Bruce Charlton's Notions
Time 2021-10-15 19:10:08Web Name: Bruce Charlton's Notions
WebSite: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com
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keywords: description:From A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926) by Hugh MacDiarmid
Translates as: I'll have no half-way house but always be where extremes meet - it's the only way I know to dodge the cursed conceit of "being in the right" that damns the vast majority of men.
There is indeed a common curst conceit of being in the right, and seen to be so; which leads many people to decry 'extremism' and 'polarization' - and take a moderate half-way-house position on any public issue.
Unfortunately, it is at one of the extremes - and the most extreme of all extremes (officially) is God, divine creation, following Jesus Christ, truth, beauty and virtue.
The other extreme - which is that of totalitarian global governance and officialdom, the world mass media, and all large institutions - is the extremity of strategic demonic evil: the world of omni-surveillance and micro-control in pursuit of leftist materialism, comprehensive and mandatory value-inversion.
And half-way-between these extremes lies the mass of the masses; who passively, unconsciously, self-righteously follow at a cautious and moderate distance the lead of the extremely wealthy and powerful, ultra-influential, highest-status and most-famous dedicated-servants of evil.
So the half-way hoose, that path between both extremes; that route of those sensible, sane, nice people who care-fully navigate the broad, calm waters between what it regards as the crazy, stupid, evil poles; that vast majority of Menare damned by their sensible, conscientious conformity.
Why so? Because:
1. Half-way-between truth and lies is... lies.
2. An average of the claims of truth and the claims of lies is... lies.
3. A blend of lies and the truth is... lies.
The only truth is the-true. Add lies, and it is no longer true.
Unless you are prepared to own-up (to yourself, as well as in the eyes of your neighbours) as a crazy extremist; you will surely have damned yourself by your own choices.
But then, of course, you need to pick the right extreme, the extreme at which reality lies.
Because, contrary to Hugh Macdiarmid's assertion of a century ago; as of 2021, the extremes never do meet; but instead diverge further and further apart, faster and faster, for eternity.
No comments: Favourite books to dip-into - but which you never read-through
"Books that I really enjoy dipping-into but never read all the way through" seems to be a definite category in my lifetime.
I first became aware of this with Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (published from 1621 onwards); which I used to keep by me in my twenties, but never read consecutively, and probably only a modest proportion of its total. Indeed, I would probably have named it as my desert island book for exactly the reason that I would be unlikely ever to finish it, yet enjoyed returning again and again.
Another, albeit shorter, book of this type I engaged-with for a few years was Hugh MacDiarmid's autobiography Lucky Poet (1943); which I would similarly browse almost randomly in; and stumble across passages that I did not recognize but appreciated - and then could never find again!
This business of going exploring thengetting lost in a book, and stumbling across what seem like new treasures (but which may have been read before, in a less appreciative mood); is one of the pleasures of this kind of reading - and for this reason it is better when the book is bothbig and dense or complex in arrangement (and when it lacks a good index!).
Perhaps the earliest example was our family Complete Shakespeare in a WWII economy-paper edition - with woodchips; which had been salvaged by my father from an army library being discarded in occupied Germany circa 1950. As a young child, I used to pick this up and read the titles, and passages here and there - with excited incomprehension. As a result I was far more impressed by The Phoenix and the Turtle,All's Well That Ends Well, or Love's Labours Lost - because of their intriguing names; than the lists of 'King X' plays, or the single word titles like Sonnets,Macbeth or Hamlet.
Nowadays; my undisputed champion dipper-in and desert island book is The History of Middle Earth (in 12 or 13 volumes according to definition) edited by Christopher Tolkien. I have read-in this book for hundreds of hours; never get sick of it, keep discovering new surprises and pleasure - yet never seem to get any closer to completing or comprehending it.
Not finishing favourite books is a much under-rated pastime.
If you are really serious in wanting to understand why a wholly-loving God permits suffering in this mortal world (and are not merely using the questions rhetorically, as an excuse for disbelieving God and thereby enabling some sin which you greatly desire to do); then the first step is obviously to recognize that God's shaping of this mortal world is aimed at the eternal benefit of those who accept the offer of Jesus Christa and choose to become resurrected into Heaven.
This world is 'for' the encouragement of Men to accept this offer of salvation into Heaven. Life is for the 'education' of men - so that we may learn what will benefit us eternally.
There is no single cause for suffering - and suffering may be wholly motivated by the spite and sadism of beings (human, demonic) who are committed to evil.
But suffering is also sometimes some kind of a 'lesson' for someone; an example of God's 'tough love' in trying to teach those who have refused to learn from more gentle lessons.
