Understanding telepathy - a 'clew' to reality?

Most people believe - from personal experience - that telepathy is a real thing, that it can sometimes happen. But not many people think much further about what this might mean. 

Telepathy is therefore an example of the way that our personal experiences interact - or rather, do not interact - with our metaphysical assumptions. 

Belief in telepathy (for modern people) is therefore encapsulated: it is a free-spinning cog, a belief unintegrated-with and separated-from our basic understanding of the world.  

A belief in telepathy therefore does not affect the basic materialism - and disbelief in 'the spiritual' - that is characteristic (indeed mandatory) in public discourse in our Western civilization. 

Unless there is a transformation of our basic (metaphysical) assumptions concerning the nature of reality; telepathy cannot be understood and integrated with life-in-general - even when it is believed. 

Yet, if people started-with their already-existing belief in telepathy; and took it seriously; then honestly, and rigorously followed-through its implications - then the thread might well lead to metaphysical transformation. 

...And the same applies to other 'paranormal' (or 'supernatural') phenomena such as synchronicity, near-death-experiences, seeing ghosts - and the like; all of which seem to be highly prevalent experiences among ordinary people in the modern West. 

Each of these is, potentially, a clew - the loose-end of a thread which, if grasped and followed, could potentially lead to a revolutionary reappraisal of how life is understood. 

With telepathy, following the clew might initially lead to a recognition that one's experience of telepathy was not one of language, not a hearing of words nor a seeing of images; but instead just knowing some-thing. 

While hearing words or seeing visions might at first seem to imply that telepathy worked by some means akin to radio or television transmission; on further consideration - if telepathy works without the senses, this seems to imply something more like a sharing of knowledge - which implies that different people have access to other minds, or to some other common source. 

This seems to suggests that two people may be thinking the same thoughts, simultaneously; and perhaps by some means that does not involve back and forth communication - but through simultaneously accessing an underlying shared-world. 

Since the underlying shared world does not seem to be material - and is not, apparently, detectable or measurable - then it might be recognized as a spiritual world. 

Therefore, such a line of rigorously following-up the experience of telepathy - or some other analogous experience; might lead to telepathy being regarded as a possible manifestation of some common (maybe universal) spiritual reality, that can simultaneously be tuned-into by many people - but which continually exists whether or not it is being tuned-into. 

This 'common spiritual reality' might then form an hypothesis, which could be tested against other past and future personal experiences; to see whether such an understanding cohered with our own life.  

Yet this kind of reasoning very seldom happens; and instead most people believe this, that, and the-other - each as encapsulated assertions - without any attempt to relate them to each-other or to a coherent overview of reality. 

In fact, such encapsulation of beliefs (of all kinds) turns-out to be vital to the continued (albeit short-term) existence of our current - deeply dishonest and corrupted, value-inverted - society. 

Our lives, our actual experiences, are full of clews to a larger, meaningful, coherent and much-better world - if only we weren't so adept at ignoring them!

 

The implications of telepathy

I have pretty much always believed that telepathy was a reality; from manyfold personal experience. Indeed, if telepathy is assumed to be possible, then many other supposedly 'paranormal' phenomena become straightforwardly explicable.

But for most of my (pre-Christian) life, belief in telepathy did not have any challenging implications - because my hypothetical explanation for telepathy was purely materialistic; it simply slotted into my mainstream, scientistic world view: part of the world of observation, hypothesis, testing...

This was because I regarded telepathy in terms of some kind of sensory process of communication. I assumed that some kind of thought waves or forms were being 'beamed' between people's brains - or else there was a tuning-into thoughts; but that because this process was unreliable, not under control of human will but rather 'instinctive'; therefore the mechanism had not (yet) been unravelled by science.

However, I now regard what I used to call telepathy as a instance of direct knowing, of intuition; which I now understand to be more like two people thinking the same thought simultaneously.

It is not a form of communication, and nothing like a signal passes between brains. Rather, the telepathic process entails two people being simultaneously attuned to the 'collective consciousness', the 'inner world' - the single world within every person, every 'thing' - the same world we visit in dreams, the world of 'the gods' (the Ancient Egyptian dwat) and of 'the dead' (Hades/ Sheol).

When telepathy is understood in this way, it becomes an instance of (become 'evidence' of) something that goes beyond science, goes beyond the mainstream modern world view - it becomes an experience of a life beyond the senses/ models/ data; and itself a taste of primary thinking and direct knowing.

Telepathy therefore opens us to a qualitatively different way of being, beyond observations and hypotheses; and becomes a possible model for gaining knowledge on other topics of concern. If telepathy usually happens with people who are important to us, especially people we love; then the telepathic kind of thinking may become a direct way of experiencing, learning, and knowing matters that are important to us - matters of love.


Note: This example illustrates how metaphysical assumptions - the basic framework of our understanding of reality - are more important than our specific observations or beliefs. In other words; metaphysics shapes evidence; metaphysics tells us what counts as evidence, and what that evidence means. By contrast, evidence cannot rationally affect metaphysics. Metaphysics is primary - evidence (including science, history etc.) is secondary. The implications of telepathy therefore depended on my metaphysical understanding of reality; and when my understanding of reality changed - the implications of telepathy changed. 

"Possible in principle" - Some paranormal phenomena should be regarded as aspects of baseline reality

I recently reviewed Andy Thomas's book about the "paranormal" experiences reported by ordinary people. 

It is a common response to such reports to demand a plausible "scientific" explanation - but I would assert that several paranormal phenomena do not require any explanation, because they are natural and spontaneous aspects of normal human experience.  

As such, they ought to be regarded as baseline aspects of real life, rather than things that are unacceptable unless explained in terms of what is  2025 mainstream-acceptable (i.e. regarded as valid by official bureaucracies and "legacy" mass media). 

Thomas's list of the "strange" phenomena covered in his book include: 

1. Ghosts and poltergeists 2. UFOs 3. Out of body and near death experiences 4. Psychic phenomena (such as telepathy) 5. Premonitions 6. Synchronicities 7. Crop circle events 8. Prehistoric-site events (stone circles etc) 9. Sighting of "cryptids" or anomalous creatures. 

Of these; I would regard ghosts, poltergeists, psychic experiences, premonitions, and synchronicities; as being, broadly speaking, merely natural and spontaneous phenomena. 

These are the sort of thing (albeit without applying such categories to them) of a kind that it is likely to happen to pretty much all young children and tribal peoples.

They are something that ought, therefore, to be regarded as normal (even if unusual) aspects of everyday life. 

They are indeed, not merely normal - but a kind of baseline for human beings. 

These can be part of the background assumptions with which we enter this life; and which it is unnatural and distorting for us to discard as impossible on the basis of "currently-acceptable theories". 

What is normal and baseline does not need to be explained before being accepted as potentially valid. 

By contrast; phenomena like UFOs and crop circles are much more restricted (by persons, and by location) in terms of experiences. 

In other words UFOs and crop-circles are not necessarily (although they may sometimes be) "normal happenings" - and often seem absent from the experiences of many people and cultures. 

They are also theoretically-constructed phenomena, in the sense that that defining them requires significant background knowledge. 

To perceive a UFO implicitly requires an idea of what is normal in the skies; which is something that must be learned. And crop circles are usually often properly apprehended from above, or by walking through fields of corn to find them (which, agriculturally, doesn't usually happen!). 

But to return to the "normal paranormal" phenomena like telepathy, feeling the presence of spirits - perhaps of the dead, "out-of-body" travelling, actions by invisible beings and the like... 

These should be accepted as possible in principle and therefore not requiring explanation - even though some (or most) specific claims of such occurrences may be mistaken or dishonest. 

I mean that we ought not to demand some kind of explanation of how such things can occur, before believing them. 

To repeat: We should work on the basis that reports of ghosts or telepathic events (for instance) are a possibility; on the basis that it is natural to believe in ghosts, and to experience telepathy. 

We can then evaluate reports on the basis of the honesty and credibility of witnesses; and specific contextual details of the report; as with any other second-hand information. 

After all; all public knowledge is derived from eye-witness testimony! 

Nations have, for example, gone to war on the basis of credible reports of enemy military activities from, for example, competent and trustworthy naval Captains. Why then should we doubt the same kind of people when they report a sea-serpent, or some other "cryptid"?

We do not need, and should not demand, an up-front and "satisfactory" explanation of how ghosts are possible and what they are made-of. And likewise the possibility of telepathy does not require an explanation of how it might happen. 

I would go further. 

