Loss of the (supposed) Collective Unconscious - an effect of modernity and the declining power of symbolism

Reading books from even as recently as the early and middle 20th century, it is clear that many believed-in (or at least hoped-for) a universal and permanent 'system' of symbols - which was inferred to be rooted in an innate collective unconscious - that would reliably evoke human responses of particular types: certain symbols 'releasing' certain emotions, thoughts, behaviors, motivations etc. 

This idea has mystical overtones; but also had a quasi-scientific aspect, with supposed roots in biology, evolutionary history, and the presumed structure of the human mind (and brain). 

Yet there has been a striking decline in the specificity of symbolism, and its power - and the great mass of people (especially in modernized societies) have all-but completely abandoned whole systems of symbolism that as recently as a century ago seemed to be 'eternal' - part of the human condition. And among those who have not abandoned these system, they clearly have less power, are less motivating, make less of a difference. 

There are many factors contributing to this - I'm sure that the constant influx of novelty (especially from mass media), changing surroundings, changing location, cultural mixing; plus a great deal of top-down subversion focused on Christianity, tradition, and related to the pervasive leftism of modernity - all had a role to play. 

My own assumptions is that this overall process was driven by changes in the nature of Man's consciousness; which were ultimately part of our divine destiny - because the power of symbolism to evoke religious devotion and solidarity (for instance) was also a subjugation of Man to the power of symbol: a limitation to each man's freedom, autonomy, agency.  

It seems to me that there is a direction of spiritual development at work, which is a matter of maturation from child like, through adolescent, to adult - and aiming-at the divine state of resurrected Man becoming a co-worker with God and participant in creation. 

In this mortal life on earth, such a spiritual development is a maturation - but it is not a spiritual improvement - just as maturing from a child to adolescent is not always (or usually) an improvement... Rather it is a new set of challenges and possibilities, and maybe more people fail to respond well to these changes than emerge as better people. 

Growing up is a very risky business. Nonetheless, it is what we must attempt, if we are to reach higher spiritual levels - which is what we are alive for.  

My point here is that we have an enormous cultural residue that assumes, in the face of current experience, that symbolism is an intrinsic 'fact of life'; that both for better and worse, certain symbols evoke certain human responses. 

People on the side of God therefore deploy Christian symbolism where possible - putting crosses, ICHTHYS fishes, Bibles, performing public rituals, building sacred buildings. But they seem to have little effect - if any. 

On the other side; those against God continually try to co-opt and subvert Christian images; making crosses a fashion item, of deploying them in subversive contexts such as body-mutilations, or inverted, of being used in publicly-demonized rituals (such as the US fake-PSYOP which is the 'Klan'); of making the rainbow a symbol for sexual perversion and the agenda of child abuse. 

And this kind of anti-Christian symbolism seems (and obviously) far more effective than the traditional usages.

What all this seems to imply is that insofar as symbolism is still a significantly powerful and motivating force for Good, then it is revealed as being more individually-rooted and much less innate and universal, than was supposed a few generations ago. 

Speaking for myself, the symbolism of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and its associated works is very powerful - and for Good; yet I recognize that much of this is due to my particular personality and experiences - and that for the great mass of Tolkien fans/ critics/ scholars, there is no apparent positive influence of Tolkien. 

Most Tolkienites are on-side with the most strategically-evil aspects of current totalitarian materialism; and they deploy Tolkien's symbolism in support of mainstream social evils. 

I am Not saying that symbolism should be abandoned; because we need all the help we can get! 

I intend to make the best possible use of traditional Christian symbolism - where it works for me, and has not been spoiled - as well as Tolkien, and many others.

But it would be unwise for a Christian to rely on symbolism, or to put it at centre or root; because it will probably weaken over time, and may even be inverted in its significance. 

We each need to be able to discern when that which used-to help is now starting-to harm; and be able - spiritually - to step-away from it. 

Seeking power entails opening ourselves to manipulation by power

It is seldom explained explicitly; but experience of life teaches that those who seek power are thereby made more vulnerable to power. 

In general terms: those who seek to manipulate the world thereby open-themselves to manipulation by the world. And this applies whether the power sought is physical-material, or spiritual.

There are many routes and reasons by which this happens; but the general principle seems solid. It is a Faustian-type bargain; as if reality tells us:

"Yes, you can impose your will on the world, to some extent; but the price you must pay for this privilege is that your will itself becomes subject to elements within the world". 

Why this should be a kind-of law is perhaps abstractly explicable in terms of engagement: insofar as we engage with the world (for whatever purpose), we are Just Are engaged-with the world! And influence flows both ways, whether we like it or not. 

Another way to consider this interaction is relevant to the role of churches and religious structures such as priestly hierarchy, ritual, symbolism and sacred scriptures. These structures can generically be considered as intermediary between human and divine: a set of intermediary media. And these media are charged with power by the religious believer, who then seeks to lead the religious life by their intermediary power. 

Thus a religious symbol is effective in achieving its life-changing goals, only when and if it is made powerful; and when we yield to that symbol the ability to affect us. In a Good religion, that symbolic power will (on the whole) be wielded upon-us for our net-Good, and that is why we open ourselves to symbolism. 

But when the religious symbolism is used with evil intent, it has power over those who have (to some significant extent) previously yielded to it that personal power, and implicitly opened-themselves to the power of that symbol. 

(This is the principle behind a Black Mass, or other forms of subversion using distorted but traditional Christian symbols and rituals.) 

 

If we consider this issue very generally; it also applies to secular and physical power. At a material level; anyone (say a monarch or dictator) who intends to impose his will on society, must do so via "human technologies" such as powerful armies, police, spies, and bureaucrats; and by doing so, he becomes the subject of manipulation (individually, and in combination) by these same powerful institutions. 

This is a Big Problem in a world and society of increasingly-evil corruption, where all intermediate institutions, media, symbols, rituals... that whole world of abstractions and things by which we have traditionally related to Reality - gets subverted, destroyed and/or inverted. 

In a corrupting world; those entities by-which we sought power to do Good, to our-selves and to the world, are turned-against us - and with a power that we have previously given to them. And that power strikes home exactly because we have previously (but originally for Good intentions) made ourselves open-to it. 

So; in battling the evil manipulations of The World; we are also turning-against our-selves: turning-against our own former convictions and intentions. 

We are (inevitably) dis-engaging-from The World; and eschewing power - even the attempt to impose power on the world.  

It strikes me that this perspective may help us to understand why so many people are incrementally apostatizing from Christianity - and also why they seldom realize they are doing-so.  

The doubled-edged quality of sacred symbolism: from means to the sacred, to blocking the sacred

By "sacred symbolism" I intend all the intermediary forms that are between a Man and the divine: so this includes all intended-means towards the desired-end: contact with the sacred. 

"Sacred symbols" include religious symbols (the cross, the crucifix, the ICHTHYS fish) and Icons; ritual and ceremony; prayer and meditation; sacred places such as churches, cathedrals, places of pilgrimage; and "the church" itself*. 

None of these are "the thing itself" but are intermediary - intended to function as means to that end.

(For my present purposes; this also applies to the Eucharist/ Divine Liturgy/ Mass/ Holy Communion - since, even when there is believed to be the real presence of Christ as a consequence of the ceremony; the ceremony is understood as intermediary - a means towards that transformative end. )

From our Modern perspective that is rooted in a non-sacred, materialist world-view, we usually tend to regard sacred symbolism in a positive sense: the sense of symbols generating "sacredness" from a context of the mundane. 

Those serious about their religion therefore tend to emphasise, and try to strengthen, the power of symbolism. 

But sacred symbolism is double-edged. 

It is intended to bridge between the mundane and the sacred; but symbolism also (and necessarily) stands between the mundane and the sacred. 

I believe that historically (and in our own development from young childhood) symbolism became a part of religion as a response to the waning, declining, sacredness of life-as-a-whole.

Originally, I think that humans lived in and experienced a sacred world. That seems to be the situation of the nomadic hunter gatherers. Symbolism ("totemism") emerged as a later development. 

Likewise in the transition between young and older childhood - initially all the world is experienced as "spiritual" (or "enchanted" - which includes negatively such), but later much of life retreats to the mundane - and the sacred becomes discrete and increasingly separated.   

Symbolism therefore has both the positive and intended effect of making a bridge to the sacred; and also a negative and inevitable consequence of relatively down-grading the rest-of-life (the "not-specifically-sacred" images, actions, places etc.) to a lower and mundane level.   

Therefore... If or when symbolism loses its power to form a bridge to the sacred; then symbolism in practice will have a negative spiritual consequence. 

By focusing attention and hopes upon intermediaries that actually fail to generate the sacred; symbolism stands-between the individual and the sacred. 

Symbolism will then block our access to the sacred: will block our potential capacity to experience the sacred. 

In other words; the pre-existing systems of symbolism may claim to be the necessary and only means of accessing the sacred; yet in practice they fail to provide access to the sacred - and thus the consequence is for sacred symbolism to prevent access to the sacred. 

Then we need to realize that...

The above is not just a hypothetical; but actually has happened: is our present situation. 