But this cannot be known by trying to discover The Cause Of Suffering in some large (often abstract) group or classification of people (such as are beloved by the Left).
God loves us as individual and unique persons - therefore suffering that derives from God's tough love (when it happens) will be directed at the specific circumstances of a specific person.
To infer this cause of suffering requires specific knowledge of that person, and it probably requires that we have a genuine personal care for him; because only when we want the best for him is it likely that we can understand the motivations of a God who also wants the best for him - but to an even higher degree and across a longer timescale.
Most of the people in this world do not seem to want eternal life in Heaven - even if they believed Heaven to be true, they would not want it. And any person is able to make that decision to reject God's will. But God desires that such rejection be a conscious and informed choice.
A specific person may need to suffer the consequences of his choice to sustain the side against God - i.e. the side of evil; because all choices have consequences - and he may learn from these consequences.
I seem to see a great deal of suffering nowadays which comes from the choice Not to recognize evil; the choice to go-along-with - and support - the agenda of evil.
I seem to see many individual people who have made these choices, and who have personally suffered great misery, physical suffering, even death as a consequence...
And yet I see that many of these people continue Not to recognize the evil motivations that have led to their suffering.
This shows how difficult it is to teach some (most?) people; and how resistant people can be to learning the lessons which life provides.
I seem to see God providing many people with life lessons - some sweet and delightful, others tough and harsh... and yet people simply Will Not Learn from them; but will explain-away the obvious lessons by more and more convoluted and implausible scenarios that serve to sustain their earlier evil choices.
For example - someone refuses to recognize the obvious (i.e. incoherent, changing) lies of an obvious liar (incoherent explanations, rapidly changing explanations)... That person chooses to believe the obvious lies of an obvious liar.
That person then suffers very personally from his choice of evil - the lies lead to harming people he loves, the consequences harm himself.
Obedience to evil always has outcomes - and a refusal to learn from these outcomes, a refusal to recognize evil, leads to more evil in the 'cover-up' and opens the possibility of greater evils to come (and the failure to recognize and learn from them).
But there are those who do wake-up to evil when the consequences become so severe or numerous as to be undeniable.
It can't be predicted exactly what will work for an individual - it may seem trivial, or it may seem like another consequence in a sequence; yet it is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
So, as the consequences of evil multiply - more people do awaken and recognize the evil. ...Not so may as I would hope, and some of those I most hope-for are among the unawakened.
And some people are astonishingly resistant to learning (some, apparently, resistant unto death).
Yet I think I can see what God is doing in some cases. I can sometimes understand - very specifically - why God allows these kinds of suffering.
3 comments: Salvation and theosis - God's two goals in creationI think it is necessary to assume that God had at least two goals in creation.
The first was to create Heaven - which means to create a world ruled by love. I tend to think of Heaven as a place where all relations between beings are loving - love, not coercion, is what gives cohesion to Heaven.
And I assume that any being can enter Heaven who is prepared to discard everything of himself which contradicts the primacy of love.
But God wanted more than this.
As William Arkle describes it - God did not want to remain 'alone, but God wanteddivine friends.
God wants not just 'children' (immature, undeveloped sons and daughters of God, like most mortal Men) - but God wants some of these children togrow-upto become like himself: that is afully creative being- a being able to continue and enhance ongoing divine creation.
So divine creation makes this growing-up of men to gods a possibility. Everything is provided to enable this to happen for a Man - except the vital ingredient that a Man must want it.
Overall, God wanted a Heaven in which dwelt other gods.(...As many as possible, each unique.)
That is what God is working-towards, by means of creation.
In other words, to summarize the argument; behind divine creation is God's desire for a loving Heaven that includes (but does not consist entirely of) many other gods, of the same nature and type as God-the-creator.
To become a god, a Man must want to become a god - that is, a creator on a level with the prime creator, albeit working within God's prime creation...
(Why must he want it? Because a god must be conscious to be free; God must be conscious to be an autonomous agent of creation. An un-conscious 'god' would simply operate as a tool for creation - he would not be a god.)
But that is not enough. As well as desiring full divinity; a Man who wants to become a god must also want to enter Heaven.
That is how God set-up reality.
One can have Heaven without wanting to be a god - e.g. wanting to remain a child; but one cannot become a god without also wanting Heaven.
To be a god outside of Heaven is forbidden, it was made impossible.
Theosis is only made possible to those who want to become a god - i.e. by those who will enter Heaven.
Salvation to escape sin and dwell forever in Heaven is available only to those who will make an eternal commitment to live by love.