To take the example of telepathy - or the experience "mind to mind" contact, of knowing another being's intentions, nature etc  -- actual experience may go far beyond, or actually contradict, mainstream "scientific" understanding of what is possible.  

Thus; I think it likely that our basic experience of telepathy is one where it is not just humans that are telepathically-known; but potentially other animals, plants, and even things such as planets and stars. 

Yet, the telepathic experience of "contact", is one that is instantaneous contact. There is no "time lag" - even over very large (or vast) distances - such as would be the case with planets and stars. 

In other words; telepathy, when valid, is apparently not constrained either by the speed of light or by problems of "translation". We just know - directly, without mediation - what is happening in another being now. 

Such experience is, of course, contrary to the assumed constraints of current-physics - and indeed contrary to how it is assumed that any communication "must" occur (e.g. needing an encoder, transmitter, receiver, decoder etc).

In this sense, the implications of some paranormal experiences are profound and wide-ranging; because accepting their validity entails that reality is qualitatively different from that described by current "science" and affirmed as valid by official authorities. 

In other words; the acceptance of the validity of some paranormal phenomena is subversive with respect to the claims of our society and civilization to be sole arbiters of what is real and true - and whose evaluations we ought to believe and obey.

This is probably one major reason why paranormal experiences - including those that are normal to the point of being almost universal - have not so-far been, and probably never shall be; regarded as real, true, serious, and sometime important. 

The dwindling of willed telepathy: recent changes in the evolutionary development of consciousness

In my simplification and modification of the developmental-evolution in human consciousness which I got from the schemata of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield; the phase that preceded the modern was called the Intellectual Soul. This is seen in the purest form in the long transitional phase of the Medieval kind of society - that is a 'middle' age between the early and simple forms of subsistence agriculture and the beginnings of modernity and industrialisation.

The characteristic of the Intellectual Soul is a fixed, apparently objective, symbolic and ritual system; which we see in the division of society into Warriors, Priests and Peasants - with the functional middle class divided into relatively few-and-fixed professions (e.g. Law, Medicine) and Guilds/ Craft Mysteries.  

Intellectually, we see the grand, general, universal symbolic schemes of Cosmology with Astrology, with planets and stars that are also beings - each with its own associated traits, functions, metals, etc; hierarchies of angels and so forth. The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is another example - a grand system and synthesis.


Anyway, part of this was what I am terming 'telepathy' - which is that people were in (non-voluntary) telepathic contact with other people, and with angels. From the modern perspective people were not 'atomised', people could not insulate themselves from influence from other minds - and each person's mind fed-into the group - and each group was linked with and administered by a specific angel.

This, I believe is what made it possible for institutions to have personhood - and at many levels. There was the person of the kingdom, the church, and within that of the orders and organisation of the church, going down to (something like) archangels who administered small groups. Indeed, every group that met and interacted would come under the administration of an archangel (or a demon) - through which the group members with be in 'telepathic' contact, have a cohesive will, and be 'nested' into all other functions and into the hierarchy.

In the Intellectual Soul era, telepathic contact could be willed. People could undergo formal, standard, procedural 'initiations' - and by such 'systems' develop of enhance their telepathic capcities. 

However, this necessity dwindled first into a possibility and then an impossibility. First the telepathy became non-spontaneous, but it could potentially be willed. By effort, practice - and especially when a group could be gathered that would all make an effort, and all practice - then telepathic groupishness was maintained for a few generations more.

But over the past few decades, even this has diminished towards not happening. To the typical modern mind, groupishness has become merely 'wishful thinking', a matter of people 'fooling themselves', or lying about it. The development of human consciousness has meant that each individual became 'free', an agent, autonomous - free whether he liked it or not!


Nowadays we cannot form 'telepathic' groups in the way that used to happen - or, at least, this capacity becomes both rarer and weaker than in the past. Methods, techniques, procedures are no longer general. Each must find his own path. All forms of institution - from the state, through all its divisions, have declined in their spontaneous and intrinsic reality.

Instead, we have a mixture of the state of spontaneous, cut-off individualism on the one hand; and arbitrary but imposed bureaucratic groupishness - so that all groups (large and small) are (compared with the past) intrinsically weak, hence unstable, hence they are easily-changed and often-changing (like the typical modern 'managed' corporation - with its annual 're-organisations'). 

This change has first weakened, then limited, and for many people destroyed the possibility of living primarily in a communal way - such as used to be normal and almost universal in the past.


(The only exception is the family, which is a natural and love-based - not institutional and telepathy-based- group. The family is - if allowed by the system, and if its members resist the system - perhaps closer and more loving than at any point in the past - which is not to say that it is longer lasting; it is maintained if, but only if, the family members choose (and keep choosing) to make it so. because, of course anybody can opt-out of the family, and many do.)


So... this is my understanding of why many groupish things that were possible in tha past - even just thirty years ago - have become relatively ineffectual or (for many people) actually impossible. Systems of symbols have lost their effect, rituals have lost their effect; regularly-meeting groups no longer develop a real communal or corporate identity - that is, they no longer attract archangels (or, if they do, the angels are no longer in telepathic contact with the members, binding them to the angel and to each other). 


This is where we find our-selves: here, now - in The West.

We are - on the one hand - cut off from each other, willy-nilly; on the other hand - and this is the divine purpose of this development - we are very-fully free agents in a way that was never possible before.

We are indeed compelled to be free. We are free as a matter of fact.

Actually free and therefore we are responsible for our-selves... like-it-or-not, and clearly most people do Not like it.

We see, indeed, a truly vast evasion and denial of this responsibility - with epic usage of mass and social media, mass deliberate intoxication or mind-blunting, and refusal to think beyond the sound-bite.


People try to evade and deny their absolute responsibility by claiming that they are compelled to think such and such, or that they must think such and such, or that they cannot be blamed for thinking such and such, or that morality dictates that they ought to think such and such...

But all this is a lie, and they know it.

This applies everywhere, to all forms of knowing - including religion. Religion now Just Is between our-selves and God, primarily. Without group-telepathy; simple obedience no longer happens and cannot with integrity be simulated.

We are all making choices, all the time - and the refusal to choose from-our-selves is merely one of those choices.

There are no excuses anymore.

Back to the Notion Club Papers; connections with the current spiritual war

 By Afalstein

I am currently on an all-round diet of Tolkien - Reading The Notion Club Papers for the nth time (and dipping-into other things); and listening to the audiobook of Christopher Tolkien's thematic edition of the Beren and Luthien texts (2017).

Coming at the Notion Club Papers this time, I am much aware that Tolkien was writing this as a spiritual exploration, he was trying to solve some pressing personal problems by writing them. Instead of working these out in real-life conversations with the Inklings; he chose to do so through the the Notion Club - which were fictional-fantasy Inklings.

And then he would read what he had written to the actual Inklings, presumably to gather reactions; and return to do more Notion Club - all through the first half of 1946 until he again took-up The Lord of the Rings, never to return again to the NCPs.


What Tolkien was concerned by, was something that 'obsessed' him all through his writing life - which was the 'frame' of his fantasy.

The NCPs open with Tolkien's alter ego Ramer (one of his two alter egos in this work - the other being Lowdham) having just read a science fiction story about another planet to the Club; and being criticised for the clumsiness and perfunctory, unconvincing nature of the 'framing device' for travel to and from this planet - apparently in a spaceship of some kind.

Tolkien himself needed a way of relating, of explaining, the link between his stories and the modern world. 

After considering various possibilities, the consensus is that some kind of mental travel is the best possibility - either telepathy or in a trance or dream state. A psychic link needs to be established between a human body here-and-now, and other times and places. This was actively being considered by Tolkien as the basis for linking his 'Middle Earth' (Arda) writings with modern Oxford - in which case the NCPs would have been, in effect, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings and/or The Silmarillion.


But in a larger sense, which soon becomes apparent; Tolkien is writing more generally about the relation between his imaginative fantasy and the modern mundane world. The Club's discussions branch off into considering how - as imagination goes back - history turns into myth. And it is clear that the mythic way of thinking is regarded as being of great value. Indeed, the projected NCPs seem to be about re-establishing the link between myth and modern life.

Following the telepathy/ trance/ dream line of thinking; this link is established by members of the Notion Club themselves, as a consequence of their conscious and purposive brooding on this theme. In effect, because they regard it as important and as possible - the Notion Club are able to bridge time and space in their own minds, thereby opening a 'channel' through which myth can re-enter modernity.