*I regard my general point about symbolism to be of primary importance for Christians; but it naturally applies to other religions, to New Age spirituality, and to occult "techniques" intended to engage with the spiritual realm - such as astrology, Tarot, numerology, ritual magic; and many types of intermediary method relating to meditative or group work. 

Our culture of pervasive dishonesty reflects the decline of the objective symbol - How to overcome it, and live by truth

In the past, symbols - such as words, images, rituals - had an objective power that did not depend upon the mental state of the individual - in effect the symbol caused the mental state (an reality generally) in a reliable and irresistable fashion. 

This was especially seen in religion - where the effects of - for instance - Baptism or The Mass, did not depend on the individual subjectivity of the participants. The 'procedure' had an objective effect on reality, changed the world; whatever individuals may think about it.

Later, as marked by the work of Jung; there was an era in whiich objective symbols produced fairly specific effects - but only with the subjective participation of persons. The cross had a specific meaning, as did other 'archetypal' symbols; but only when the individual had faith or consented to participate. The combination of objective and subjective produced a specific effect.

 

But now, symbolism has become so weak as to be ineffectual and ineffective. People regard - for example - visual symbols such as the Rainbow, as arbitrary signifiers whose meaning can be defined and redefined at will (by the usual methods of mass persuasion - via public relations, advertising, 'education', and propaganda). Thus the rainbow went from a symbol of Christian hope, to pro-QWERY, to 'support the NHS' within a decade - and next week it may be reallocated meaning again.

In other words, symbolism is now wholly determined by power: specifcially the power to affect psychology - which includes coercive power (police, military, mobs), 'education', law, advertising, mass media, the arts and the (so-called) sciences. 

Words are likewise affected; and the meaning of words changes very rapidly - a particular word may be mandatory in public discourse and then a few years later taboo; or taboo for one group and allowed by another - such as Black, or the N word. 

The name of an entity, likewise; re-naming (of products, institutions, groups of people) is a primary tool of modern management, advertising and public relations - again the ideologies of sexual revolution and antiracism provides many examples. 

 

This is the state of consciousness of modern Man, increasingly over the past few decades; very completely-so by now. 

Consequently, the idea of honesty; the idea that one ought to use words truthfully - has all-but disappeared from public discourse. Because now words are only arbitrarily attached to things; therefore people feel no compulsion to be accurate with words (what does 'accurate' even mean?); nor to use one set of words rather than another. 

There is no dividing line between honesty and lies; indeed no meaning to the distinction - since the content of categories may be contested, swapped around, made opposite (like 'Fake News'). 

Or, more exactly, because the situation of maining is in constant flux; there is a possibility of using words to refer to a predicted future state of affairs, to a future set of relationships between words and things. 

In particular, it is permissable to use words as instructed by power; because power can and will soon be redefining things just as they wish, and the mass population will go along with this (because they always do).

 

This is perhaps a major reason why those closest to power, and who serve power, are nowadays always and habitually dishonest - why they use language wholly rhetorically (i.e. to manipulate behaviour); and yet are unaware that this is what they are doing.

(They may be angry and indignant at the 'accusation' that they are dishonest, despite that their dishonestly is an hourly-repeated objective fact, and they are Not Even Trying to be honest - the reason being that they are never honest, so have no basis for comparison.)

And this is surely why the attempts of traditionalists to hold to a fixed and objective scheme of symbolism have failed so comprehensively (even in an institution like the Roman Catholic Church, that is itself built-upon a set of fixed symbolisms).

 

This is a situation of tyranny, where power defines meaning open-endedly; and of arbitrary tyranny - since the power and meanings are circular. Naturally, purpose is abolished, along with meaning - since purpose depends on sustained values. 

All this fits with the negative and destructive nature of mainstream Establishment leftism; i.e. the global bureaucracy, which is continually and progressively destructive of all meaning, including all Good. 

The System is intrinsically evil - The System is allied to the Satanic (anti-God) agenda. Two equivalent statements...

 

The way out is Not to focus on the surface symbolism and language - which cannot be effective; but to align with the side of God, creation and The Good. 

To assert and support the reality of reality as directly (Not symbolically) apprehended. 

To live by the primacy of direct knowing, of intuition. By which truth is not 'fact' but reality. 

And we are not loyal to words, but realities.

 

Honesty is therefore to ally with God's creation and to live by its reality. 

Thus 'the death of the symbol' is itself by-passed, trasncended, rendered ineffectual.  

Symbolism has broken down in Christianity; and the church is symbolism - so we must either remain stuck; or else move on to some-thing new

I believe that symbolism has all-but broken down as a way of attaining the transcendental, especially the divine. I would see symbolism as including creeds, rituals, icons, scripture and all holy writings, spoken language (forms of words,  in ceremony,blessing, prayer etc.), priesthood: the church itself (all churches that are regarded as having an essential role or authority in some aspect of Christianity).

Indeed, as soon as symbolism was understood, it was already breaking-down - because when symbolism really works (as it did up towards the end of the Middle Ages) it is regarded as reality, not symbolism.

The symbol is not seen 'literally' (that is a modern distortion) - rather the literal symbol and the transcendental reality are seen as inseparably one.

But when I was first a Christian, I sought the fullest kind of symbolic Christianity. And I was shocked and dismayed that there was no single church or denomination which took symbolism seriously and thoroughly - none at at all; not a single one.

Some were strict about ritual, but not about language; some about scripture but not about words of prayer or particular 'translations' of scripture; some about vestments but not about ceremony - none at all try to provide a thoroughly consistent symbolism*.

As I say, at first I was dismayed and felt lost. Then I recognised that this was an implicit (albeit not self-aware) manifestation of the actual, objective, loss of the power and necessity of symbolism.

I now regard this as a consequence of the developmental-evolution of consciousness in Western Man, and part of the increase in self-consciousness and separation from The World; our sense of losing the spontaneous, unconscious sense of being 'in' the world, including 'in' the divine world.

(The complete loss of Original Participation and the advent of the Consciousness Soul.)

In a world without symbolism; the only possible replacement would seem to be the primacy of intuition and the necessity and possibility of direct and unmediated knowing - developing to the new situation of Final Participation: loving participation in the divine creation.

So, my argument is that the fact that no existing Western church will take symbolism seriously is evidence that symbolism has become impossible, ineffectual - and we are faced with either being stuck in our present alienation, or else (as I advocate in Romantic Christianity) moving forward to a different form of consciousness: intuitive direct knowing, Final Participation.


Note added: To be more specific: An evangelical protestant church placed priority on scripture, but the scriptural translations were chosen on the basis of 'modern scholarship' meaning that the symbolism of poetry was absent, nor were the words spoken with dignity - and was indifferent about the aesthetics of ritual and did not set-apart the time in church from mundane life. A Latin Roman Catholic mass had beautiful language - but was rushed, slapdash - including in the Eucharist. An Eastern Orthodox church had some beauty of setting, vestments, incense, iconography; but bureaucratic English, gabbled liturgy, and a casual conversational style. One Anglo Catholic church had beautiful language and an intense Eucharist-focused ritual - but was let down by the almost facetious quality of the teaching and social interaction around the service. Another Anglo Catholic setting had an intense setting, ritual, incense - but drab and functional vestments; and again bureaucratic and politically-correct language, including in the psalms - which are supposed to be poems. Etc... None, and no Western Church I have heard of anywhere, demonstrated a seriousness and thorough attitude about symbolism, which might be able to lift the church service to a higher and more divine level than our ordinary media-bureaucratic life. To be 'friendly' (or amusing) is more important than to be the Little Piece of Heaven that was the aim of some Christian gatherings of the past. Likewise, prayers are often merely topical, secular and reflecting leftist priorities. Those partial symbolic aspects that were taken seriously, therefore seemed almost arbitrary.

Rainbows and Union Jacks: The lability and shallowness of symbolism in this collapsing world

I was driving arund Newcastle and Northumberland today; and saw quite a lot of houses decorated with a combination rainbows and union jacks; and slogans in support of the National Health Service.

This is interesting as an illustration at the way symbols can be - all but instantly - re-purposed in this non-culture we inhabit. Until the-day-before-yesterday - the rainbow was a symbol of support for the agenda of sexual revolution (i.e. the global Establishment program for corruption and sexual abuse of children); while displaying the Union Jack was associated with working class skinheads specifically, and 'right wing' nationalism in general. Those who 'proudly' displayed the QWERTY rainbow would certainly not display the union jack, and would despise or hate those who did.

Yet here we are; the symbols of Left and (sort-of) Right instantly adopted with a different meaning, that apparently everybody instantly understands: solidarity behind the (if 'necessary') permanent agenda of lock-down-social-distancing.

This shows, on the one hand, that symbolism does not have the kind of objective power that it used to have; mainly because all symbolism is both weak and subjective; further, that human subjectivity is now porous to the mass of in-putting stimuli that is the mass-social media.

On the other side; it shows that the Establishment still have a use for this symbolism; not least because adopting it quickly and eagerly is a signal of obedience.

Because decorating one's home with flags and signs used to be (until very recently) regarded as an infra dig, lower class, 'blue collar' kind of thing - whereas the current rainbow-union-jackites include  the upper middle class, professionals, public sector bureaucrats... Readers of the Guardian and Independent 'newspapers'; those who regard the BBC as an impartial organisation. 