Theosis and salvation are thus bound-together and made one byresurrection.
It is only by resurrection that a Man is made both eligible to enter Heaven and takes a decisive step towards the eventual goal of becoming A-god, like-unto The-God.
Therefore, salvation is primary and must come first, before full and permanent theosis is possible. But theosis is the reason for creation, the reason for Jesus Christ, and the highest desire of God.
Notes: When I write 'God' in the above post, I mean the Christian concept of God.
The God/s of other religions are differently motivated - and non-Christians do not intend that Man should be raised to the level of full-creator God: i.e. to that level of divinity which Christians believe was seen in Jesus Christ. This elevation of Man to god is the possibility of which Jesus offered to those who believed-on and followed him - an equivalence of status whereby Men are regarded as 'friends' of God, not as 'servants'.
I have also deliberately left open the structural aspects of the Christian God: I personally believe (with the Mormons) that God is our Heavenly Parents - that God is a dyad of Father and Mother; but the above argument works also for the more common and 'traditional' Christian trinitarian monotheism - where the love of God originates from the triadic love of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Also, I believe that the above scheme can be discovered from reading the Fourth Gospel ('John'); when that Gospel is assumed to be the primary and qualitatively most authoritative account of Jesus's life and teachings.
5 comments: Wednesday, 13 October 2021 We need to be able to recognize evil to resist it; but we do not need to understand itOr, to put it the other way around: We do not need to be able to understand evil, in order to recognize and resist it.
This is very important to bear in mind in the modern world, because mostly we do not understand much about the evil that is being done to us.
Even when we know evil is being done in accordance with a plan - we are very unlikely to know for sure all the important aspects of this plan. There may, after all, be more than one locus of evil, and these evil people or groups may be in conflict.
But we do not need correctly to know all the specifics of evil to resist it.
Therefore; having a false understanding (overall, or in detail) of the motivation behind and evil, or how evil is intended to work out in practice, does not invalidate resistance to that evil.
In other words: even when an evil is being resisted under the justification of a false theory (a wrong 'conspiracy theory'); and when that false theory can be (somewhat plausibly) refuted by the evil-doers... So what?
The point is that we should recognize and resist evil: That Is What We Need To Do!
Who (who on the side of good...) really cares about the exact accuracy of understanding of evil - especially when everything possible is being done to hide relevant information from the masses, and to confuse everybody with false 'facts', false 'theories' and deliberate contradictions.
Especially when the evil-doers themselves are not even trying to be honest or truthful - but regard communication as purely a method of manipulation. Mostly, they neither know nor care what is really going-on; but are simply trying to discredit or dispose-of all who resist them, by foul means or worse.
Who cares precisely what They are really trying to achieve by administering the peck immediately to everybody in the world (excepting the Global Establishment Themselves)? We cannot know - and it does not matter.
All we need to 'know' is to recognize that the peck is motivated by evil; which motivation we know for certain from its provenance (i.e. from who originated the peck and are pushing it; from those who provide 'evidence'; from their pervasively evil behaviour - their moral inversion, their gross and sustained lying on multiple topics, their support of evil causes, their venom directed against God and the Good... etc.).
Who cares what exactly is in the minds of the various orcs, wraiths, necromancers and demons who are peck-pushing 24/7 despite that it is obviously unnecessary, ineffective and harmful. If we did not already know for sure that They are evil - this behaviour would of itself be sufficient to let us know...
That is assuming we are capable of recognizing evil At All; which apparently, most people are not.
4 comments: Harsh life lessons resisted - and yet they might so 'easily' be learned...What a world!
Apparently, a Lot of people, all over the world, are Now getting some very harsh and very personal life lessons as a consequence of the birdemic-peck agenda. Yet they continue to believe that whole narrative - its shape and rationalization.
They do Not recognize the spiritual war, the global coup and that the Global Establishment are evil by their nature and intent: that all public discourse is manipulation and not-even-trying to be truthful.
Instead these suffering people continue to maintain that this is 'business as usual'; with benign and well-meaning global, national, local and industry rulers - albeit contaminated by rather stupid, short-termist, misguided and selfish people...
It really does not matter what actually happens - because many or most people Will Not recognize evil motivations for shutting down the world, closing the churches, destroying all social institutions and most industries, separating and dehumanizing the masses; and actively harming more and more people.
All this does not matter At All - because Nothing Has Changed. The world is as it always was. People are as they always have been.
Or something... The slightest fabricated excuses and rationalizations are grabbed and clasped; and the excuses are used and believed in swift rotation.