This at first happens by the storms that led to the drowning of Numenor, breaking-through to sweep the British Isles from West to East (Ireland bearing the brunt of it, but Oxford also severely affected).


What impresses me with the NCPs this-time-round, is that Tolkien was saying that thinking is real - and that purposive, conscious, sincere thinking has an effect on the world - primarily a spiritual effect, but also a physical effect (albeit something of a minor disaster in terms of wind and floods).

Also, I am appreciating the way that the Notion Club are engaged in a kind of intuitive searching. They don't know exactly what they are looking-for, nor do they know where or how to find-it. So they try this, and that - and follow hunches to see whether they lead to anything.

Ramer and Dolbear being by means of trances and dreams; and in the second part Lowdham and Jeremy extend this to a physical search for... clues and connections; travelling by boat and on foot in Ireland and the West coast of the mainland of Britain.


I am finding all this is encouraging me in my current efforts, as described recently. Because The Notion Club Papers is - in one sense - 'about' the need to combat the deathly, dead-ly materialism and reductionism of modern society; to combat it consciously and purposively (and effectively) by our minds, our imaginations.

 

Review of: Strange - Paranormal realities in the everyday world (2025), by Andy Thomas

Andy Thomas. Strange: Paranormal realities in the everyday world. Watkins: London, 2025. pp 288.

When it comes to the paranormal - as with science, medicine and everything else important - I regard the source of purported information, of reported observations, to be vitally significant. 

In practice, this means that I only take seriously (which does not mean believe!) information from those few people who I have reason to believe are capable and motivated to provide the best information they can.   

Andy Thomas is one of these people; being something of a penfriend, and someone whose lecture presentations I have watched on video, and some of whose books I have read. I have formed the judgment that he is an honest and well-informed chap, who is usually worth listening to!

I have read quite a few books on "paranormal" stuff over the years, especially those by Colin Wilson (also much more widely). But a problem with Colin Wilson is that his sources on paranormal/ occult matters are mostly (more or less) well known people, mostly writers - and I tend to regard their reports as having a literary and contrived flavour. 

What Andy has done here is something that not many could do; because of his experience. For several decades he has travelled around Britain giving lectures on many subjects to all sorts of audiences, often in intimate venues. As an author and conference organizer, he is also very "well-connected" in the more "professional" world of the paranormal. 

So it would be plausible to suppose that Andy Thomas is probably in the best possible position to provide a representative overview of paranormal matters in Britain today.   

In particular, Andy has personally met and spoken with probably thousands of people, of many kinds, including many "ordinary" people; by which I mean, not people who make a living or work professionally with paranormal matters, nor professional communicators such as journalists or authors. And he has talked with these people on many paranormal themes. 

Of course Andy's contacts are not a "random" sample of the UK - which would be impossible since many people would not go to lectures of any kind, nor would they speak of paranormal matters to any stranger - but it's probably as good a cross-section of the nation as is viable. 

So, what makes Strange unique; is that it is a book about paranormal matters that consists substantially of the results of these many person-to-person meetings and communications with ordinary people -  people who have approached Andy in various ways to tell him of "something strange that happened to me". 

Apparently, he says; this happens a lot. 

After every talk mentioning paranormal matters he gives, there are those who speak from the audience and others who stay behind to share some experience; as if the subject matter of the lecture has jogged a memory, and "given permission" to speak or write. 

So one basic thesis of this book is that "Strange" is normal - or relatively so. 

In other words; a high proportion of ordinary modern people have had some kind of experience that they regard as "paranormal". 

What does Andy Thomas mean by paranormal? He describes some of the commonest themes, in approximate order of frequency:

1. Ghosts and poltergeists

2. UFOs

3. Out of body and near death experiences

4. Psychic phenomena (such as telepathy)

5. Premonitions 

6. Synchronicities

7. Crop circle events 

8. Prehistoric-site events (stone circles etc)

9. Sighting of "cryptids" or anomalous creatures

Reports arranged in a similar thematic way form the structure of the book; interspersed with reflections, analysis, and summaries from the author. 

Thomas's assumption throughout is that paranormal phenomena are real; but on the question of what they actually are, how they're caused, and what they mean he is usually "agnostic" - presenting various theories but mostly without choosing between them. 

He does not rule-out religious or simple-spiritual explanations - and mentions them; but generally he seems to exhibit a preference for materialist/ scientific explanations. For example, he several times mentions "quantum entanglement" as a putative cause of instant interaction over a distance. 

I mention this because I regard t as an example of a practice I have commented on before; by which writers on difficult-to-understand strange phenomena "explain" them by means of some idea (usually derived from physics) which is itself nigh impossible to understand! Colin Wilson's Faculty X, or Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields and resonances, are other examples. 

My own preference is instead imaginatively to try look at such things in the simplest and most instinctive way possible: that which would probably occur to a young child or tribal person. 

In other words; I favour an explanation that is usually animistic/ anthropomorphic - and relates to the relationships between living beings. 

From such a perspective there simply is not a problem in "explaining" many paranormal phenomena - since they are naturally and spontaneously taken-for-granted. 

Most of these "problems" arise from the recent models of modern science and materialism, and modern cultural ideas of what is supposedly impossible. 

So that (for instance) from an "animistic" perspective; ghosts, communications with the dead, telepathy, psychometry, out of body experiences and the like; all become something expected and normal. They need no further explanation - although they may benefit from further clarification. 

Having appreciated the range of reports in Strange - and accepting that the subject is real and worth investigation and consideration; the question arises as to the implications. 

What does it mean? How should we react to such a range of paranormal accounts?

The way I would proceed is the same as I did when I was active in theoretical science; which was carefully to distinguish the "provenance" (i.e. the sources and lineage) of proposed information; with the aim of including only those sources who were evaluated to be honest and competent.  

This means, in practice, ignoring most sources, most people - because most reports from most people cannot positively be established to be both honest and competent. 

Thus I would take seriously Andy's own reports; but most of the other reports I would not include in my analyses; because I simply don't know whether I personally would regard Andy's secondary sources as valid. 

Then, even after excluding most (in usual practice almost all) of the putative information; I would need to distinguish between, on the one hand; the "appearances" of what that person had experienced (e.g. what they had seen) - which may be generalizable...

And, on the other hand; the theoretical explanations of these experiences (the identity and behaviours of what they had seen) - which may well distort what has been perceived*.   

This isn't easy to achieve, and there is no standard method for doing it. It is a matter of judgment. 

Nonetheless such discernment needs to be done in order to cope with the many contradictions between accounts - even among accounts by those who are competent and honest. 

And finally, or rather before this process has even begun! - we need to sort out our own ultimate metaphysical assumptions concerning the basic nature of reality. 

This means that it is not really possible to be agnostic on this or any other matter; since every person actually and inevitably interprets reality from some perspective that is ultimately rooted, not in evidence, but in assumptions. 

And if we don't already know our own primary assumptions concerning reality - these will need to be discovered, made explicit, and evaluated. 

Such are my reflections provoked by reading Andy Thomas's Strange.

*Note: An interesting example of the way that our assumptions affect our understanding of perceptions related to the mythical "scarecrow shells" of World War II. RAF aircrew had been officially informed that the Germans had developed demoralizing anti-aircraft shells that exploded to simulate the destruction of a British bomber. Such shells did not exist. The actual cause of such explosions was probably RAF bombers destroyed by Luftwaffe night-fighters approaching from below with upward-firing cannon. But many expert and competent aircrew were absolutely sure that they had observed scarecrow shells.  

An example of specific divine guidance in my life

I do not like blogging about my own spiritual experiences; partly from reticence and partly because spiritual guidance is designed for the benefit of the recipient not as general teaching. 

Furthermore, each experience of personal miracles, or of the guidance of the Holy Ghost, has been so different in its specifics; that the major lesson for me has been that there is no method for such matters. 

(Indeed, to teach or assume generic methods for the Christian life, or to convert personal mystical experiences into advice, seem likely to do more harm than good.) 

On the other hand; it may somewhat encouraging for other people to know that a long-term and deep personal question for which I sought a response for some years did, in the end, receive an answer - albeit slowly and by a very indirect and not-replicable route.

I am not going to discuss the answer I was given; but I will describe something of the strange and unexpected way that an answer was communicated to me - in such a way that the process got past my fundamental misunderstandings and false pre-conceptions, and convinced me intuitively of its validity. 

I have often observed that when a question does not get an answer from divine sources; this is almost always because the question is ill-formed, and contains fundamentally wrong assumptions. These are why God cannot answer us - despite His vast resources. 