In sum; the new symbolism is of those who aspire loyally to serve the the new Global Totalitarian Dictatorship - and they don't care who knows it!

Ceremonial (ritual) magic - its nature and decline

I have been reading Gareth Knight recently, including his 2011 autobiography I called it magic.

From this, and several other, readings (over the years) it seems to me that ceremonial magic is a form of drama (akin to a pageant) that revived in the late 1800s and early 20th century; with magical intent, and based upon systems of symbolism and ritual (new syntheses, but based on what was known or believed of tradition) that were taught to the participants through prolonged and hierarchical initiations.


Through Gareth Knight's life, his own practice of ceremonial magic changed in ways that embodied changes in culture (and, I would argue, Western consciousness); in that the ceremonies became more innovative and improvisatory - less like the catholic mass and more like an experimental theatre company. I think this also reflected a reduction in the scale of ambition.

The early magical societies were aiming, and expecting, to change the destiny of the world and fate of nations (a late example being the 'Magical Battle of Britain', which I discussed recently. But in the post-war era my impression is that the aim was more like a lasting transformation of the consciousness of the participants in the ceremonies.

I relate this to what I perceive to be a progressive loss of effectiveness of general systems of symbolism; so that at first symbols must be made more personal (and novel), then later even this is diminished - and there is no effective vocabulary of general symbols that may be 'relied upon' to produce predictable effects in a wide range of people.


In the end we are each brought to our own condition and situation - each must actively seek his own meaning and cannot satisfyingly 'use' the meanings and systems of earlier generations. Activities of a spiritual nature that used to be best pursued as part of a group, find that the scale and power of group benefits are dwindling.

This can be seen in that the activities of ceremonial magicians as a whole seem to have become less Good, more evil.  The early practitioners - and Gareth Knight himself - were often serious Christians and well-motivated individuals.

Modern people who are interested by magic are - very obviously! - mostly anti-Christian, attracted by 'dark' and demonic themes; focused on personal issues of sex, power and thrills - their activities are bound-up with extreme self-mutilation and shocking 'the squares'; the politics this-worldly, materialist, anti-Christian/ pseudo-pagan, hedonic, pro-sexual revolution - thus Leftist, nihilistic - sinfully despairing.


The choices for a Christian seem to be either to accept a diminished thing (a materialistic, 'theoretical' kind of Christianity), or work on the same spiritual projects by ourselves and with less recourse to symbolism; or else to give-up and not to do anything seriously spiritual at all (which is, of course, the usual response, even among Christians).

My response is to develop the personal, experiential aspect of Christianity as an individual; but to seek inspiration and encouragement where I can find it. In one sense this is a version of the (notorious) New Age mantra 'what works for me'; but with the the absolutely crucial and transforming difference that 'what works' must be rooted-in and emergent-from the reality and truth of Christianity.

And Gareth Knight's work is something that does inspire and encourage me - even though I am not-at-all interested in participating in (even his kind of, which seems to be one of the the best kinds of) ceremonial magic.

Gareth Knight - Romantic Christian

In 2011, Gareth Knight (1939-2022) published an autobiography titled I call it Magic which is easy and enjoyable to read on the surface; yet contains several deeper layers of implied content that have only revealed themselves on re-reading.

Of particular interest was his account of the transformation in his own 'magical life' throughout his adult life; especially the changes in what he 'called' magic, the means by which he reached the state of enchantment or poetry, and the actual content of these magical-states. 

Knight began as a formal ritual magician, ascending through the prolonged training and initiatory steps of the Society of the Inner Light (founded a generation earlier, as a Christian organization, by Dion Fortune); he went on to found his own ritual magic group - on similar, though looser, lines; then to 'staging' much larger annual weekend events (almost 'happenings') at an anthroposophical centre called Hawkwood. 

By Knight's own account, in the 1970s to the early 1980s, these weekends attained a very powerful level of magical activity among the participants (who had been trained in the requisite methods of concentration and visualization). He then stopped doing this, and moved on to less formal and more improvisatory styles of magic either alone, with his wife and daughter, or in small and private groups. 

After the turn of the millennium his magic practice had changed further. In December of 2004 he was invited back to the Hawkwood weekend; which had changed considerably over the previous couple of decades (the following quotations are from Chapter 31 of I called it Magic) :

The occasion was a jolly romp, with the place filled to capacity, and a rich variety of activity. [But] Power was not ramped up to the degree that it had been in the early Hawkwood days...   

In other words, the experience was less-strongly magical, less enchanted than it had been. In other words; this corresponds to my observations on the declining power of symbolism and ritual through the late 20th century.  

Knight does not draw attention to the meaning of these changes for his inner life; but describes how in fact his practices changed - in the direction of becoming more individual, personally based, and exploratory (rather than relying-on an established and quasi-objective system of symbols, rituals, and group activity). 

Rooted in his study of French language and literature (in which subject he did a degree in later life); Knight embarked on an engagement with the medieval French Arthurian poet Chretien de Troyes:

I took upon myself the task of going through each of Chretien's romances as if both he and I were present, travelling through the whole scenario from start to finish as a kind of directed visualization, and writing it all down...

It then filtered into my head the realization that much that I had witnessed in this was was not chivalrous knights going to the aid of damsels in distress but accounts of their initiation into fairyland - for there was a strong case for seeing the principal female characters as faery rather than human. 

This led on to what Knight termed faery 'contacts' - which then led to writing several books deriving from these contacts. What this meant he explains further: 

It dealt in imagery but with a philosophical intent, yet a wisdom expressed more through the medium of a story than by intellectual definitions. To make the contact it was necessary to build a scenario [i.e. in imagination] something like a questing knight discovering a castle in a particular symbolic shape, and then entering into it... with a ... direct feeling of relationship with the fabric of the building itself. 

After further description of his imagined but real-seeming experiences; Knight elaborates the resulting new and deeper engagement with nature:

This kind of thing was at a different level from local countryside experiences where contact was virtually devoid of intellect but impacted more on the emotional and etheric levels... Along with contacts... came a greater sense of presence and communion with the world of nature, and particularly trees...

It may well be that experience and wisdom of this nature comes with age, which is [an] aspect of the Merlin and Nimue story... But there is no real need to await one's dotage for a realization of these things.

  

What Gareth Knight seems to me to be describing here, is a kind of recapitulation of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield's scheme of the development of consciousness. The ritual magic was the Intellectual Soul era, characteristic of classical and medieval culture. 

Contact bears some relationship to 'channeling' of spiritual Beings - which he also did for example in a channeled series of direct communication (much like taking dictation) of 1993, published as The Abbey Papers. 

But 'contact' comes across to me as much more of a two-way interaction between himself and a spiritual Being - and not necessarily in words, nor in images - i.e. more direct than language- or symbol-mediated. 

Knight then moved towards what sound very much like Final Participation - which is something like a recapitulation in conscious thinking of what was a much more passive and unconscious in the spontaneous animistic Original Participation of early childhood and tribal Man. 

Animistic, because it recognizes the world as consisting of living, conscious Beings with which one may have relationships and communication. Knight also seems to be moving towards a communication less based on perceptions and visions, and more a matter of what I have called Direct Knowing: that is direct, wordless and imageless communication in thinking. 

In other words, a direct communion between Beings, such that the thinking of one is participated-in by the thinking of another. 

Once Gareth Knight had reached this kind of 'magic' I think he has largely left-behind the formal and institutional roots of his practice, and indeed its 'objective' aspects, where experiences were shared via a common language and symbolism that could be relied-upon to evoke the same inner states in its participants.

It seems he has - in practice, if not in terms of theorization - fully Romantic Christian; in that he takes an inner, intuitive and personal responsibility for whatever 'methods' he uses to attain magical states of mind (within the over-arching and primary Christian metaphysical framework).   

Knight puts this change down to his own personal development, experiences, expediency, and ageing - but such is the generality of such a development that I interpret it as driven by inner and divinely-destined changes in the human consciousness of Western Man. 

What all this seems to mean is that (here and now) we cannot rely upon external and institutional forms of spirituality to attain 'participation' in the world; and the language of 'objective' communication of spiritual experiences has weakening and withered. 

Yet, on the positive side, we can develop distinctive (perhaps unique) personal 'aids' and methods (i.e. 'contacts' occurring inside thinking, rather than as external 'events), that will achieve the participation which is natural, good, and divinely-intended. 

Also, that strong forms of achieved participation are likely to be more animistic and personal - engagement with particular Beings - than the abstract forms of earlier symbolism. 

     

Whether Gareth Knight would have agreed with my interpretation of his life and development is perhaps doubtful... 

It does rather involve a cutting-off of the branch upon which his life's work rested: that is, the general validity of some particular kinds of ritual, symbols, group-activity; and the communication of these in abstract and written forms, and by speech. 

But his desire to use more narrative story-like communications; his primary mode of magic in later life being a personal, inter-Being and two-way 'contact'; and the continually-evolving nature of the subject matter and formal techniques of his magic - all suggest that there was exactly such an evolution; and that Gareth Knight's life ended with him being implicitly a genuine and fully-realized Romantic Christian. 