Because the underlying mass motivation is denial, the feeblest and most incoherent excuse will suffice.
People have already been squeezed by evil in a way which - if it was predicted two years ago - would have seemed literally incredible. We are living in extraordinary times. The squeeze continues, the lies get ever bigger and more frequent, more individual people suffer more and more...
But it makes no difference At All, because the whole thing is reframed and reframed, on a daily/ hourly basis; such as to deny any qualitative implications.
It is all either reduced to micro-discussions of minor incremental changes - or else swept up into vast and imprecise abstractions about 'freedom', 'democracy', justice' or whatever!
Sometimes it is 'nothing to see, move along' - sometimes it is a case of acknowledging extraordinary times, but attributed to a value-inverted non-cause such birdemic, rampant racism, CO2 climate change, homotransphobiastuff; or (somehow!) all these at once, in a fake-synthesis of falsity.
All this comes down to individual persons and their experiences; and what each person makes of his own experiences - supplemented by the directly known experience of those in his immediate circle.
All the 'information' anyone needs to know the truth - and to discern evil - can be found in this direct and personal knowledge.
But it does require that the individual chooses to take full responsibility for his own conscious understanding of himself and reality.
If this responsibility is surrendered to any external authority - he is finished. If he refuses to become conscious of reality - he is finished. If he refuses to choose truth - he is finished.
And yet 'all' that is required is to be honest with himself - in the 'privacy of his own mind'.
In these times he needs only to be Christian in his own mind, by personal decision and choice - he does not need to make a public declaration or join a church.
He need only recognize the pervasive spiritual war inwardly - he does not need to emark on a program of political 'action'.
He need only take the side of God and recognize and reject the devil, by thinking this... He does not need to tell anyone about the embarrassing fact that the devil is real and very active in many places, here and now.
Only these things and he will be saved, and he will find his life transformed for the better, and all kinds of things might and probably will happen as a consequence...
'Only'. It's so easy!
Only in the privacy of his mind, his heart, his conscious thinking...
A simple inward act - what could be more facile?
Ah! - but no. That 'only' is fatally difficult for Modern Man
Because 'only in their own heart' is far, far beyond where most people are willing to go.
Spiritual war is the one kind of war he absolutely refuses to participate in.
Why? Is it because Modern Man regards 'the spiritual' as not-real, hence trivial - so that he 'cannot be bothered' to think anything which he is not prepared to act-upon?
Or, is it because of the opposite: because at a deeper level than he is prepared to acknowledge Modern Man knows that the spiritual is objectively real; so that any-thing he thinks will affect reality - will change the world...
And then he would be known as responsible for what happens!
(i.e. The reality of 'thought-crime'.)
Therefore - better not to think in any direction tending-towards any thought which would go against the mandatory spirit-of-the-age.
The mass media thrives on conflict and controversy, and they exclude the perspective of genuinely good people. Thus, two kinds of story dominate.
There are stories about the masses and the low-grade servants of evil (the bureaucrats, celebrities, managers, and 'ordinary people') - these are what I think of as squabbling orcs.
That is, all the participants are on the side of evil - aiming at evil outcomes; but they are squabbling over the best means to that end. They are like the orcs in The Two Towers who have kidnapped Merry and Pippin and who fight over whether the hobbits should be taken to Isengard or Mordor, or whether they should be tortured now or later.
It is about one-on-one conflicts, battling tribes and mobs. The denouement is that the more powerful, or devious, orcs dominate and kill the lesser.
This basic squabbling orcs narrative accounts for much of the output of new, novels, TV soaps, movies etc.
The Saruman versus Sauron scenario describes the accounts of leadership-level disputes; concerning strategy, policy, principles, morality...
Again, the perspectives are all on the side of evil (against God, divine creation and the Good). And the differences are again concerned with means to that end. But this kind of dispute is impersonal - at the level of battling concepts.
In our global totalitarianism - the entirety of public discourse is corrupt. So, all the concepts on display are in service to evil; but some of the concepts have a larger admixture of declared good intentions ('lawful evil) - as when Saruman presents himself to Gandalf as the better option than Sauron.
This scenario could be the political 'pseudo-right' (Conservative, Republican, Libertarian etc) putting themselves forward as less-bad than the explicit Left; or indeed any candidate for any major position of wealth, power, influence or status.
Saruman v Sauron also includes all abstract discussions of idealism versus pragmatism, virtue versus sin, beauty versus ugliness, truth versus lies - in our world of value-inversion the whole discussion happens on the side where sin is virtue and virtue is excluded or demonized.
