned with God and in sympathy, a physical communication like a blog post might be able to make a bridge to the world of thinking and direct knowing. So we might read (or listen, or view) a communication; and then (immediately upon comprehension) we may experience an intuitive confirmation of its validity.

The communication is therefore affirmed by direct knowing. 

In this way, by accelerating our intuitive grasping of things, communications may help us discover and evaluate our primary assumptions concerning the world - establishing a metaphysical basis upon-which all other kinds of knowledge depend. 

Note added: It is probably significant that I forgot to include what may have been the most prevalent or important form of consciousness raising at times and places in the past - which is by supernatural/ paranormal communications - such as dreams, visions (visual and auditory), visitations (by spiritual beings) and mediumship generally. 

In sum - by perceptual contact with the spiritual world: e.g. an angel speaks, a vision is shown. And any communicated perception is subject to distortion at many stages.  

I forgot to mention these, because such methods have become progressively less common, impossible for many people - and usually only attainable by deliberate practice or deliberate consciousness alteration. And all of these make any communications more liable to be misperceived or misunderstood; and which tend to impair discernment concerning the source and value of communications, and impair memory. 

I believe that direct knowing is both superior - because it is direct and cuts-out the problems of distorted perception, misunderstanding etc - and also that direct knowing is the destined way that modern Men in modern conditions are intended (by God) to have consciousness raised. A way that cannot be interfered-with by evil external powers. 

Un-resurrected Men are not perfectible and there can be no Heaven on this earth (Jesus Christ is the only Way to eternal love)

I have often come across variations on the theme that this world and the Men, animals and plants who dwell here are perfectible: that this mortal life can be transformed into Heaven. 

The transformation has been variously expressed; one idea is that the gross materiality of bodies will be transformed into light; or that matter becomes spirit; or (in New Age type thinking) that the vibrational-state or frequency of the planet and everything on it will be raised. 

The underlying idea seems to be that this world as-it-is is "entropically" subject to death, decay, disease, and sin; but that the corruptible "stuff" of mortality and imperfection can be transformed and replaced by in-corruptible stuff... Thus Earth is changed into Heaven.

I regard this metaphysical belief as an early manifestation of Mankind's alienation, of our diminishing participation, of the loss of primal "animism" by which we knew that this reality is constituted by Beings - loving, conscious, purposive beings - and these are the bottom-line explanation. 

Because reality is Beings - therefore restatements of ultimate reality in such terms as vibrations or frequencies, of matter-spirit distinctions, or of light or any other physical property - are all abstractions. (All "physicsy").

That is these ways of understanding reality are all distanced, symbolic, representative - but not reality itself; and only a secondary form of understanding.

If, instead, we embrace the original and spontaneous human understanding of reality in terms of Beings, then we can recognize that what prevents Heaven on Earth is not a matter of matter, not about the "substance" of this world (as if it could be separated from the spirit). But instead that death, sin, insufficiency, "entropy" are a consequence on the inharmoniousness of relationships between Beings. 

In a nutshell: it is the lack of complete and eternal love that prevents our eternal lives and Heaven. 

We must rectify relationships and enable eternal Love to have Heaven. 

Heaven can arise only by Loving God first - that is, recognizing and committing ourselves to God's creation and creative methods and purposes. 

And second: by loving our neighbours/ fellow-Men - in other words Loving All Other Beings - forever.

These are the two Great Commandments articulated by Jesus Christ; and can be seen as shorthand for the eternal and irrevocable commitment to live by Love; in harmony with God's creative will. 

When beings live by Love, this is eternal - because there is nothing in Heaven (thus conceived) to disrupt or destroy divine creation.  

Since Love is what is needed, and since Love is a choice - we need to recognize that Love is the free act of a Being with agency as an essential attribute. 

Therefore (because Love cannot be imposed, top-down, from-externally); everlasting life and Heaven cannot be imposed, but must instead be chosen: indeed there must be a commitment to live eternally by Love. 

To make our lives eternal and dwell in Heaven is therefore a matter of relationship, and that relationship is voluntary (again, Love cannot be imposed)... 

Thus Heaven cannot be imposed on Earth by any means - what must instead happen is that all the beings of Earth (including the being of Earth itself) must choose to live by Love.   