Erecting a "middle realm" between the private-subjective and public-objective is a Dead End

Through the twentieth century, but especially since the late 1960s - and associated with Hippy/ New Age spirituality - there have been many repeated attempts to erect a middle realm to mediate between the private and subjective realms, and the public and objective realm. 

In other words - for many people The spiritual problem of modernity is alienation: the severing between subjective and objective - and the consequent denigration of the subjective; so that modern people experience life as a personally-purposeless and -meaningless, temporary and brief, state of mere-existence in an indifferent universe, which is operating on the basis of randomness and mechanical causality. 

In the pre-modern era, this situation was - to varying degrees - ameliorated by "the church"; which provided a shared, public, 'sacred-realm' of ritual and symbolism. 

This meant that the individual had an indirect (because mediated) relationship with divine reality; yet the symbolism and ritual was (although intermittent) so effective in bridging the gap, as to enable engagement ('participation') between Man and reality; making life broadly tolerable, and sometimes spiritually-fulfilling. 

Due (I believe) ultimately to changed in Man's consciousness, the symbolism and ritual lost its connecting-power; and left modern Man bereft and alienated. The new and traditional 'middle realm' systems were, implicitly, an attempt to replace what the churches had once provided. 

There have been, and are, many middle realm systems. 

One, and the most explicit, was provided by CG Jung and various neo-Jungians such as Joseph Campbell and James Hillman. Such people envisaged an underlying, mostly unconscious, collective "objective psyche"; shared by all Men in all times and places. 

The idea was that modern, subjective Man could engage with this middle realm of the Psyche as a kind of symbolic/ ritual bridge - accessed via meditation, dream, psychotherapy, personal creativity (arts, crafts) etc.  

Such Jungian ideas provided a rationale for a massive resurgence in occult traditions and new systems of symbol and ritual; which had the advantage over traditional churches of novelty and abundance. Novelty and abundance together overcome habituation and fatigue; so that a whole life could be spent in exploring, sampling, and permutating spiritual systems selected from the New Age smorgasbord.  

So, there have been big revivals of astrology, Tarot, alchemy, , numerology, Neo-Platonism and the like; and new systems based on UFOs, crop circles, geomancy, earth energies, cosmic radiations - and a multitude of healing therapies with spiritual implications. 

I'm afraid I regard all such attempts as essentially misguided because regressive, hence ineffective. 

And indeed, despite great hopes for a "New Age" inspired global spiritual revival, the world has become more and more materialistic, bureaucratic, and totalitarian. Spirituality (as well as religion) has been eliminated from the public realm in the West.

(Or, at the least, reduced to reactive, insincere, and ineffectual rhetoric - such as the regular call from-and-to explicit atheists to 'pray' for such-and-such victims. Politics now - very obviously - drives religion; and spirituality merely fits-around prior left-ideologies such as antiracism, carbon-environmentalism, socialism, feminism, healthism etc.) 

Middle realm construction and advocacy is misguided, ineffectual and a dead-end. 

What actually happens with such middle realm constructions, is that they become absorbed-into materialism. Instead of making a bridge connecting modern Man from the material to the spiritual; these systems either do nothing but provide lifestyle options...

Or else the rituals and symbols crystallize into the material to become large, difficult and complex systems - the preserve of experts and professionals - standing between the individual and the spiritual in much the same way as institutional churches. 

This is why I am filled with a mixture of boredom and dismay whenever I come-across one of these middle realm systems; describing some large/ difficult-to-understand/ complex layer of ideas; or purporting to give 'information' or 'teaching' concerning the higher or spiritual world (which spiritual world always seems to resemble a complex, hierarchical, multi-specialized, multi-national corporation, or bloated state bureaucracy!). 

These middle realms purport to be bridges and mediations; but I see just-another barrier.  

After many centuries during which the effectiveness of mediation has progressively dwindled; and all churches and religions have become corrupted to the agenda of this-worldly, materialist-leftist, socio-politics; we are now confronted by a situation in which our choice is either to abandon the subjective along with the spiritual (and accept our status as depersonalized 'units' in a transhumanist world)...

Or else: To approach reality (including God) directly and (as much as possible) un-mediated. 

Why the new ultra-Gerontocracy? Answer: it takes a long time to corrupt people to the very core of their being

A surprising proportion of the most powerful people in the world are above retirement age - and some very old indeed by world historical standards of a maximum life expectancy of about seventy years (and also by the normal current standards that are chosen, habitual and enforced in the mainstream of jobs; in many of which mandatory retirement before the middle sixties is normal).

Furthermore, the younger leaders are mostly - very obviously - not real leaders, not really powerful; but merely puppets, mouthpieces, middle-managerial stooges for those in the shadows who - as I said - are often old, and mostly (obviously) well-advanced in decline. 

These ultra-old power-people are apparently kept going for as long as possible by massive drug usage and perhaps other practices - but nonetheless, they cannot possibly match the stamina and aptitudes of younger cohorts.   

So why is it that the Global Establishment has come so strongly to use the very old, whose abilities are generally much impaired and who lack the surface appeal of the young or middle-aged; and who need so much work to sustain? 

Why do They insist on propping-up these decayed characters in positions of power? 

And why do not this new ultra-Gerontocracy (rule by the oldest) themselves want to cease the daily wielding of power, and instead refocus upon spiritual matters in preparation for inevitable death - as Men nearly always did in the past? 

The answer I have reached is that it usually takes the powers of evil a long time - decades rather than years - thoroughly to corrupt the hearts of Men; so that those Men have deeply internalized evil to the point of actively wanting evil. 

It is not enough for the most powerful Men to be selfish, hedonic careerists or obedient; they must have voluntarily, willingly, whole-heartedly adopted that value-inversion required for the pursuit of strategic evil; they must have come to regard evil as good, ugliness as beauty, lies as a higher-truth... 

In traditional terms; these high level leaders need to have invited evil into their souls; to have agreed to demonic possession to a significant degree - and indeed set-aside most of their natural personal hedonic goals in active service to the agenda of Satan. 

I suspect that these genuinely powerful individuals are not materialists, and that they know God is real; but they reject God and divine creation, and despise resurrection into Heaven; and instead look beyond this mortal life to some kind of continued spiritual existence in continued service to evil.

It is this kind of 'immortality' that they have been offered - by a Faustian bargain.

This promise of immortality may be a lie, often is; and they may have been duped - to be cast into oblivion at death. But I think there must be some examples of such immortality of evil spirits which can be exhibited, and which exhibiting these wholly-corrupt individuals have experienced and been convinced-of - in order that they will agree to this bargain. They can therefore believe that there is at least a chance of success from their choices. 

These old-evil people do not want resurrection into Heaven; they want to stay themselves, with all their sins - because their sins are the core of their being. They want to live 'forever' primarily to pursue their sins. 

Satan cannot offer resurrection, but probably can offer continued spiritual existence of the personality - and maybe by the extraction and use of spiritual energy by means of classically Satanic practices, rituals, symbolism, initiations, sacrifices, deals and contracts etc. 

What the ultra-Gerontocracy probably hope is that the small-fry servants, slaves and dupes of evil (of whom there are vast numbers nowadays) will be consumed; and their life energies used to sustain the continued existence of this minority of Quisling ex-humans who have committed (in their hearts) to a post-mortal life as a demon. 

Such an extreme, near-total, degree of self-aware human corruption apparently takes a long time to happen - and many will fall aside on the dark path; and some will be saved late in the day. 

By the time that a person has fully internalized and embraced the agenda of evil, and cast-aside all loyalty to Mankind; he will usually be very old. But such individuals are of immense value to Satan; and well-worth sustaining for as long as possible. 

The ultra-old leaders are thus akin to the Ringwraiths of Sauron - completely trustworthy agents of the devil, because they have nothing of themselves left with-which to rebel against their master. 

And the ultra-Gerontocracy of evil is one result of this process operating in our world.

Are the demon-serving (or demon-hosting) Establishment afraid of dying? Not necessarily, but increasingly

It is often said on Christian blogs that the demon-serving high-level globalist Establishment (Them) live in fear of death; because They know They are going to Hell. 

But I do not believe that They necessarily live in fear of death. Some do, no doubt - but not all, by any means; and that has been an important fact in the nature of global evil.

But this may be changing; and more and more of the most evil Men of this world may be becoming terrified of the own deaths; and behaving accordingly with their most evil natures...

What follows are my intuitively-guided speculations on this subject.  

Some of Them do not fear death, I think, because in some instances Hell (accurately understood as a personal fate, rather than a uniform destination) is exactly what They desire, and what They prefer to Heaven.

In other words; They have understood and rejected Christ's offer of salvation. They do not wish to affiliate to God's creative intentions, which entail making an eternal and unbreakable commitment to live in Love. They prefer, and choose, Hell (at least, as They understand Hell will be for Themselves). 

Their choice is, instead of Love; to live (after mortal life, as well as in it) especially in-accordance-with that sin to which each is personally most devoted: pride, resentment, fear, lust, sloth, or whatever. (This is well described in CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.)

The question then is: to what extent this choice is fulfilled in actuality? Can They actually get what They most want? 