Furthermore; we are (nearly always) looking for the wrong kind of answer - and often something which is self-gratifying, or perhaps fits with false ideas of our own nature and destiny. 

This may explain why I was not able to get an answer of value or validity to the question oft what I ought to be doing in my life. I had too many fantasies and day-dreams that blocked my understanding. 

So, God's problem, in trying to help me, was to work past a great mass of such preconceptions, false understandings, wrong notions of the kind of thing I sought; and the tendency to ignore the true answer if given me straightforwardly, because the simple truth 'wasn't what I wanted to hear'... 

The only positive thing I was able to do to assist the process was to maintain my intent to find an answer over a period of years. I didn't give up. 

Admittedly I wasted considerable time, money and effort on dozens of false leads; but I kept plugging away - and followed hunches. 

What proved essential in the end; I let myself pursue lines of enquiry that had some kind of here-and-now interest to me; even when these appeared 'rationally' to be dead-ends, or trivial. 

Thus I have recently been re-reading around the subject of Christian 'ceremonial magic' - in particular the books of Gareth Knight and Dion Fortune, who I regard as admirable people. But I had already read these authors in the past couple of years, and had become clear in my mind that such a ritual and symbol, organized, approach to Christian living was now obsolete: it simply does not work anymore. 

I have also been re-reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and focused on the episode when Childermass uses his 'Cards of Marseilles' (i.e. Tarot cards) to tell the fortune of Vinculus, and later to discern dishonesty and theft by Lascelles. 

Such reading led me to re-watch some DVDs of a nostalgic children's TV series from the early 1970s called Ace of Wands; which featured the hero 'Tarot' - a professional stage magician who also had some psychic powers such as telepathy, remote visualization and telekinesis. 

Having enjoyed this; I then got-out my Rider-Waite Tarot Card pack, which had featured in the TV programme; and looked-through some of its pictures.

Having replaced the cards, I absent-mindedly attempted to place it on a table; when the pack accidentally fell to the ground, and two cards jumped-out - and lay face down on the floor.  

It then came to my mind that these two cards would answer my question about what to do in my life.

I immediately thought that this was stupid, because (no matter how valid the process) I would always read-into the cards whatever answer I wanted: in other words, I would fool myself, and therefore the exercise would be useless. 

I don't believe in fortune telling; I don't believe that divination works (nowadays - although it did work in ancient times - up to the early years of the Roman Empire); and I certainly was not seeking 'guidance from the cards'.  

Nonetheless, I picked-up the cards one by one; and immediately recognized that the first card depicted myself and my condition: not as I fondly imagined myself, but as I actually was. 

This came as a shock, and I turned over the second card with some curiosity. 

The second card was one of the Greater Trumps, and I did not know its (supposed) meaning; so I looked it up in the leaflet provided - all the while thinking that it would be futile, because the descriptions are (like newspaper horoscopes) always so vague and ambiguous that they cannot possibly be sufficiently specific to serve as clear guidance for life...  

I read the sentence describing what the card meant, then - after a couple of seconds of dawning recognition - I realized that this was exactly the answer I needed and it was true. 

The generic phrases each and all had specific relevance to my condition.

The answer was obvious, banal, simple - and it was clearly the truth; yet I had missed it and missed it, for a very long time. 

I had to be set-up for this knowledge, in the right frame of mind and expectation; and I had to be surprised by the answer. 

What I think can be learned from the above is that if we persist in seeking an answer to an important question; then God can and will find a way to get that answer to us; and will prepare us to receive that answer. 

And God can do this even when we are (as I was) asking almost exactly the opposite question to the one we needed to ask; and when the mind is clouded and confused by innumerable wrong notions and hopes. 

Therefore; don't give up, and be prepared to follow where inner promptings indicate - even when these are pointing in apparently trivial or useless directions. 

And I think it is worthwhile to recall that the answer will be personal, very exactly tailored to you as an individual and your circumstances.

Also; the method by which God works to deliver the answer will be... Whatever does the job - and that method, too, will be one-off, unique - hence completely unpredictable.  

Which is exactly what is necessary. 

Review of The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien (2021; edited by Carl F Hostetter)

The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien; edited by Carl F Hostetter. HarperCollins: London, 2021.

This book is significant as being the first collection of mostly-unpublished JRR Tolkien writings to emerge since the death of his son Christopher; being edited by Carl Hostetter. It is a book that serious Tolkien readers will want to own and use; because it is something like a cross between The History of Middle Earth Volume XII and an addition to Unfinished Tales. 

Therefore, those who regard HoME and/ or UT as important, will not want to miss this one: there are many things here which I regard of permanent value; and I am very grateful to know them. 

These are too many to list. Perhaps the essay Osanwe-kenta may take pride of place (I had already read this, but it was previously only available in a small circulation magazine). This is a detailed consideration (relevant to both Middle earth and our own world) of the 'communication of thought' by what might be termed telepathy, including the implications for free will. This was of extraordinary depth and interest to me.   

Another section is given the title of Description of Characters, and is Tolkien's commentary on Pauline Baynes's illustrated map of Middle Earth from 1970. For example, Tolkien regarded the back-view of Boromir as an almost perfect representation of his imagination; while Sam and Gimli were 'good enough'. On the other hand he was critical of several (most!) others including Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Shelob and the Black Riders; and in making these criticisms he gives further detailed accounts of how he saw them.

The bulk of the book is about elves; including a great deal about their different types (also why they ended up different) and very large scale considerations of the justice and wisdom of the Valar in their dealings with elves. All this was absolutely gripping, and operates at a very deep spiritual level. 

 

The book does, however, have a significant flaw in that it begins badly - i.e. boringly. There are 166 pages under the section title of Time and Ageing - with repeated developing drafts of Tolkien's consideration of the time-lines, time-experiences (relative between the undying lands and Middle earth, and between races), movements of elves; and a lot about the elves rates of growth and reproduction. These are often presented in terms of tables of figures, and lists.

There was a great deal to interest me among these 166 pages; but there is no denying that there is a great deal of repetition and minutiae. There is considerable relevance - even here - for those of us fascinated by Tolkien's mind and creative processes. But I think it was - I believe - an error to begin the book with this material; because some readers who open and start reading at page one, will probably get no further. I would have placed this material in the middle of the volume; and probably relegated some of the repetition and tables to an optional appendix.   

The last section of the book, entitled The world, its lands, and their inhabitants - may have the broadest appeal to those whose interest is focused on Lord of the Rings. It consists of 100 pages of extra 'snippets' about all kinds of things. I was particularly pleased to learn more about Numenor (everyday life, reproductive life, ageing etc).

In general; this volume is (I think) the first to provide abundant new authorial material on what might be termed demographic, social and organizational aspects of Middle Earth (and the undying lands) - which are often stated to be neglected by Tolkien because they are omitted from Lord of the Rings. The Nature of Middle Earth proves that Tolkien had indeed considered such matters, often in considerable detail - albeit often after the publication of LotR. 

Overall, this is a book aimed at Tolkien aficionados such as myself; but for us it takes its place alongside John D Rateliff's two volume History of The Hobbit - valuably supplementary to the many earlier (and uniquely, filially, authoritative) volumes edited by Christopher Tolkien. 

Understanding the existentialist response to reality

One sticks a finger into the ground to smell what country one is in; I stick my finger into the world — it has no smell. 

Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world? What is the meaning of that word? Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here? 

Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling shanghaier of human beings? 

How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? 

 And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager - I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint? 

After all, life is a debate - may I ask that my observations be considered? If one has to take life as it is, would it not be best to find out how things go?

From Repetition by Soren Kierkegaard, 1843

**

The above quotation is an early example of the existentialist response to Life - the sense that we find ourselves in life, without any understanding of its purpose or meaning - the unanswered question of what Life has to do with Me. 

The world seems divided into those (like me) who have experienced this response to Life - at first, usually in adolescence; and those who haven't and don't. 

(Those who experience life in this way are what Colin Wilson called Outsiders.)

The basic observation is that Men in ancient and medieval times did not experience life in this way; but that in the modern Romantic era (perhaps beginning in the late 1700s, or perhaps somewhat earlier) more-and-more Men began to experience life this way. 

Owen Barfield's idea of the development (or evolution) of human consciousness can explain this change on the basis that Men used to get their understanding of meaning and purpose from outside: their thinking was 'permeable'.