When the whole system has become as evil as ours - by far the most evil in the history of the world, as far as I know, and getting worse rapidly - we cannot hope for any betterment of things overall by the triumph of one group of orcs over another who are even-worse, or by the triumph of Saruman over Sauron.
Neither can we console ourselves that this in-fighting weakens the enemy; as Tolkien pointed out - in these disputes the winner emerges stronger than either and free from doubt: that is, able to prosecute the spiritual war against Good with even more strength and zeal.
Therefore, we should not support either side, nor should we hope for benefit from evil cancelling-out.
From a Christian perspective, evil cannot correct evil; and the only opposition to evil is Good.
Our way is clear for Christians. We should pay the minimum of attention to squabbling orcs and the claims of rival superpowers of evil and their ideologies. We should turn, in our own living and (especially) in our own conscious thinking - to doing good.
First to becoming aware of the scope and nature of the spiritual war afoot in this mortal world. This explicit consciousness is, of itself, of great benefit in the spiritual realm. It is what enables effective action.
Then to making our-selves a creative fount of good thinking and actions - relying upon God's power to amplify any small thing we may personally achieve that is in-harmony-with the divine will.
There is some-thing of global, eternal, value for every-person to do in the spiritual war: starting here (wherever you are), and starting now.
It is a bad habit of Christians (under tough questioning and the stress of pervasive modern evil) when it gets down to specifics; to take refuge in soothing abstractions and professions of ignorance.
It is a habit that is pretty obvious to atheists (of whom I was one until 2008), and which certainly looks like evasiveness and manipulation.
It is actually worse than that - because for too-many Christians the tough questions are, even At Root, unsure and imprecise, and for unclear reasons - so that their understanding gets fuzzier and weaker the closer they get to fundamentals.
This is no basis for a tough and real Christian faith.
For instance - Heaven. Christianity is 'all about' going to Heaven after we die biologically; so you would assume that Christians could answer straightforward and basic questions such as: 'What is Heaven like?'
After all, how could anyone know that he wanted to dwell in Heaven forever, unless he had a pretty clear idea of what Heaven was like?
Who is in Heaven - what kinds of people? How is Heaven 'organized'? And what kinds of thing do resurrected people actually Do in Heaven, on a day to day basis?
What we want and need are simple, concrete, but general answers that avoid incomprehensible abstraction and eschew evasions. Answers that explain clearly what detail is knowable and why, and what is not knowable and why.
But Christians are much too eager to open the escape hatches, and avoid the embarrassment of properly-answering such questions (or avoid revealing, and to themselves, their own ignorance) by stating that Heaven is beyond human comprehension and too great to be expressible; or to reach for vast, soaring but uninformative abstractions about light, space, oneness, communion...
Or to take refuge in 'negative theology' by saying what Heaven is Not: such as Not angels with wings playing harps and singing hymns to old man with a beard on a golden throne...
Yet none of this is helpful in answering the question.
Another example concerns the two big criticisms of Christianity: the problems of free will and evil.
The problem that if God created everything from nothing and is omnipotent, then ultimately God is and does everything; so there is no space for free will, and God is responsible for all evil as well as all good.
Christians know that it is essential for their faith to include free will, or else nobody could choose to follow Christ; nor could evil originate from anywhere except God. But they also regard it as essential to state that God created every-thing and is omnipotent.
If, after 2000 years, Christians still can't explain clearly (without soothing abstractions and squirming evasions) how evil happens in a good world made by one good God; or how a God that supposedly controls everything allows the most extreme evils; then this is a pretty damning indictment.
Faced with stark contradiction, Christians often seem perceptibly uncomfortable (squirming) - and 'explain' by reaching for abstraction. Yet abstraction is usually trying to answer an easy question by introducing a difficult (perhaps impossible) answer.
How can we suppose that we have answered a simple and honest question by pointing-at something so difficult to comprehend that it requires further and more-difficult explanation?
The psychological effect is that the answer is not given into order to clarify understanding, but with the effect of obscuring the problem by soothing it away...
There are several of these soothing abstractions given prominence in Christianity - such as the orthodox, mainstream doctrines of the Holy Trinity.
The tough question is that if Christians claim that there is one God, how can Jesus also be fully divine? Surely that is at least two Gods? And then, what about the Holy Ghost?...
And if Jesus is God, how can he be a Man? If he is a Man, how can he be God? Such obvious questions arose very early in the history of Christianity.
The 'answer' is a bunch of soothing abstractions or incantations, with the actual effect of hypnotizing the problem away - by restating the problem as a mystery of three in one, and one in three etc. This is an explanation that is not an explanation at all - it is to answer an easy question with an impossibly difficult answer.