In other instances, They do not fear death because They do not believe that they personally are going to die. Not fully: not in their essential nature.   

How They believe this continuation of consciousness is to be achieved is necessarily speculative, but I have written on this subject before.  

In a nutshell; I think They believe that They may continue to 'live' because what we might term Dark Magicians purport to conjure animate thought-forms by group activities that entail mental concentration and ritual. 

This is regarded - not as a spiritual activity; but instead as a quasi-science; a manipulation of the material world by means of channeled will. 

(This belief intersects with the most ideological forms of Transhumanism; when people hope for continued life in a 'downloaded', or perhaps transplanted, form of consciousness. This shows how a wholly materialistic/ atheistic perspective can lead to quasi-spiritual hopes and intentions.)

It is the group nature of such Dark Magical activities that lies behind the Ahrimanic, materialist quality of evil that has dominated the world in recent decades. 

In other words; Ahrimanic evil operates by organized, hierarchical, bureaucratic mechanisms - to create a unified global System that is a mechanism for damnation.  

I think it likely that Their oft-observed concern with symbolism, signaling, ritual, pain, sacrifice etc.; is part of a genuinely black-magic orientated group-concern. This is not just about somewhat extending mortal life (although that is part of it); but also, ultimately, (for perhaps the 'chosen few') with attaining a kind of immortality after mortal death in a material but ghostly, or spirit form, 

The personal goal is then to continue (self-gratifying) activities in this world, as an 'honorary demon'; that has been created (and, probably is sustained - because this state is subject to entropy, and therefore needs constant infusion of energy to remain viable) by Black Magical means.

But, having said all this; I also believe that there has been a change in human consciousness over recent generations, but particularly since the millennium; and that part of this change has been a sharp decline in the ability of group-activity to conjure thought-forms. 

This change in Men's consciousness has affected the 'good magic' of Christianity, as well as the black magic of the demonic Establishment. This development has been a part of the decline of church-based Christianity: the fact that it can no longer do for people as much as it used to do. 

Those Christian group practices that used to 'work' reliably and powerfully to sustain and enhance spirituality, are now diminished in effect, and still diminishing. Indeed, for many people in the West; these practices have altogether lost spiritual power; and church activities have declined to a wholly psycho-social and political role.  

However, this development of consciousness must - I think - also have affected the power of Ahrimanic evil - and this will probably be one of the major causes that the cooperation of evil consciousnesses, which sustains The System, is now breaking-down.

I am (again!) talking about the transition between Ahrimanic and Sorathic evil, about which I have written many times before. 

I mean the breakdown of long-termist and coordinated evil by the defection of individual evil Beings; into the chaotic state of many simultaneous personal agendas each characterized by short-termist and destructive spite.

This is something that can be observed in the world today. The globalist alliance that launched a successful (covert) coup in early 2020 has, this year, fractured geo-politically into Anglosphere/ Western European 'West' and its vassal states; versus the others. 

Furthermore, The West has fractured such that the dominant elements are beginning to destroy the vassal states by acts of sabotage - financial, economic, demographic - and recently actual physical sabotage. 

This must have a confidence-shattering effect on many Establishment members who, until recently, 'trusted' that They would be exempted from the planned mass destruction; and would be rewarded for Their cooperation by eternal 'life' - among other and more immediate gratifications. 

Whether the evil-Establishment were correct to trust in the integrity of the principalities of evil is, for Christians, a question that answers itself! Yet, such Faustian stupidity is a fact of human life. Many Men have believed that Their cooperation with The Plan would win personal rewards; believed that They had a contract with evil, an agreement that evil would "honour"... 

(Despite that the powers of evil cannot be trusted; and will lie and cheat as is expedient - or as provides Them with some kind of sadistic enjoyment.)

Anyway, the hope was that They could achieve a kind of eternal existence of self-gratifying worldly activity.

There must, I think, have been some such 'trust' between lower and higher evil-souls - however misguided - in order to enlist the cooperation of so many individuals in so many nations. 

Many of These are now realizing that They have-been, or soon will-be, betrayed.

They face a dawning awareness of the terror of bodily annihilation and eternal spiritual torment. 

Of course; this betrayal and disillusionment opens a window to repentance; to affiliate with God and accept the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

In this mortal life it is never too late to repent - although it gets harder and more painful, the further advanced in evil a soul has gone. 

But, when repentance is rejected, realization may lead instead to a kind of destructive frenzy of vengeance - the desire to inflict as much suffering on others as possible, before falling into the pit oneself. 

This very purely negative form of evil, a 'lashing-out' which takes 'pleasure' only in the doing of evil and not in rewards from so doing; is what I call Sorathic - and it seems to be gathering strength, perhaps especially in the Establishment of the dominant Western power: the USA. 

I would guess that the 'promised' reward of an eternal life of personal satisfaction was, at best - only ever, in practice, short-term. 

Sooner rather than later; the promised rewards are revoked, and the self-gratifications of eternal living are inverted into a state of eternal slavery; a continued existence only as objects of torment for the pleasure of other evil beings - who are Themselves destined for the same fate.  

As the cabal of organized evil breaks down; such betrayals will be happening, and be observed; more and more often; and no doubt some terrible conclusions will be drawn. 

If this interpretation is correct, and the Dark Magician cabal is increasingly breaking-down into mutual warring factions; factions that then themselves splinter break-down into each against all - then these times are both very dangerous and somewhat hopeful. 

Christians are no longer up-against a coordinated conspiracy - which is good. But those evil Beings (human, as well as demonic) that remain powerful in this world, will feel that - now that their chance at 'eternal life' is gone' - They have nothing to gain from long-termism or cooperation;: nothing to lose' by sheer spitefulness. 

They seem highly likely to behave in an increasingly reckless and frenziedly destructive manner - whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. 

Be Prepared (spiritually, I mean).

A future for pagan religion? Laeth insights

 As a complement to William Wildblood's reflections on the potential value for Christians in what might be termed pagan-ism; Laeth makes an interesting point about the possibility of a future pagan religion in The West (edited): 

Jupiter stopped answering the Romans, and Jesus stopped answering the Christians. This is obvious. 

There is no power or magic left in the churches... 

Lots of people may say: "but my church is wonderful, we do this and do that, and so on". But that doesn’t change the fact that the spirit going through your local, or even home, church is not infecting and affecting the world the way Christianity as a whole thing did...

The fact is, no religion moves the West (and beyond) anymore. 

But it obviously did, as any look into history will show. 

Look around: the remnants of that incredibly strong motivation are still here. We like to visit such places. But we don’t do there what our ancestors did; and even when we do, we don’t feel like they did doing it.

C. S. Lewis, I think, once said that this was doubly true for paganism; that if we are removed from Christianity, we are even more so from paganism. 

But now I think it’s pretty much the same. That "gap" has been closed. 

The more a body decomposes, the more it looks like the one next to it.

That point about the "gap" between Christianity and pagan religions having closed strikes me as a genuine insight from Laeth. 

It is probably what underpins such pagan revivalism as has been evident over the past half century or so: Wiccan witchcraft; Druidism; Shamanism; and revivals of neo-Celtic, -Norse, or -Anglo-Saxon polytheistic rituals and symbolism - and the like.

This has been possible because - experientially - such invented neo-paganism is overall, pretty much, just as motivating and powerful as Christianity... 

The trouble is that this level power and motivation is Not Enough - in either case.

So that Christianity and the varieties of paganism are way too feeble to overcome pre-existing political beliefs.

So that both Christianity and paganisms now operate at the level of lifestyle, hobbies, fandoms - and do not do what religion historically "obviously did". 

From such a recognition we may look back into history and recognize that - in terms of theosis (i.e. learning and developing spiritually during mortal life) and salvation (resurrection into Heaven after death) - None Of This Matters. 

Christianity was essentially not/ never supposed-to-be a socio-economic state programme. 

And it was supposed to be possible for all individuals who wanted what Jesus offered; regardless of their time, place, or personal circumstances. 

The change of human consciousness throughout my life-span

We all begin our lives in the state of immersive, spontaneous, initially un-conscious Original Participation - which was, pretty much, the consciousness of mature adults in the earliest (e.g. hunter gatherer) phase of human history - a state of mind when we are in direct contact with an animistic (living, purposive, aware) universe of beings/ spirits, gods. 

The Medieval Consciousness (aka Intellectual Soul) is that of the great span of recorded human history, of agricultural society, of civilization - the "axial age" when religions were developed; changing through the Ancient Egyptian (for example), Ancient Greek, Roman and into the Medieval era. 

During this era, spirituality was largely communal, and contact with the world of spirit (experience of the spirit within us) was via intermediaries such as church structures, priests, symbolism and ritual. 

For Christians this type of consciousness reached a peak in the Byzantine and Holy Russian societies of Orthodox Catholicism; and for Westerners it peaked in the Medieval times with Roman Catholicism in Western Europe. 

Modern Consciousness - in which man is alienated from God, the gods, the world of spirits, and other beings; began to emerge with the Renaissance and Reformation (as traditional forms and symbols began to lose their objectivity and power) - and accelerated through the Industrial Revolution up to now. 