But since the modern era, and in accordance with to divine intentions that Men become more free; Man's consciousness has become (more and more) cut-off from spontaneous external knowledge of 'the human condition'.  

Men once lived in a kind of communal 'telepathy' with other men and with gods and spirits; such that a basic understanding of meaning and purpose was spontaneously 'given' - there was disagreement on the exact nature of meaning and purpose... 

Men knew 'naturally' that there was a meaning-purpose - and that Life had something directly to do with Me. 

Existentialism was then not an issue.

But now, human existence is A Problem. 

'Outsiders' recognize that there is a problem: feel it in themselves. 

Those who do Not recognize the existential problem nonetheless still suffer from cut-off-ness, and therefore (but implicitly) regard life as meaningless and pointless - as can be seen from modern Man's behaviour. 

But the un-conscious suffer without knowing why or how; and while often denying that there is any problem at all...  

The 'answer' to the existential problem comes from understanding that ancient Men were correct in regarding life as having purpose and meaning, and being relevant to every individual.

Modern Men have merely become cut-off-from that knowledge of Life - but the knowledge is still true, and is still there, awaiting discovery. 

Thus modern Man's job is to become conscious of that which was un-conscious; actively to choose to know that which ancient Men passively had forced-upon-them, by their environment. 

 

Our thought content is shared with others - our perceptions are private to ourselves!

From Speaker's Meaning by Owen Barfield (1967) - edited from pages 71-72:

It is generally supposed that the 'public' world which we have in common with others consists entirely of what we perceive; and the private world of each person consists of what he thinks. 

Yet the exact opposite is the case: It is the thought content which we share with others, while our perceptions are private to ourselves. 

The above formulation (which I have condensed and slightly rephrased for clarity) shows the radical nature of Owen Barfield's philosophy - it is so much in conflict with mainstream modern thinking as to seem just plain bizarre, or crazy; yet the contention is justified across hundreds of pages of argument and evidence in Barfield's main works.

It is easy, and in a sense uncontroversial - despite being ignored in everyday life, to point-out that our perceptions of The World are private, 'subjective' - because it is recognised that everybody sees, hears and feels things differently, and that such perceptions have been manipulated and disrupted by many illusions, technologies, drugs, diseases and just from individual and cultural differences. At another level, we all know that the world described by science - especially physics - is utterly different from the world we perceive.

What is hard for modern people to grasp or believe is that we share our thought content with others.

This does not mean telepathy; it does mean that when we think, this is happening in a shared, universally-accessible realm. It is this world of thinking that unites people - and not the world of perceptions.


It is strange to modern people to suppose that there is or can be a shared world of thought - mostly we can't even imagine this. We moderns suppose that thinking is restricted to our own heads, our own brains - but for thought to be universal, then thinking must be located in some state or place that is universally accessible.

Yet in the past it was apparently taken for granted that there was a spirit world, an 'underworld' - e.g. the Ancient Egyptians' Dwat. This was not located elsewhere, but within - apparently people had no trouble in supposing that the Dwat was within everything, and also everywhere - it was a kind of unbounded space that was inside everything - and also from-which everything perceptible came, and to which it returned.

In more recent times, Jung posited a 'collective unconscious', of myths and archetypes, which shares some of these aspects and was supposed to be accessed in dreams and trance states. Yet for Barfield this world of thinking is conscious as well as unconscious.  


Perhaps we can think about this, imagine it, only if we understand the world of thinking to be primary - and the perceptible world to be secondary. The world of thinking is therefore everywhere; and it is the perceptible world which is restricted and located - as it were 'within' the world of thoughts.

Everything began as thought - and the perceptible world was condensed and concentrated from it.

We actually live in the world of thinking; but have partly learned, partly developed the habit, of cutting ourselves off from it - because that is how we became free agents.


Now that the process of becoming free agents is complete - we can, and should, voluntarily and deliberately, return to engage with, participate-in, the world of thoughts - but this time with freedom, agency, and awareness of what we are doing. (In the past we just took it for granted, were unaware of it - passively lived-by-it.)

First we need to recognise that our thinking is in a universal realm - and then we may exercise our freedom within this realm of thinking - not just understanding it, but changing it.

This conscious participation in the realm of universal thinking is the ultimate in creativity - indeed, the only true creativity; because it shares in the divine.

God created what is and wished for us to share it - not merely passively, but as co-creators, to work with God and to develop and enhance creation in the loving spirit it which it was made.

The "evidence" trap: Why so many modern people are 'stuck' in materialism

To move beyond materialism is not easy - it is a well-constructed trap. For many (or most) people in the West; it isn't just a matter of 'opening your mind' to other realities; because what we think we want is self-contradictory...

Most people - when pressed - will say (along the lines of ) "I can't believe in the spiritual world without evidence".

By evidence they mean either a vivid personal miracle ('inexplicable' by materialism) - like hearing a voice that they believe to be God telling them something, especially when backed-up by a vision of a being that they are 100% convinced (with zero possibility of error) is an angel, or Jesus or a similar authority; accompanied by an overpowered conviction of the validity of this experience; and that one's memory and verbal expression of the experience is perfectly accurate and complete...

(Hmm, we can already see problems about asking for a miracle, can't we?)

Or else they mean something that official (government-certified, mass media disseminated) 'science' has told them, and that 'everybody' whom they respect (like primary school teachers, or wise people David Attenborough) assures them really is real and objectively true (like CO2-driven Anthropogenic Global Warming, or that one's sex is a choice...).


Yet the fact is that - unless they already have a change-of-consciousness, unless they develop a new way of thinking - these people would not be convinced of the spiritual realm either by a miracle or by science.

Because they would explain-away any miracle in materialist terms (error, coincidence, hallucination, delusion, dishonesty, manipulation etc.); and because science foundationally and by-assumption excludes the spiritual, so must inevitably fail to produce evidence for the spiritual.

Indeed if science did produce evidence for something spiritual - such as telepathy, or near death experiences - it would, by becoming science, cease to be spiritual; and would instead be explained materialistically.


What this 'circularity' of the argument tells us is that materialism is a metaphysical assumption, not the result of evidence.

In modern public (and private) discourse; we have already assumed that reality is material; and we will interpret all possible evidence in that light.

(i.e. Materialism is Not based-on-evidence; instead, materialism determines what counts as evidence.)

Therefore to demand 'evidence' before we will be convinced of the spiritual just makes no sense! It is just a mental trap. It simply ensures that you (and everyone) will remain trapped in materialism - whether it is true or not.


This means the modern person has, in reality, a choice: to remain inside the metaphysical assumption of materialism or not. And if not, he will need to assume a broader reality that includes a spiritual reality.

The one impossible thing is to be 'agnostic' - because there is no ground from-which to be agnostic about this question.


(One could of course change one's mind, back and forth, between materialism and acknowledging the spiritual realm. Indeed this is likely, across a lifespan. Such psychological fluctuations are part of the human mortal condition. But at any moment one is either a materialist or not - and to assert agnosticism as a current situation is an error or dishonest.)


How to choose, and on what grounds? There are just two main ways in which people choose their metaphysics:

1. Unconsciously and passively to absorb one's assumptions from the social environment (from 'other people'), and - because the process is passive and unconscious - to assert the objective factuality of assumptions by denying that they are assumptions, and denying that there exists any choice...

2. To become consciously aware of one's assumptions and to choose them.

One what grounds? This can only be on the basis of expilicit intuitive reflection - choosing what one intuitively knows (from the heart, at the deepest level one is capable of reaching, where knowledge is most solid) to be the truth about the reality of things.


This is another instance that modern life is becoming very simple and dichotomous, and evil is operating by trying to convince us that life is Not simple!

To win, evil simply needs to keep us confused. So far, evil is winning...

Disbelieving in 'the supernatural' (as a matter of principle) - psychological consequences of this disbelief

*

It is the mainstream, high status and ruling elite position nowadays to disbelieve in 'the supernatural' as a matter of prior conviction - that it, to disbelieve in principle every single claim of supernatural reality, action or whatever it may be.

And in this respect the supernatural includes the reality of all and every God or gods; personal revelations and guidance; the activities of spirits and souls and ghosts; miracles and prophecies and other divine interventions, telepathy; prophetic dreaming; the reality of non-human and non-animal intelligences; magic; the 'animistic' aliveness and awareness of non-animal entities; the objective power of curses and blessings; the effects of auras and influences... I mean everything of that kind is disbelieved.