Yet, after 2000 years, this is become a creedal matter, a necessary article of faith; something that is supposed to have been a decisive and final clarification of a problem so obvious a child can see it.
There is a sense that Christians hope that the problem will go-away if they declare it solved - and for many centuries this was actually true. Christianity held-together, despite the feeble answers...
But it is not true now.
So, most Christians (for 2000 years) have done this kind of thing all the time- resorting to abstraction and ignorance - and about some of the most fundamental matters of faith.
And this is another deep and debilitating weakness of Christianity - which I am sure has contributed to the catastrophic collapse of the past 18 months (i.e. the worst and most rapid reversal of institutional Christianity since its foundation - and if you have not noticed this, then you are in deep trouble).
It has become very obvious that most 'Christians' do not believe what they say they believe; and have actually abandoned their faith...
By contrast, these same 'Christians' are utterly credulous-of, slavishly obedient-to and defensive-concerning... whatever latest lying garbage is being spouted by government officials, advertisers and the mass media.
But Christianity is true and real, and there are clear and simple answers to all the tough and simple questions.
But none of the churches will tell you this - and certainly no other institutions will do so.
Indeed you will need to work the answers out for your-self - because why should you - how should you - trust anybody else in such times?
In such a situation, old style Christian evangelism - pushing the same old abstractions and evasions - is pitiful; and apparently counter-productive with most people.
In these end times; conversion is a matter of sorting things out for yourself and by yourself to attain answers that satisfy yourself.
All we can realistically do is provide an example of whatever sort can be managed; and encourage others really to think - for and from them-selves.
And if you get it wrong, you will soon know; because your un-rooted faith will be swept-away like a bubble in the burgeoning torrent of lies and manipulations; and you will be gathered-into the thundering main-stream, heading down the steepening slope towards Hell.
But if you get it right, you will be separated and poised calmly amidst the maelstrom; realities will glow out from among the filth and be drawn to you (and you to them)... You will inwardly be sustained, energized and en-couraged.
When you have answered the vital questions to your tested-satisfaction; you can navigate irresistibly through this bedeviled world.
You can navigate towards a Heaven that you already understand well-enough to desire; eternally to participate in divine creative work that you yearn to join-with; following a Jesus whom you know sufficiently to love.
[Note: This is to extract, make explicit and clarify something very important that I have said and used many times in many blog posts.]
Everything material is also spiritual. Therefore, all our material actions or behaviours, every-thing that happens in the material realm, has spiritual implications.
But the reverse is not true. There are (many) spiritual events that have no effect on the material realm - but act only within the immaterial realm.
The 'asymmetry' is a consequence of the fact that the spiritual is primary, and the material derives from the spiritual.
In the history of reality there was originally only immaterial spirit, and the material (physical) at some point 'condensed' from this purely spiritual.
The material is a 'sub-set' of the spiritual.
It is useful to have this matter clear when trying to understand what is going on in the world now. The 'Ahrimanic' Satanic plan - which has been dominant among the ruling Establishment for several generations - is as follows:
1. To deny that there is any immaterial spiritual realm and to persuade the masses to live in accordance with this denial (that has been largely achieved); then
2. To fully-control the material realm; and
3. Thereby to control the entirety of the acknowledged spiritual world.
This spiritual control via the material will be used to enforce the self-chosen damnation of Mankind.
Everything material that They do, should also be understood as an intended spiritual intervention, directed towards Man's damnation.
But there is a vast immaterial spiritual realm which They deny.
They can influence the spiritual realm, but only indirectly (e.g. by persuasion or intimidation).
But the immaterial spiritual is outside of Their control: which is exactly why They want Us to deny it.
Things are bad in the world! Satan's side in the spiritual war of this world had a great victory in early 2020, successfully achieving a global coup by its possessed agents and obedient servants; which hardly anyone noticed.
Indeed - by my estimate - the world is worse now, more extremely-evil (in terms of value-inversion), than at any time in history.
But... things are not as bad now, as I confidently expected they would be 18 months ago.
Despite winning the political war of this mortal world - at least, on the level of observable material phenomena - the Global Establishment have not been able to pursue their strategy as far or as fast as I had anticipated. Indeed, there have been some significant easings; some retreats, here and there.
My understanding is that this is 'negative evidence' that the primary war is spiritual, not political; and that the spiritual war is being fought harder and more effectively than the material war.
On the basis of observable material phenomena there seems no reason why The Enemy should not press on as fast and as far as they want, because - where is there any powerful opposition? All the nations of the world have been brought in line and the major multi-national organizations were long since captured.