So that now it seems obvious common sense that this is a purposeless, meaningless, dead universe - going nowhere, and in which we humans and individual persons are irrelevant; such that our "morality" is merely maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering until we die and are annihilated. 

Looking back; it now seems that I experienced the dying residuum of the Medieval Consciousness; which, although relatively feeble and only among a minority, was behind the radicalism of the counter-cultural desire for a simple, "natural", agrarian - and essentially modified-Medieval - life and society. 

My point is that until the late 1970s a restoration of Medieval Cosnciousness actually seemed a realistic possibility; such that alternative living and self-sufficiency were topics of mainstream social discussion and aspiration. The revival of folk music and arts, and even "hippie" styles of dress and fashion - all seemed to presage this. 

It really seemed possible then that we might "go back" to a village-based and agricultural society - on lines described earlier by William Cobbett, and depicted fictionally by William Morris. 

Much of the mass youth interest in Tolkien was related to the hope aroused by his work that a Middle Earth kind of life might yet be genuinely possible. 

And for some (but not me, at that time), this included an expectation that Christianity would again have a central and pervasive influence on society: a Chesterton/ Belloc type Distributism.  

But through my life span the Medieval Consciousness has faded in objectivity and power; until now it is not regarded as a realistic possibility - or only except in a remote, abstract, wishful and as-if kind of fashion. 

This can be seen in the disintegration, decline and corruption of all the major Christian churches; and their extreme alienation and giving up of shaping spiritual experience.

But the most significant decline of Medieval Consciousness (and the cause of church changes) is in the minds of Men - an inexorable dwindling which I have both experienced and observed. 

This is where we find ourselves. I regard these changes in consciousness as objective, as causal, and as irreversible. 

So it is from here that we ought to regard the future.

Since we cannot go back, and (further) my experience and observations suggest that trying to revert ourselves and society to Medievalism of consciousness is not just ineffective; but actually spiritually harmful... That, any rate, is how I read the various "utopian" experiments in back-to-the-land, communal and Alternative living. 

Since what we have now is so dominated by the powers of evil, and so devoid of both purpose and meaning and hope - it seems to me that it is imperative we actively and consciously attempt to move our consciousness, and consequently our lives, forward into nigh unprecedented territory. 

**

NOTE: It may sound, from the above, as if I regarded Original Participation and Medieval Consciousness as taboo, necessarily harmful and to-be-shunned; but this is not the case. For many people, in many situations, both still have much to offer in the way of "therapy", encouragement, and even guidance. However the point I wish to emphasize is that they are not enough. They are both too feeble for what is necessary in our world, and both are harmful if made a strategy. They cannot suffice. There is no future in them. 

What's going on at the planetary level? And how can we know?

A brief reflection. 

Something has been going on at the planetary level, and also with Men, since about the millennium - and this was foreseen by quite a few people in the decades (going back many decades) leading up to this stage or phase. 

I assume that there is some kind of God-aligned planetary Being (an angel, the angel of this world; some would call it) who is involved; as well as Satan and his gang. 

How might this work? Given that the planetary Being, and each of us, are free agents? 

I think it must work by love, by-analogy-with (and also in "the same way" as) the ideal human family. 

Satan's rulership, by contrast, either manipulates people as if they were cause-effect machines; or else strives to dominate their wills utterly, to "make" them do what Satan wants. 

Love is not (ultimately) an emotion or feeling; but is a creative relationship between any two Beings - it is, indeed, the ultimate basis of divine creation.   

So this contest - this war - of spiritual good, and the opposition to spiritual good - has reached a point of potential awareness in recent decades - as humans have changed to become more spiritually aware. 

(Sadly, this awareness has been, so far, overwhelmingly negative in effect - awareness has destroyed the power of traditional religion, but few have embraced the power the new awareness brings. People use their new ability to intuit and believe - to dis-believe truths because imperfectly expressed or corrupted; and believe incoherent nonsense that is part of the agenda of evil.) 

It seems that many more people are aware of the evil attempts to dominate and control this world - earth and Men; than are aware of the positively good "angel of this earth". 

This is (I think) because we are aware of love and of the angel only by the spiritual (immaterial) way of "direct-knowing"... 

And this way of direct-knowing is denied, ignored (and over-ridden) or else regarded as trivial by comparison with the material communications of institutions, words, symbols, models etc. 

Another way of conceptualizing this distinction is to regard that which is directly-known as a consequence of heart-thinking. Whereas all the mass of other communications are kind of head-thinking, rationality; modelling that maps components of reality onto a wholly-known scheme; all based ultimately upon perceptual "data" (including the perceptions and measurements of machines).  

 

So - if the above is true; it suggests that we ought to allow ourselves to aware of the angel of the earth - and also many other spiritual realities - but in such a way that we don't simply fall back into giving authority to the materialism of of head-thinking. 

This is exactly where so many spiritual writings and teachings fall down. Direct insights are re-expressed (approximated, modelled) in communicable systems; but then (and this is the fatal error) this head-thinking is allowed to take-over. 

So that we get spiritual systems that are easily assimilated into the demonic system. 

This is the problem, not only of all traditional religions (with their philosophies, specified rituals, formal symbolism etc.) - which purport to define and thereby capture spiritual realities...

And thereby become the basis for schemes of monitoring and control; very similar in nature to that of the current global totalitarianism: doing things "to" people "planning" to "make" people do what is wanted.

Not only religions; but also many spiritual systems that purport to replace religions - from the many New Age ideas to older systems such as Steiner's Anthroposophy. 

The danger is that so many of these begin with genuine insights, often achieved by direct knowing, which impress us rightly; and only then do they shift into the mode of system and communication.  

As when Rudolf Steiner or his disciples begin with true and rare insights derived from direct and personal intuitions (and thereby gain our admiration) - but then construct and fit these with numerology, categories of many types (mineral, plant, animal, human - material, etheric, astral, ego), astrology, and detailed schemes of the purported evolutionary history and future of the solar system, earth, and Men (and thereby attempt to re-impose a tyranny of external spiritual authority). 

It seems natural, and almost inevitable, for us to express direct-knowing and heart-thinking in such categorical and systemic ways, in order first to communicate-with, then maybe influence - and potentially control - other people. 

The systems begin by explaining and teaching, then get used for monitoring and evaluating; but end by attempted domination and over-riding the ultimate agency of other Beings. 

Much of our deep and strong drive to do this; arises (I think) from a strong, prioritized, sometimes exclusive, focus upon the conditions of this mortal life and our gratification during it. 

If we could, instead, view this life and world as a vital but intermediary phase leading to resurrected life in Heaven - maybe it would be easier to resist such temptations?

Meanwhile, we can but strive to recognize and repent our tendency to make ourselves (and others) captive to "that which can be communicated and systematized" - and instead strive to use our heart-thinking to listen for direct-knowing.  

The spiritual Battle of Britain - then and now

I am reading a book that was recommended by my Albion Awakening co-authors: The Magical Battle of Britain, a selection of letters from the Second World War by Dion Fortune, edited by Gareth Knight (1993). 

Dion Fortune was the pseudonym of Violet Mary Firth, who was perhaps the most respected and influential magical practitioner of modern times to come from Britain; and importantly, from my point of view, she was a sincere and devout Christian - of an Esoteric kind.

Her idea was that - after war was declared, and as Britain prepared for the possibility of invasion, it was important to encourage people by spiritual means: to build-up the folk and racial soul of the British; by means of directed meditations of many people.


Reading the book, it seems distinctly possible to me that what she did was of genuine benefit - especially when regarded as one specific manifestation of a spiritual 'mobilisation' that had multiple facets - most obviously seen with Winston Churchill becoming the national leader.

It is noteworthy that DF herself displayed an extremely unusual, and admirable, combination of strength of character, creative inspiration, ethical solidity - and yet a disinterested and altruistic absence of ego.

What she 'asked for' in these magical-group-meditations was always, it seems, very carefully restricted to the spiritual level (not seeking specific physical results, not personal advantage); and was therefore benign. She was, in her small scale fashion, one of the rare examples of an effective and natural woman leader - a mini Elizabeth the First!


However, as I read I also developed the conviction that this Magical Battle of Britain was probably the last time that such a thing was possible. Indeed, even before the end of the 39-45 war, the British national consciousness had changed qualitatively - and in the direction of being both less spiritual, and less group-ish.

The way that Dion Fortune used symbolism (sword, sceptre, grail), the concept of a national soul which was also a racial soul, the use of visualisation (eg of guarding angels)... these are essentially the spiritual categories of an earlier, pre-modern phase of human consciousness. By 1939 they were merely residual in the spirit of Albion; and became possible and effective only briefly and for one more time, under the exceptional demands of that era.

Very rapidly afterwards there was a dwindling and disappearance of both symbolic power, and the capacity of an individual to immerse in the group-soul. Before the war was done, Britain had begun to become pretty much what it is now; materialistic and anti-Christian; hedonically aiming at 'comfort and convenience'; and its national ideology established as Leftist-bureaucratic and totalitarian (as Orwell made clear, based on his wartime experiences).


My understanding is that these changes were underlain by that developmental change in British consciousness which was only briefly interrupted by the Swan Song described in the Magical Battle of Britain.