*

My point here is that this disbelief - as a basic and immoveable assumption - is highly distinctive to the modern West: that is to modern times, and to cultures comprising a minority of the world, and within those cultures to a minority of people.

Therefore, anyone informed of the facts has to acknowledge that a comprehensive and a priori disbelief in supernatural phenomena - whether it is true or not certainly is unnatural, un-spontaneous, and culturally-specific to human beings.

*

How, then, are we supposed to know that this comprehensive disbelief in supernatural phenomena is true; and that the majority of other cultures and societies are and were completely wrong ? 

*

If comprehensive dis-belief in the supernatural is to be regarded as true; then almost everybody who has ever lived has been either:

1. been the victim of some kind of major fraud - a deliberate falsehood has been successfully practised upon them; or else

2. humans must be regarded as intrinsically prone to this particular delusion: which means that humans must naturally and spontaneously believe in 'supernatural' phenomena of one kind or another.

*

Both 1. and 2. are commonly asserted by atheists - that past and most present humans believe in the supernatural only because they have been systematically hood-winked by other humans who are manipulating them (especially priests); and/or that humans have an inbuilt tendency falsely to jump to supernatural conclusions.

It is this second point which is interesting; because I think it is almost certainly true that humans naturally and spontaneously do indeed jump to conclusions and explanations of a supernatural kind - and over a wide range of topics.

*

Yet the mainstream modern high status elite view is that all such explanations and conclusions are false: all such - every single one of them  - and this is known for sure and without any need for investigation or debate.

Now, the question is to what extent this specific disbelief of something natural and spontaneous and wide-ranging has distorted other natural and spontaneous beliefs and behaviours.

Because clearly there must be ramifications of 'supernatural' disbelief, there must be a 'price to pay' for suppressing or deleting such a major aspect of human nature.  

*

I would venture to suggest that the price to be paid is very obvious to those who have retained the natural and spontaneous belief in 'supernatural' phenomena -  the consequence is a wilful and wide-ranging blindness and inability to respond to things that seem to most people (throughout the world and history) major tendencies, causes, phenomena, events, situations and interpretations.

In other words, the modern secular elites cannot get away with simply blotting-out the validity of 'the supernatural' from their world view and expect to leave everything else unchanged - this dis-belief has multiple psychological consequences.

One consequence being arrogance due to a belief in one's own personal superiority to almost everybody else who lives and have ever lived - a believed-in personal superiority which is so deep, and so complete, and so foundational that it is all-but invisible to those who hold it.

*

We ought to be honest and explicit about what we regard as impossible

One of the problems about a discussing the supernatural or paranormal with a typical mainstream modern materialist-atheist; is that he regards all such things as: a created reality, god/ gods, spirits, life after death, miracles, ghosts, UFOs and aliens, out-of-body-experiences, pre-cognition, telekinesis, and telepathy... as not just improbable but impossible. 

He thinks that such phenomena are not real, simply do not exist. 

Therefore he is immune to "evidence" - and can never be convinced by any account of them; because since he is decided that such phenomena do not exist, all such evidence Must Be mistaken or dishonest.

All reports of phenomena can only be explained by being explained away with normal materialist causes; or else ignored because the Must Be mistaken or dishonest.  

But while it is easy to criticise materialist-atheists for such exclusions; we all use this method of reasoning. 

For instance I will always interpret claims of pre-cognition, of being able to "see the future", in ways that preserve the irreversible and sequential nature of "time". 

I simply cannot be persuaded that somebody already knows the future in that sense; because for me "time" is an intrinsically part of my most fundament assumptions concerning reality. 

That is, because I regard eternal living Beings as the fundamental units of reality; the livingness of Beings is dynamic and developmental - such that what be abstractly call "time" is an attribute of all Beings. 

Therefore I Will Not accept any explanation of phenomena that regards all time as simultaneous, or posits a situation outside of time, or includes time travel into the future. 

I am not persuadable otherwise; and I ought to make this clear before engaging in evaluations of phenomena that appear to, or are presented as if they, challenge the directionality and sequence and pervasiveness of time. 

I am - on this theme - Immune To Evidence!

It would be a good thing if everybody did this: if everybody who excluded all supernatural or paranormal phenomena was explicit about their immunity to contrary evidence...

Because, in a sense, such a declaration can be "the beginning of wisdom" about one's own most-fundamental, metaphysical, assumptions; and that they are indeed assumptions.  

I am happy to endorse my own assumptions about time; but when I realized (in 2008) that I was believed that God could never provide revelations to Men, and the reason for this belief was that I had pre-excluded the existence of God...

Then I realized this was an assumption; not an inference; and as-such was immune to all possible evidence about the reality of revelations. 

Having realized that my views about the divine were rooted in assumptions - and were not the consequence of evidence - I then (after further thinking) realized I did not believe those assumptions were true; and I later abandoned those assumption; and began to believe in God. 

If we are clear and explicit about our assumptions and that they are assumptions - this can be the beginning of wisdom - of many kinds.

But until we get this clear - we shall remain slaves to whatever assumptions we happen to have absorbed, from whatever source, and for whatever reason.  

Supposing you are God, setting-up the world for Men's salvation...

Supposing you are God, setting-up the world for Men's salvation, then how would you devise things? 

You must take into full account that each man has "free will", agency; and also that modern Western adults are cut-off from the spontaneous knowledge of the spiritual and supernatural, and belief in the divine, of earlier times. 

This means that Men must actively decide to seek and engage with God.

Given such constraints; what would be the best way to engage with modern, Western adults?   

Would it be via the mediation of one true church, or even via several valid churches (as churches actually are) - I think not. That would be an exceedingly bad way of providing for Mans salvation. Church is intrinsically indirect, and subject to corruption. 

What, then, about relying upon a sacred scripture, such as the Bible? Again - this would be a highly suboptimal plan; given that there are multiple translated and distorted texts, the sheer difficulties of the texts; and the variability of textual interpretation. Scripture, like church, is both indirect and corruptible.

Or perhaps by relying upon a True tradition, that Men would absorb unconsciously? I think not - traditions are too easily, and too often, subverted - even inverted. 

What about logic and reason? Setting-up a world so Men can work-out their place and role by philosophy, by dialectic? Well, obviously, that would only be possible for a small minority of specially-gifted Men in particularly advantageous situations - and these sages would then need to transmit their conclusions by Church, Scripture or Tradition - and we have already seen how these are inadequate.   

It seems clear that the best and most reliable way to set-up this world for the salvation of all Men, of all kinds and circumstances, to cover all contingencies - would be to provide Men with direct knowledge of God; by a communication that was un-mediated - as some kind of wordless/conceptual telepathy or thought-sharing; and provide all Men with sufficient ability to access this knowledge. 

Nightmare consequences of assuming the exclusive validity of the Brain-Thinking model

The problem with Brain-Thinking - the mind as brain as information-processor - as I described it yesterday, is not that it is utterly false. It is not false - it describes well many aspects of thinking.

The problem is that, firstly, it is merely a model - hence a partial truth: necessarily incomplete and distorted; and, secondly, that Brain-Thinking has captured belief in public discourse to such an extent that other understandings of thinking are assumed to be, not merely false: but impossible. Thirdly, following-on from monopolisation of public discourse - the assumption has invaded and colonised the mind itself.

Because people have come to assume (assume, mostly without thinking) that Brain-Thinking is the only possible model of thinking; Brain-Thinking has become a self-fulfilling assumption. Any thinking which does not fit the model of the mind as a biological-computer is regarded as childishly-mistaken or actively-delusional.

Since people do not wish to regard themselves as dumb or deluded; this has, over time, meant that our culture has restricted first its communications about thinking, then later (and increasingly) actual thinking itself, to a form which fits within the Brain-Thinking model.

In other words, actual thinking is now (mostly) restricted to automatic and externally-determined processing of information derived from sensory inputs (or from memories of sensory inputs). Actual thinking has become passive. People regard themselves as functioning like computers, driven by inputs in accordance with their processing software.

The possibilities of human change are increasingly seen in a transhumanist frame; where improvements to Men are conceptualised in terms of re-programming, or being enhanced by upgrades.

It seems quite natural to younger generations that the essence of a person could - in principle, and 'soon', they assume, in practice - be down-loaded from the biological-computer of the human brain into a silicon computer; or even translated to pure information, encoded in whatever convenient form is available (binary code stored in a hard drive, or captured in a single complex artifact). 

This is, indeed, a standard current trope of 'immortality' - that our-selves might live forever in the 'purest' essence of a characteristic pattern of information-processing.