Leadership of all the major social institutions are overall strongly On Side with the program of explicit evil: all mainstream political parties, multinational corporations, international finance, the civil service, police and military. legal system, health services, education, science, sports, mass media etc; and the major Christian denominations and churches.
So what is stopping them? Why are they waiting? Why do they not simply push-through as fast as humanly possible to the hell-on-earth they intend for the masses?
There are, I think, at least three reasons. One is that my knowledge, anybody's knowledge' is partial and distorted even when it is true. There are facts and contexts missing - so that the correct degree of pessimism cannot be established (i.e. the Palantir Problem).
Secondly - the primary purpose of the Global Establishment is spiritual, not political; so we would not expect Them to work towards maximizing political control.
Instead, they will tend to adjust their political objectives to optimize spiritual damage - rather than optimizing their subordinate goals of economic damage, mass enslavement, torment and killings from disease, violence and starvation etc.
(Although low level demons delight in destruction; their primary goal is damnation; and there will be more strategic and high level demonic leaders who will try to delay the gratifications of immediate and indiscriminate destruction of life, in order to promote the large scale plan of mass damnation.)
And thirdly; while observable, measurable physical and material resistance to the strategy of Satan - seems almost ineffectual (being infrequent, scattered and apparently feeble) - this is not, after all, the most important kind of resistance.
The most important resistance to evil is in Men's hearts.
The spiritual war is always and necessarily affected-by change in the material world, because the material is a sub-division of the spiritual realm. Nonetheless, the major arena of spiritual war is in The Spirit.
And, since there is a significant gap between expectations and actuality based on observable and material conflict; my inference is that the major conflict is happening in the 'invisible' (but know-able) realm of the spirit.
More exactly; I believe that They have Not been able to pursue Their evil plans as far and as fast as would have been expected given their near-monopoly of worldly power; because there is significant spiritual resistance from a sufficient number and spiritual strength of ordinary (not leadership) people around the world.
The Establishment may have all-but won the war over bodies and minds; but there is still significant and effective resistance in Men's hearts.
This should be taken as strong encouragement. We should know that 'in theory' our own personal and individual spiritual state and commitment will make a difference to the world spiritual war; because God works through Men, and by our choices we may make ourselves an instrument of God - who is, after all, The Creator!
By our deliberate and conscious choices, we may each become an Instrument of Divine Creation.
Therefore, God may change the world, re-create the world, both through us and also by our own sub-creative acts (mental and physical) being sustained and amplified by God's ongoing create-ing.
As I say, Christians should know that this is true 'in theory'. But also I believe we can (as of this moment in time - things may change, of course) also observe the truth of it 'in practice'.
This, by noting the 'significant gap' between how bad things actually are at present and how bad we might reasonably have expected them to be 18 months ago; when Satan's political power first began to rule the world without significant institutional opposition - and with the major 'Christian' churches taking Satan's side.
Thus, the 'negative material evidence' and the evil of institutions, seem to point-at positive spiritual power for Good residing in the hearts of individual Men.
A surprising proportion of the most powerful people in the world are above retirement age - and some very old indeed by world historical standards of a maximum life expectancy of about seventy years (and also by the normal current standards that are chosen, habitual and enforced in the mainstream of jobs; in many of which mandatory retirement before the middle sixties is normal).
Furthermore, the younger leaders are mostly - very obviously - not real leaders, not really powerful; but merely puppets, mouthpieces, middle-managerial stooges for those in the shadows who - as I said - are often old, and mostly (obviously) well-advanced in decline.
These ultra-old power-people are apparently kept going for as long as possible by massive drug usage and perhaps other practices - but nonetheless, they cannot possibly match the stamina and aptitudes of younger cohorts.
So why is it that the Global Establishment has come so strongly to use the very old, whose abilities are generally much impaired and who lack the surface appeal of the young or middle-aged; and who need so much work to sustain?
Why do They insist on propping-up these decayed characters in positions of power?
And why do not this new ultra-Gerontocracy (rule by the oldest) themselves want to cease the daily wielding of power, and instead refocus upon spiritual matters in preparation for inevitable death - as Men nearly always did in the past?
The answer I have reached is that it usually takes the powers of evil a long time - decades rather than years - thoroughly to corrupt the hearts of Men; so that those Men have deeply internalized evil to the point of actively wanting evil.
It is not enough for the most powerful Men to be selfish, hedonic careerists or obedient; they must have voluntarily, willingly, whole-heartedly adopted that value-inversion required for the pursuit of strategic evil; they must have come to regard evil as good, ugliness as beauty, lies as a higher-truth...