I cannot see any way that such a lot of choices would be simultaneous, and Heaven cannot be partial; which would seem to mean that either Heaven must be delayed until every Being has chosen it -- which delay seems contradicted by Jesus's teachings (esepcially in the Fourth Gospel - of "John"). Or Heaven is elsewhere. 

(And also there is the fact of at least some apparently eternally-self-damned demons; which would prevent Heaven ever from happening - if indeed all must repent before eternal life can ensue.) 

Heaven surely cannot be partial; because the dwelling in Heaven of selfish or cruel Beings would not be Heaven! It would lead to destruction of that Loving creation which enables both perfection and eternity - and is itself the state of Heaven.

So, it seems to me that Heaven, and our eternal resurrected life therein, must be elsewhere than this earth; and segregated from this world of sin/ death - such that those Beings who have not committed to Love, do-not and cannot affect Heaven. 

My understanding is therefore that this-world cannot be other than it is; which is a consequence of God's Loving creation in a context of primal chaos, creation in the context of Beings that all have some tendency to death, to selfishness, to sin (and some Beings apparently incapable of Love). 

This world is temporary, and creation here is like the rule of a wise and wholly-Good parent imposed on children (i.e. Beings) who vary in their innate degrees of Goodness, and obedience. 

But for eternal life and Heaven to exist, these Beings (us, you and me, included) must be released from obedience in order to choose freely whether or not we want Heaven. 

So, this world is mixed: and has in it both evil (primal chaos, entropy, selfishness...), and also Good - vast and renewing manifestations of God's creative Love. 

Therefore; every Being or entity in this world has direct and personal experience of evil and Good. 

Every Being in this world is in a position to make the eternal commitment to live wholly by Love in a wholly Good "other place" that is Heaven - a Heaven that already exists, and to which we each can go by following Jesus Christ through resurrection, after death.

In other words; we can, will, and must choose either Heaven; or else "more of the same, mixed, kind of thing".  

But this world is not staying the same. 

This world apparently accumulates evil through time, because evil just-is cumulative, and Beings that choose evil become more evil..

(Unless the Beings repent; which means precisely making a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

Also; Beings that commit to Good are incrementally being removed from this-world and segregated in Heaven. 

In other words; this mixed world already contains Hell in part and in places; but is becoming more Hell-ish with time. 

In conclusion; Beings such as our-selves can choose Heaven or Hell - both of which we all have experienced in this mixed world. This is the choice between eternally living only by Love; and not making this commitment. 

We can choose Heaven, or we can choose to reject Heaven. 

We can also choose to "delay" our choice -- but this is, in its actual effect, a here-and-now rejection of Heaven, and embrace of this mixed-world, which is tending towards Hell. 

We can go-back on this rejection of Heaven at any time: repentance is always open to every Being. 

But, in this mixed but evil-accumulating world, and given that un-repented evil will become more evil; delaying the choice of Heaven does make salvation more and more difficult. 

Repentance is never impossible, but always gets more difficult with delay. 

The abstract conception of God - thoughts prompted by commencing Philip K Dick's "Valis"

I read quite a few Philip K Dick novels and stories back in the early 1980s, and have always regarded him as one of the very best science fiction writers - although no more than adequate as a prose artist. But I have never re-read any of his books, and indeed to some extent avoided them - as one does with effective dystopias.

Partly this was due to a very unpleasant 56 hour weekend stint as the solo doctor resident and on call in a psychiatric hospital; when I made the mistake of reading the powerful  Time Out of Joint during the gaps between clerking and treating psychotic patients.

The novel is about a man for whom the paranoid delusion of all the society being organized around him is literally true - and I found it very unsettling to read the novel then talk with people who believed themselves to be in more or less the same situation - which set me to wondering about myself... It was, altogether, a very meta-Philip K Dick situation, like being inside one of his dystopias.

What I retained from the totality of PKD was a suffocating sense of the meaninglessness of life - life in general - which was brought into awareness (but not created) by the artificiality of his technologically enwrapped (and often off-world) environments. A world where the difference between a robotic animal and a real one, between a replicant android and a human, is almost impossible to discern - a world where the animal or human is not significantly different from a robot or replicant: both equally arbitrary and mechanical.

I have just bought and begun reading Valis, a novel which was written shortly before Dick's death and which is a semi-autobiographical  account of his later years of brooding on an experience of his which was either a divine enlightenment or a psychotic break or some combination.