Other types of thinking, especially Primary Thinking (for example genuine creativity or intuition, direct knowing, telepathic phenomena etc.) is either re-conceptualised into forms of information processing (which abolishes even the possibility of real creativity, intuition, direct knowing, 'telepathy'), or else they are rejected outright as naive or exploitative obsolete formulations - now superseded...

That Brain-Thinking is the only possible thinking has therefore passed swiftly from being an assumption - and an assumption which would be impossible to prove; into being treated as a fact: a fact-supported-by-overwhelming-evidence.

In other words, the exclusive truth of Brain-Thinking is (like the theory of evolution by natural selection) an example of metaphysics masquerading as a scientific discovery. As such, it is tyrannical - because a metaphysical assumption can never be disproved by any observation or experiment - since all possible (all evidentially-allowable) observations and experiments are interpreted within the metaphysical framework.

Consequently, many modern people are trapped by their assumptions into inhabiting a world of experience framed exclusively by Brain-Thinking - a wholly-determined world, with no possibility of freedom; a world which excludes the possibility of any reality beyond the five senses.

And - given inevitable imperfections and errors in bio-processing and memory; this is also a 'relativistic' world in which we can never be sure of anything.

In other words, an inescapable nightmare world; and a mind-set that makes it possible (for the first time in history) for rulers really to manipulate the thinking of everybody, forever.


(My echo of Orwell's phrase from 1984 is deliberate.)

Why doesn't God reveal himself and convince me by some really impressive miracle?

A frequent question - but what is interesting is that typical modern man cannot be convinced by revelatory miracles, because he does not believe them possible.

Reported events which would have been regarded as convincing by people of the past are now always and inevitably written-off as having some other cause - such as an illness (eg an hallucination or delusion), or self-deception (wishful thinking) or as being a manipulative lie.

For example, yesterday I was thinking hard about some metaphysical theories, jotting the conclusion down, then closing my eyes to think more; when I briefly nodded-off and had a dream in which somebody whom I knew and loved who had died, appeared and told me that my theorising was correct, and that they were made happy by it.

I jotted this dream down after awakening, and at first regarded it as a divine affirmation. But by the next day, being a modern kind of person, I had come to regard the dream as doubtful or wishful or just random - and it had lost most of its affirmative force. The dream made no difference either way - it was an epiphenomenon...

Yet mine was, on the face of it, pretty much the kind of dream we know from the Bible, upon which the fate of Empires might hang (the Pharaoh's dreams) or the fate of Christianity (Joseph, husband of Mary's dreams). From this perspective I might be making a very large error in dismissing my dream on the pre-decided-cultural-assumption that dreams 'cannot be' of any relevance to truth. 

Nowadays, even if many, apparently normal, people are witnesses; then miracles (like Fatima - look it up) are effortlessly written-off (some kind of mass delusion/ fraud, perhaps?) - because modern people know they just cannot be true.

But this applies even when miracles happen to ourselves. In the extreme of experiencing something impossible while in a clear state of consciousness, many modern people will assume that they must have had a psychotic episode of some sort, rather than regard it as a divine sign.

Taken in this larger, historical perspective; many or most modern people are bombarded with divine signs and mini-miracles and revelations on a frequent basis - I mean things like significant or predictive dreams, precognitive convictions, visions occurring in states of altered consciousness, synchronicities, powerful feelings of knowledge, telepathy, sudden unexpected abilities or achievements or serendipities, or healings...

It is not that we are - most of us - short of experiences that would have been regarded as evidence of divine intervention; it is that we have already decided that such experiences cannot happen, and we are fore-armed with a spectrum of alternative explanations.

What is needed is not some overwhelming experience that would prove, once and for all, that God is real and exists - because these have already happened many, many times - in general and to ourselves - and we always manage to ignore them.

What is needed is a change in ourselves - so that we at least regard such things as genuine possibilities; and also that the truth is never found by having only one possible explanation for an event. Everything that happens requires interpretation - whether in science or in real life.

(In science and life; theory comes first, because it is the theory that determines what counts as evidence.)

So it is, in principle, impossible for anything to happen that could only happen as a consequence of divine intervention - there will always be other possibilities.

Having acknowledge the possibility; it is up to each of us, as individuals, to evaluate and judge whether any particular event was a divine sign for us - or not. And if we do decide it was a divine sign, then nobody else should be allowed to gainsay the fact!

Doubt is an over-abundant hence cheap commodity nowadays - conviction. meaning and purpose are the rare and precious treasure of our age. When God gives us these, we would be ungrateful and self-destructive idiots to reject them.

The power of framing. It all depends on what you think this world is for, and how it works...

It is so difficult to stick to the subject - so easy to drift off the point: The Point is what is this world for in relation to me, my life, everybody else and their lives - and everything that is. Unless each of us has formed some answer to this question, then sooner or later - and it practise sooner rather than later - you will miss the point badly, and start talking about something else altogether.

Then there is the matter of how it works. Suppose you have decided what life is about in some ultimate sense... Then how does it work specifically? Supposing that you have some idea about spreading the word, changing people's attitudes and improving their behaviour - persuading them to stop doing this or that... Then you need to have an idea of how the world works in order to decide how this might be done: what could be effective, and what ineffective. 

Let's get specific. I happen to believe the Western world in in an extremely bad state of self-imposed alienation, nihilism, self-hatred and covert suicidality. The context is that this world was made by creators who are our divine parents, we chose to be born and were placed in the kind of situation that best suits our needs; and that everybody's main purpose is to incarnate and die (this applies to all humans who have ever lived, including those who died before being born) - and also for some people - and to varying degrees and in various ways - to gain experiences we need to advance spiritually towards divinity. 

So - what next? There is an absolutely colossal world of lies and deception and evil - which has led and continues to lead masses of people to various forms of spiritual disaster, using a vast array of mass media, arts, official and unofficial communication channels - and there is me.

But are these monopolised communication channels the only possible way of communicating - do I actually believe that? Of do I believe in a multitude of other ways and forms of, and reasons for, communicating... Well I believe that there are a multitude of ways, some imperceptible.  I believe, for example, in telepathy communications via dreams, that God and angels can reveal knowledge directly into our minds...

Beyond this, I believe that the natural, spontaneous, underlying basis of reality is a state of total communication and minimal differentiation - that things began as a kind of sea of consciousness, with separate elements as vestigial seeds of potential but hardly-actual awareness.

What this implies is that the problem of my communicating the truth as a minority of one in a world of lies is actually a non-problem; because communication happens, it cannot not happen - everything I do, including everything I think, is very generally available, and makes a difference.

See how it works? Before I have thought this through, I felt as if the world was against me, and I had no chance against the world. But by refocusing on clarifying and reasoning-from my primary assumptions, I recognise that this was a false conclusion.

And as a result I feel greatly energised and motivated to continue to do my best, at the highest level. Such is the power of framing.

Belief in the supernatural/ paranormal/ occult phenomena

I don't know how unusual it is; but I find that I combine a firm belief in the reality of many supernatural/ paranormal/ occult phenomena; with an almost 100% reflex dis-belief in the objective reality of nearly-all specific examples of these phenomena, by nearly everybody.  

So, although in principle I am convinced of the reality of - in no particular order - telepathy, ghosts, miracles, synchronicity, personal destiny, magic, purposive personal evil (demons), angels, fairies... Nonetheless, I am very sceptical of the objective truth of almost every single report of such things I have encountered. 

Even among people whom I respect and trust; I find I often do not believe the specific truth of what they say or write... 

And indeed; to my mind, across such people, they have said and written a vast range of incompatible and often incoherent things. If I tried to base my life upon believing the specific information (facts and understandings) of even those relatively few sincere persons who I respect and trust - I would nonetheless be building my faith on a seething mass of sand, rubble, and water - not on solid rock!   

Something seems to happen in the process of communicating such phenomena; in the transfer of knowledge between the personal realm and public discourse, such phenomena become (to me) un-convincing: not something I feel that has the kind of validity upon which I could depend.

Thus, in almost every instance of reading or hearing about such things, I feel a rising sense of mistrust and rejection. 

This is confirmed by the apparent fact that such communications seem to take place in the context of sub-cultures of cultivated credulity: I mean groups of people who (it seems to me) have a kind of pact of mutual-belief. I have studied several of these in some depth; and this is how such groups seem to work - I mean on the basis of a tacit agreement to believe (almost...) any and all such such claims.  