As symbolism and immersive group spirituality dwindled and then became impossible; so the churches dwindled, leftist-hedonic-materialism waxed.

And (as I see it, anyway!) the necessity for a Romantic Christianity became incrementally more and more obvious and urgent.

Implications of Modern Man's waning capacity to pool consciousness and generate thought forms/ elementals/ egregores/ dynamic archetypes

I have been re-reading Dion Fortune's Applied Magic - and thinking about her descriptions and discussions of 'thought forms'. These are essentially the same phenomena variously called elementals, egregores and dynamic archetypes. 

These hypothetical entities are generated by the pooled consciousness of a group of people, attain some kind of separate agency, and then act back to influence or indeed control that same group. 

So, a group of people whose attention is focused and motivated is posited to undergo a merging of thought to generate an entity that then develops 'a life of its own' such that - depending upon its nature and orientation - will then drive the group towards those goals (and by those methods) with which it was established. 

In sum: there is a reciprocal relation between group and thought form; and the though form depends on the group for its original form, energy and continued existence - but the thought form may develop in new directions and impose these on the group; and the individuals in the group are also subjugated to the thought form and cannot (or cannot easily or always) withdraw assent and membership. 

I will here assume that, if not an exact formulation, these thought forms are at least potentially real phenomena. 

In fact I am going to argue that the ability to generate thought forms was essentially universal among Men, at least until the end of the Medieval period in Europe - but that this was a phase in the development of human consciousness that has now dwindled to almost vestigial levels of power. 

This is because the ability to generate thought forms by group pooling of consciousness is double-edged; because it is also a vulnerability to control-by thought forms - directly a vulnerability to being controlled by an irresistible thought form; and indirectly to being-controlled-by the group in which an individual is participating. 

Which is to say that thought forms are experienced as overwhelming, universal (to the group), mandatory - and, in a word, as objective reality. 

Therefore, thought forms of this kind are what Owen Barfield - in Saving the Appearances - calls collective representations. 

Taking up the ideas of Owen Barfield (and Rudolf Steiner) concerning the 'evolutionary development of human consciousness; I am struck by how deftly this can be applied to the changing capacity/ vulnerability of humans to thought forms. 

In brief; I regard known history as one in which humans (at different rates in different places and among different peoples) are gradually losing the pooled consciousness that was at first natural and spontaneous; then became a product of ritual, symbolism, use of sacred texts and traditions etc - which can be understood psychologically as inculcating associations and building them among groups to reach the desired state of pooled consciousness. This then because the basic of social cohesion and purpose. 

Dion Fortune was writing as a 'ritual magician' active in the 1920s and 30s; and at that time it was still possible for selected and highly-motivated groups of people (i.e. members of magical lodges) to be trained in concentration, control of emotions, and the use of symbolism and ritual - to attain that pooled consciousness and generation of 'objective' thought forms, which had receded from the population at large. 

The thought forms might be positive and benign - as with the Hite magic Dion Fortune's Christian mysticism; or negative and malign (self-gratifying, and manipulative) - as with Aleister Crowley and other Black Magicians.  

But generation of benign, positive, and overwhelmingly powerful thought forms by groups became more difficult and rarer though the twentieth century - and (I infer from my reading in the field, not from experience) had essentially ceased by the millennium. Nowadays, White magical rituals apparently have an as-if quality; more like attending a drama than being irresistibly affected by objective reality.

And the same applies to Western churches. Whereas they once had the ability to generate positive thought forms that would then impose upon members - not this has waned in strength such that all the churches are overwhelmed - and have been re-orientated - by the mainstream globalist totalitarian ideology. 

What of this totalitarian ideology? Is this a thought form? If so, is it really weak? 

The answer is yes - it is a thought form and it is weak. The fact that the totalitarian ideology must command the attention and motivation of 100s of millions of people is precisely because the levels of attention and motivation are so weak. Yet people no longer experience this ideology as objectively real, and require a continuous and escalating level of media propaganda combined with exclusion of alternatives in order to make it effective. 

Furthermore, the content of the mainstream ideology is negative - it can only generate even minimal levels of motivation by inducing negative (sinful) emotions such as fear, resentment and despair. And - even so - these strategically-induced mega-mass thought forms are only temporarily effective, and need to be swapped around, and novelties introduced - every few months.   

What, then, is God's positive purpose behind this development of consciousness away from groups pooling and making thoughts forms? 

The answer is that the loss of pooling is a consequence of the increased autonomy of thinking: the greater potential strength of individual thinking. We are less passively controlled, because we are more actively generative. Less immersed-in what seems 'objective' because we are able to range across reality in the primary thinking of our divine-selves.  

We are now more able to resist the influence of thought forms, and domination by 'the group' - and this works both ways - resistance to good group influences and evil. 

We choose and make that reality we live-by. This choosing is necessary - because we cannot pool with a group; and also, therefore, the direction of choice is also an unavoidable personal responsibility. 

Each Man now has the capability consciously to resist any and all external influences; to think 'for himself'; and therefore to become able to pursue his own unique destiny through this mortal life. 

This is possible, despite that vastness of negative global totalitarian thought forms - because these are low-density elementals, they are experienced as diffuse archetypes - that, at the point of impact upon us, are not able to exert the irresistible (and often unconscious) pressure of ancient thought forms. 

Now, exactly because modern consciousness is cut-off and self-conscious; the thought forms generated by our attention and chosen source of motivation, are unique and individually-tailored. 

Each person's positive, God-aligned, thought form is (by analogy) high in density, resistant to subverting influences, and in its motion powered by that which our deepest intuitions tell us is true, beautiful and virtuous.  

An individual thought form can therefore work like a knife whose edge can penetrate through any amount of the toxic gaseous influences of mega-mass ideology. 

In other words; our positive personal thought form - when motivated by faith and harmonious with divine creation - can 'beat' a whole world of shifting negations. 

Rise of the Guardians (Dreamworks) - movie review

*

I was surprised and very impressed by the new Dreamworks movie Rise of the Guardians. I'd rate it at Four-and-a-half Stars (from a possible Five 5 - see the postscript for why I deducted half a star).

*

I had expected a humorous action adventure, like the Ice Age movies, for instance; but I got a lot more.

Indeed, RotG resembles Pixar's Toy Story 3 in being a very ambitious philosophical statement of the best kind of modern, post-Christian metaphysics - but takes things a step or two further.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/toy-story-3-superb-depiction-of-best-of.html

*

In other words, RotG presents a complete and complex new myth (derived and developed from various bits and pieces of old and recent myths and folklore); yet although perhaps not quite so accomplished a movie as TS3, the result is much more hopeful - probably because of the underpinning presence of a benign deity (The Man in the Moon).

(I found TS3 so very sad and nihilistic that, despite regarding it as one of the best movies I have ever seen, I have never been able to re-watch it.)

*

The existential basis of RotG is that modernity is utterly lost in jaded, materialistic, empty alienation; and that the only residue of The Good is in the imagination of young children, and their fantasy beliefs.

These fantasy beliefs are represented by the Guardians.

The premier and most powerful Guardian is the Sandman who brings to children their wholesome dreams. He is depicted as a mute Harpo Marx character that communicates by mime and symbols.

The other Guardians are associated with particular emotions: Santa Claus/ Father Christmas with (wide-eyed) wonder; the Easter Bunny with the renewal of Hope; the Tooth Fairy with happy childhood memories (made accessible in later life because stored in the milk teeth) - and eventually Jack Frost who embodies innocent, shared fun.

*

All of these characters depend on the idea (maybe from Peter Pan, or Terry Pratchett's Small Gods) that the Guardians power, size and existence is linked to the belief of children; thus the happiness and innocence and redemptive power of children are guarded by the consequences of their own beliefs.

Against them is the evil bogeyman, Pitch, who is a classic Satan/ Sauron/ Voldemort villain that intends to engulf the earth in darkness and fear; since the only way he can get people to believe in him (and therefore the only way he can really be alive) is when they fear him.

*

The set up is therefore superficially a witty and suspenseful action movie; but underneath it there is a well-structured and emotionally-satisfying symbolic depiction of spiritual warfare between God and his angels (the Guardians) and Satan and his demons (the Night-Mares).

The moral drawn is rather like that of Tolkien's in On Fairy Stories - the importance of fantasy in our era; as being the last means of contact with reality for many or most people.

*

Naturally, RotG is not explicit about all this; and indeed I doubt whether any kind of Christian symbolism was deliberately intended.

But, by implication, such an interpretation is a natural outcome of the underlying honesty and seriousness of this movie.


***


POSTSCRIPT: I deduct half a star from my rating of this movie because of the disgusting and gratuitous 'sleeve' tattoos on Santa's forearms; which are very frequently on display, including the movie poster. I regard this as a deliberate and strategic act of wicked subversion on the part of (at least) the animator responsible for Santa, and also the producer and publicity people - intended to 'normalize' this gross form of self-mutilation ( http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/actually-modern-christians-do-not-need.html ). It is a measure of the rapidity of our cultural corruption this this kind of thing now passes either unnoticed, or with a cynical grin of approval at making Santa 'edgy', 'relevant' (or something of the kind).  