The events of the first chapters (which are all I have read) depict a burnt-out Californian society of the early 1970s, in which the protagonist and his circle are all ex-druggy, hippy, hedonistic types suffering from heavy casualties of extreme loneliness (existential isolation), suicide, psychosis, neurosis and nihilistic cynicism - so it is not an enjoyable read, so far!

But what is portrayed is metaphysically the avant garde of what has (minus the LSD) since become mainstream in The West. In the first place, it is the futile struggle of people who have rejected God, the soul, the afterlife etc to find meaning in a world of mortality which they have further degraded by mechanistic explanations;  but in the second place (so far) there is the almost-equally-futile attempt of people to escape from this dead-ly set of metaphysical assumptions into a very abstract conception of God.

The protagonist has (like Philip K Dick) experienced a kind of revelation - which may or may not be from God - involving a pink beam of light; and this is interpreted (so far) in terms of physicsy ideas of God as 'information'. Friends of the protagonist with 'simple' Christians faiths (a cancer patient who has a rosary beside her bed) are rejected as a faith of naive wish-fulfilment which does  not take seriously the metaphysical problem of suffering... the striving is clearly for a very pure, abstract, physics-like faith in a God who fits in with the world of computers, information, archives, science, technology, psychoactive drugs and so forth.

What seems impossible for the hero is a faith based on God as primarily our loving, heavenly Father. That simple thing seems difficult, or impossible, to picture or believe - instead the abstract God is no sooner proposed than He gets bogged down in abstract metaphysical dichotomies concerning omnipotence versus helplessness, goodness versus suffering, meaning versus meaninglessness... any solution to these problems seems contrived, arbitrary and unconvincing.

So on the one hand there is the visceral  nature of human (or animal) suffering - a friend plans and kills herself calmly and without passion, a friend's cat runs out under the wheel of a car and is crushed, a friend dies after pain, blindness, deafness from cancer and radio-/ chemo-therapy and so on... While pitted against this is a very abstract, intellectual, information-theory, pink light beaming across the void type of understanding of God.

There is a gross mismatch between the nature of the problem, and the search for a solution. The proper answer, which is to understand God not a a set of abstract metaphysical properties but as our Father, and other people as His children and our siblings, and other things in the environment as being alive-like-us (rather than us being dead-like-them)... the protagonist is pre-immunized against these obvious and effective and satisfying answers and explanations as being too obvious, too simple, too much in conformity with what we would most wish.

The frame for explanation has narrowed from eternity to... well not even to the span of the mortal life of Men; rather it has narrowed to the span of the mortal life of one single consciousness... Then this assumed frame (a frame which was not really possible, and certainly not mainstream, until very recently in human history - and only in a minority of people and situations) has been accepted as utterly compelling - and any other frame is regarded as simply childish and stupid...

How could this happen? How could such a very socially and historically contingent world view ever be supposed to be entailed so strongly that to deny it is seen as foolish and unintelligent and weak?

What evidence is there that the people who adhere to the atomistic, alienated nihilism of the 1970s drug-devastated Californian milieu have a superior wisdom and insight almost all humans who dwelt in other times and places?

There is a truly cosmic level of arrogance, of pride, about all this - is there not? Combined with a truly cosmic level of condescension that amounts to despising almost everybody, everywhere and at all points of history.

In sum, a staggering degree of evil.

Yet, this evil metaphysical system spread from California to the rest of the West, where it now rules supreme and is enforced upon us a million times every day at every level of public discourse from the government, civil administration and legal system down through education and health care to the all pervasive mass media and casual human interactions.

PKD was certainly a canary in the coalmine, with respect to noticing and describing and diagnosing. I will be very interested to see whether he was able to solve - through the course of this novel - the deep problems he so acutely experienced; but I fear that he will not. Simply because he was looking in the wrong place, and had ruled-out or rejected the right place.

The one place where he would not search happened to be the place the answer was hidden - because he already 'knew' the answer and had rejected it. Indeed the whole edifice of evil PKC depicts was built upon this prior rejection.

And the evil was experienced as inescapable precisely because - given that a priori rejection - the evil was inescapable; just as you cannot escape from a burning building if you have already decided that the fire escape is the one and only route that leads nowhere.