This is why I try to refrain from ever communicating my own such experiences; because I know that they will be unconvincing to others, that there are many alternative mundane explanations, they can be explained-away or else my own honesty and competence will be rejected - and therefore in making such communications I feel an almost irresistible temptation to persuade, exaggerate, distort - and I assume others do also.

This is an interesting and significant metaphysical situation - I mean, one in which a whole world of vitally-important phenomena cannot (apparently) accurately and honestly be discussed in objective public discourse. 

Yet that does seem to be the actual situation! 

We can publicly discuss and analyse these matters in-general and in-principle; but, seemingly, not specifically. 

Note added: As I've said a few times before; I think the reason for this mismatch between personal and public knowledge is an important aspect of our times and place, and the nature of human consciousness as it has become. It is one aspect of the change from a pooled and mutually-aware group consciousness, to the greater freedom and agency - but also "alienation", cut-off-ness, isolation - of spontaneous human awareness and thinking. The point is not to resist or attempt to reverse this change; but to accept and take responsibility for the fact and necessity of our free agency. Explicitly to take personal responsibility for choosing our own fundamental assumptions about the true nature of reality - rather than (as in earlier eras) aspiring passively to obey "authoritative" external sources of validation.   

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - with respect to the claim of intelligence decline since Victorian times

*

The phrase and practice of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is one of those superficially-plausible statements which are untrue, and indeed damagingly false.

*

Of course, this does not mean we should believe anything anybody might say no matter how absurd - but in practice the whole thing hinges on the meaning of 'extraordinary'.

In practice:

1. The definition of an extraordinary claim is 'something I don't already believe'...

While

2. The definition of extraordinary evidence is that no amount of evidence will ever be enough to convince me of that.

*

People find all sorts of things extraordinary which are not.

Modern atheist intellectuals, for example, find the idea of God or gods to be extraordinary, and all kinds of other things such as souls, angels and demons, the Virgin Birth and the resurrection of Christ - plus all sorts of things like telepathy and prophetic dreams - despite that these are not extraordinary to the vast majority of people alive, and to almost nobody in the sweep of human history.

Claims of the reality of things may or may not be factually correct - in general, or specifically - but these are not extraordinary claims - and the 'evidence' for them is of exactly the same nature as for anything else.

*

In science, a major area which asks for extraordinary evidence is claims of group differences in hereditary personality and intelligence. Around about 1965, it was rather suddenly decided that the claim of heritable group differences was extraordinary, and extraordinary evidence was demanded - and fifty years of research later exactly the same demand is still being made.

Each piece of evidence in support of the supposedly-extraordinary claim of heritable group differences is put under a microscope to check for flaws - and of course flaws can be found - especially when these people don't ever turn the same microscope onto their own beliefs.

So, those who reject heritable group differences believe what they believe, and which (because they believe it) they do not regard as extraordinary - and accept any further evidence in support of this belief with just a cursory glance; but anything they don't want to believe is checked, inch by inch, under a microscope and - guess what? - is found to have flaws! Therefore they feel justified in rejecting it.

*

This pretends to be 'rigorous' ('Look at me - I'm a real scientist! I'm using a microscope!') but it is of course, that is phony science, politicized science.

Indeed, the practice of accepting supporting evidence at a glance while putting opposing evidence under a microscope is not just bad science - it is not science at all.

*

Yet even outside of politics this technique of differential rigour is an easy trap to fall-into - indeed there are very few who are exempt.

This is something to be guarded against.

*

When I was editor of Medical Hypotheses it was the last major non-peer reviewed journal in science - and its special value was that it had the potential to overcome the intrinsic bias of 'peers' to defend the existing paradigm by demanding 'extraordinary' evidence for any new work which disagreed with the prevailing paradigm.

But what if the evidence for the prevailing paradigm is weak?

In modern professional science there are many dominant but evidentially (and logically) weak research paradigms - but these are defended as tenaciously - or even more tenaciously, than coherent and strongly supported paradigms.

*

For example, in psychiatry there is a decades-established prevailing explanation of 'depression' in terms of neurotransmitter abnormalities and of treatment by 'antidepressants' which correct these presumed abnormalities.

This paradigm does not make any sense and there is no evidence to support it - yet 'everyone' believes it - and any alternative perspectives are (therefore?) treated as requiring 'extraordinary' levels of evidence, such as clear and unambiguous support from multiple multi-million-dollar, mega-randomized controlled trials. Hence the prevailing nonsense is impregnable.

*

Declaration of interest: all this stuff is happening, now, to me and Michael A Woodley et al with respect to the use of longitudinal reaction time data to estimate long term trends in general intelligence.

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-e-mail-when-i-had-idea-of-using.html

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-decline-in-general-intelligence.html 

The problems are that the result contradicts current notions of:

1. Direction 

2. Size

3. Rapidity

of change in intelligence. Therefore the result challenges the current paradigm in several respects.

*

To put it another way, Woodley and myself are regarded as making an extraordinary claim - and this is used to justify putting this particular study under an extra-powerful methodological microscope (and if that doesn't suffice - an electron microscope) to search for, and inevitably find, microscopic cracks (gaps) and flaws (distortions) in the evidence.

*

But consider the counter-factuals.

Suppose that the data had shown a reduction in reaction time since the Victorian era (implying increasing intelligence) - which would be consistent with the Flynn effect - what would people have done?

In other words, what if the study - and I mean exactly the same study in terms of exactly the same evidence and methodology - had found exactly what people expected it to find?

Well, of course this would not have been an 'extraordinary' claim, so people would have accepted the study as a matter of course and without further discussion.

*

But suppose (again counter-factually) that the study (exactly the same data set and methodology) had instead found a small increase in reaction time? Implying a small reduction in average intelligence?

Well, that too would have been accepted without much discussion - since it would not signify much either way.

Nobody would have put the study under an electron microscope. 

*

But in real life the data showed a big increase in reaction times implying a big reduction of intelligence since Victorian times.

This is indeed a paradigm-shifting claim; and it is 'therefore' regarded as an extraordinary claim - and therefore this is used to justify (as described above) extraordinary examination of the claim - on the basis of the slogan in the title.

But is this an extraordinary claim?

*

If it really was extraordinary to claim that intelligence had declined by about one standard deviation since Victorian times, it would be easy to present many evidences and examples which very obviously refuted that claim.

Yet none have been presented.

Obviously, the best way to reject a claim is to refute it with clear and unambiguous contrary evidence - and if you are reduced to quibbling over methodology, then the claim is revealed as being not extraordinary - and therefore not requiring extraordinary levels of micro-critique.

*

So, although people feel that the claim of a rapid and significant decline in intelligence is so extraordinary as to invite extreme skepticism; in practice - or so it seems - it is not easy to refute this claim without stepping outside of real science and becoming the kind of phony, fake, pseudo-scientist who polices the field of heritable IQ group differences.

And this is what we find.

*

Under pretence of rigour, there is not just bad science, but non-science - anti-science.

*

So, if micro-analysis of potentially paradigm changing claims is revealed as anti-science, then what should be done?

Well, paradigm-changing claims should be evaluated in the same way and to the same standards of research competence and honesty as paradigm-supporting claims.

When a piece of research reaches the normal standards of competence and honesty, yet has extraordinary implications, then it is distorting and inappropriate and in fact anti-science to dwell upon the micro-details of this research.

*

The correct thing to do is to recognize that in real science multiple evidences converge upon the truth.

That is exactly why science is important - because true scientific claims have multiple consequences - or, to put it another way, the implications of important true theories ramify through reality, and therefore their consequences can be observed in many places.

So when the claim of reduced intelligence is based upon longitudinal change in reaction times, then the matter is not to be settled 'methodologically' by ever more, ever more voluminous and complex and precise measurements of reaction times - but instead by seeking convergent evidence from different fields - by tracing out the implications of the claim through reality until these implications go into places where they can be observed and checked.

Therefore, what is needed is to discover what would-be the implications of a significant and rapid decline in average intelligence, and then make observations to see whether these implications really have happened.

*

If the claim of an approximately one standard deviation decline in intelligence since Victorian times really is false; then, because this is a very significant claim, it should be easy to discover some strong evidence which contradicts the claim.

But such a claim need not, and certainly should not be required to, meet 'extraordinary' standards of evidence!

*

In conclusion:

If a claim is both 'extraordinary' and also wrong, it must be trivially easy to refute.

But if a claim which seems 'extraordinary' cannot in practice easily be refuted; then it is not really an extraordinary claim, and should not be treated as such. 

* 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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