*

The symbol of Light for Goodness has become ineffectual

The ancient symbolisation of light (and white) for goodness used to be more than just symbolism. In the ancient past symbols were also realities, directly. 

There was then a necessity about goodness manifesting as white light, and about the power of white and light imagery to form and shape effective intention. 

Light made good. 

What I'm saying is that Light really used to more than "imagery" or a concept; and when light was used in religious imagery or architecture, scripture or ritual; or when light was the focus for prayer and meditation etc - doing-this actually had a positive effect on the world. 

I think that this effect of Light was still a factor in early twentieth century, and especially when deployed in a heightened form (for example, in The Lord of the Rings) - but the power of Light to have a positive effect on the world dwindled through the twentieth century to its current very low level. 

Light no longer works the way it once did; as a mode (or vehicle) of transforming for the better, of defeating evil, and making good. 

This is part of the generic phenomenon of losing the ability to to Do Good in any centralized and top-down or strategic fashion. 

Just as politics is now always allied with evil (at best, a lesser evil) - so the old "physics-like" ways of describing God and the divine (such as light, energy, force etc) are ineffectual and indeed actively misleading. 

From now goodness is, and ought to be recognized as, personal. 

Goodness is done not by shining a beam of good light onto the world, or anything at all like that; but instead person-to-person, being-to-being - including relationships between us and divine and spiritual beings, and the resurrected dead. 

All Institutional Systems - and Intellectual Systems - are having the Life drained from them

It seems to me that all Systems - whether they are intellectual systems such as mainstream-ideology, religions and theology, church doctrines, philosophies, or the ever-multiplying New Age spiritual systems that purport to replace these - are continually being drained of Life. 

The fact that there is a now a single interconnected nearly-global system (The System) of the international, national; and also the functional (mass media, law, health, education, science, military etc) institutional bureaucracies - actually confirms my contention that the life has been drained from systems. 

Because The System is not merely life-less, but life-consuming. 

The System - and indeed all systems - subordinate and consume not just humans, but animals, plants and mineral planet/ weather/ climate itself - assimilating Life to System requirements and imperatives. 

And, strictly, The System is not even a true system; because it is parasitic rather than self-regenerating.

(Systems, like organisms, are defined as being substantially autonomous, self-perpetuating, self-reproducing. Whereas some parasites are not, since they depend to various degrees on a host. They would be defined as either sub-systemic parts-of other true-systems, as with symbiosis; or else destructive of true-systems.) 

In other words The System as a whole, predates upon its constituent systems; destroying their autonomy (i.e. their very nature as systems) and extracting their energies. 

Thus The System is consuming itself; and actually shrinking - which is why the trend globally has been to destroy nations, agricultural and industrial productivity, and - increasingly - human/ animal/ plant life and the actual structures of 'the environment'. 

Consider how 'the environment' - which is a top-down defined and actively-managed abstract concept; has replaced the freedom, self-sustenance, and independence of real 'nature' - such that theoretical-'environmentalism' - in all its major manifestations - is in practice always destructive of actual-nature.  

As Christians; we can experience for ourselves how the System aspects of our religion (doctrines and dogmas, rituals and practices, symbolism and structures...) are continually-collapsing: continually losing their power and effectiveness - and it has, so far, been impossible to stop (let alone reverse) this trend. 

Traditions are subject to this trend of collapse, but so are all attempts to re-found and innovate new systems of Christianity.

Any apparent success turns out to be at the expense of Christianity as a whole - and short-lived.

This is happening, I believe, because of changes in human nature - especially of human consciousness; because of a divinely-driven development which is a part of God's plan of salvation and theosis.

Systems that worked well with earlier, and different - kinds of people, now don't work as well - or don't work at all. 

(This seems to apply to all types of Christianity, in the West.)

In so far as Christian systems remain - they are increasingly material and mundane - and less and less spiritual. Thus the power of systems positively to transform Man has now all-but gone (and where it remains is, as I said, continually ebbing). 

Consequently, those who remain inside the Christian (or other religious) systems, and who are actively committed to the systems, have become indistinguishable from the secular in those fundamental respects that matter to The System.   

Whether we like it or not (and many Christians do not like it at all, and resist as strongly as they can) positive support from systems is continually disappearing. One may think he has found a supportive niche - but the chances are high that this niche is already dwindling, will not last for long - and will become assimilated to the general pattern of collapse.

Sooner or later, and in the end;  I believe all Christians will have system-help stripped-away - and be thrown-back onto an individual relationship with the divine and creation. 

He will then need to discover how best to survive, and thrive, on such a basis - or else become drawn onto the non-Christian - which is in practice anti-Christian -  side, in the spiritual war of this mortal world. 

The choice is between joining the self-destroying ideology of The System; or developing for oneself a faith rooted out-with that System.

Note added: One whose faith is rooted out-with The System and its sub-manifestations (including System-linked churches) - can safely make good use of the remnant Good within the waning niches of once-real Christian churches. But if he has rooted his faith within any institutional manifestation of Christianity; then I predict that - sooner or later - his faith will be in-trouble: either becoming Christian-in-name-only and dishonestly corrupted to the side of System evil while in denial; or having faith lost altogether and by disillusion and despair coming to a direct affirmation of System ideology.  

Nostalgia for the 'Intellectual Soul' (Medieval) era; when objectivity reliably caused spirituality

A theme I encounter again and again (both among Christians, and as part of the New Age) is something I term nostalgia for the Intellectual Soul era - which is the strategy of seeking to enhance spiritual life by means of objective and symbolic manipulations. 

This was normal (and effective) from the ancient classical times of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and through the Christian Middle Ages (both in the East and the West). These times were underpinned by what Rudolf Steiner terned the Intellectual Soul phase of human consciousness*

The Intellectual Soul can be understood as a gradual transition. At the beginning systems of objective physical phenomena would - pretty reliably - induce desired spiritual states. This was the basis of ancient religions. 

Thus we get the use of ritual and symbolism in religion; based on the idea that if you do this physical thing, then that spiritual state will be the result. 

There are thousands of examples: religious processions, icons, statues, sacred buildings on sacred places. There are the sacraments such as baptism, the mass, marriage. Practices such as prostration, genuflection, and kneeling to pray - and in general using particular words. That certain physical procedures can be used for divination, or for exorcism. That reading scripture has an innately beneficial spiritual effect... 

Another aspect is that the proper ritual ordination of priests will have an objective and permanent effect on the spirit - so that priests become a qualitatively different kind of Man; with distinctive powers to operate the systems, rituals and symbols.  

Another aspect of the Intellectual Soul is the idea of objective symbolic 'systems' such as numerology, sacred geometry, astrology, alchemy, magic... and that (done properly) these causally yield reliable spiritual (and other objective) consequences. 

All these are instances that demonstrate the 'intellectual soul' assumption that the physical leads causally to the spiritual.   

However, looking across the span of history we can observe that there was a loss of the effectiveness of ritual and symbol, a loss of the power of ritual and symbol. Until in the modern era they are feeble (yielding only weak and transitory effects) or absent from many people's lives. 

Yet although the Intellectual Soul is much diminished - it is not altogether absent. Although ritual, symbol and system are much weaker and less reliable than they used to be when it comes to yielding real world and subjective consequences - they still retain some power. 

Therefore, there are always people and movements that are attempting to revive the Intellectual Soul, and to restore it to former potency and centrality. 

And always these attempts have some success, but never enough; and each successive revival/ restoration of 'Medievalism' achieves less than the one before.  

Given the alienated spiritual desert that is modern mainstream life; I am sympathetic to the attempts at revival and restoration of the intellectual soul; and I too feel (sometimes intense)  nostalgia for the medieval systems, symbols and rituals. 

Yet I think we need to recognize that the Intellectual Soul era was itself a halfway-house, a transitional phase; and that it can never be made sufficiently strong again to be the centre of a way of life (a civilization); because Men's minds (souls) have changed. 

This can be verified by looking within our-selves; where we can see that even the most complete imaginable revival and restoration would never be sufficient to satisfy us. We can imagine an ideal medieval world - but cannot imagine our-own actual-selves as ideally fitted to live in it in the way that Men did centuries ago. 

I believe that some people (such as me) can still get much help from the Intellectual Soul ideas and practices. But that we should take care Not to pin our hopes on them as a strategy for life - Nor to hope for revival and restoration as a viable or desirable civilizational path for the future. 

*The Intellectual Soul is an intermediate state coming between:

1.The immersive and passive, notaleinated 'Original Participation' of pre-religious, animistic ancient hunter gatherer times. The world was spontaneously-perceived and known-directly to be purposive and meaningful. 

2. The modern Consciousness Soul which began to emerge from about 1500 (end of the Middle Ages) and was dominant by about 1800. 

In the Consciousness Soul; subjectivity is very fully alienated. This means that the default is for modern adolescents and adults to be non-spiritual. There is no spontaneous apprehension of the divine. The world is experienced as material and accidental, not A Creation. The soul is seen as merely an artefact. Death is supposed to be annihilation of the person. 

The Intellectual Soul can be understood as a 'one and a half' intermediate phase; in which the alienated consciousness has emerged, but can (by symbols, rituals, etc) make a bridge to return (temporarily) to the original state of immersive participation in a living and purposive world.