In traditional terms; these high level leaders need to have invited evil into their souls; to have agreed to demonic possession to a significant degree - and indeed set-aside most of their natural personal hedonic goals in active service to the agenda of Satan.
I suspect that these genuinely powerful individuals are not materialists, and that they know God is real; but they reject God and divine creation, and despise resurrection into Heaven; and instead look beyond this mortal life to some kind of continued spiritual existence in continued service to evil.
It is this kind of 'immortality' that they have been offered - by a Faustian bargain.
This promise of immortality may be a lie, often is; and they may have been duped - to be cast into oblivion at death. But I think there must be some examples of such immortality of evil spirits which can be exhibited, and which exhibiting these wholly-corrupt individuals have experienced and been convinced-of - in order that they will agree to this bargain. They can therefore believe that there is at least a chance of success from their choices.
These old-evil people do not want resurrection into Heaven; they want to stay themselves, with all their sins - because their sins are the core of their being. They want to live 'forever' primarily to pursue their sins.
Satan cannot offer resurrection, but probably can offer continued spiritual existence of the personality - and maybe by the extraction and use of spiritual energy by means of classically Satanic practices, rituals, symbolism, initiations, sacrifices, deals and contracts etc.
What the ultra-Gerontocracy probably hope is that the small-fry servants, slaves and dupes of evil (of whom there are vast numbers nowadays) will be consumed;and their life energies used to sustain the continued existence of this minority of Quisling ex-humans who have committed (in their hearts) to a post-mortal life as a demon.
Such an extreme, near-total, degree of self-aware human corruption apparently takes a long time to happen - and many will fall aside on the dark path; and some will be saved late in the day.
By the time that a person has fully internalized and embraced the agenda of evil, and cast-aside all loyalty to Mankind; he will usually be very old. But such individuals are of immense value to Satan; and well-worth sustaining for as long as possible.
The ultra-old leaders are thus akin to the Ringwraiths of Sauron - completely trustworthy agents of the devil, because they have nothing of themselves left with-which to rebel against their master.
And the ultra-Gerontocracy of evil is one result of this process operating in our world.
A false metaphor is a gift to the devil; and the metaphor of choosing the right hill to die on is an example.
Behind the phrase is the idea that we are engaged in the kind of war where generals strive to locate their troops on the most advantageous ground for a decisive - win or lose - battle.
This analogy is then misapplied to the spiritual war of Good and evil by those who imagine that they are on the side of Good, to create the fake problem of choosing which 'issue' it will be most advantageous to 'make a stand' upon. Until that point, the assertion will repeatedly be made (whether explicitly or not) that this is not the hill I choose to die upon. Because?... the issue is too trivial, it is not decisive, my position is too weak, there is insufficient support etc.
So the person voluntarily retreats, quietly yields - or maybe complies with public wailing and hand-wringing - but complies; he will 'keep his powder dry' for the great and decisive conflict to come; when eventually he will reach that much-anticipated hill on which he will fight to the death...
Yeah, sure...
But The Enemy is not seeking a final decisive conflict - but doing every-thing possible to avoid it; instead the enemy strategy is to encourage endless incremental yieldings of ground - until there are no more hills. Until victory has already been achieved. Every single decision not to fight on this hill materially aids the enemy strategy.
The metaphor is false, misleading, and plays directly into The Enemy's hands.
Adherence to Good is primary, therefore real resistance to evil is not like that.
How it really works is this: Each time ground is voluntarily yielded to evil, the position of Good is weakened, and The Enemy is strengthened.
The correct analogy is repentance (which means acknowledgment that sin is indeed sin, and rejection of it as an ideal).
The only repentance is repentance Now.
To say to oneself - I will repent later; to plan repentance - is Not to repent at all. It is, indeed, to render later (planned) repentance false, therefore impossible.
Either we repent now, or we have (as a matter of fact) rejected repentance. Either we resist now, and every-thing that is evil, or we have chosen to comply and joined-with Satan.
Every such failure, every chosen compliance, strengthens the enemy, and brings Them closer to Their goals.
Every yielding increases Their harvest of damned souls, because by it we are adding our-selves to the forces of evil.
Every untruth harms the cause of Good by joining our efforts with the Prince of Lies.
And vice versa... (so be hope-full)
Things really are That Simple.
Thank Heaven!
If the Sleeping King Arthur was to awaken and return to save Albion, as some legends suggest he will; then he cannot save us in the way a King might save his people in the past - by uniting and leading them with irresistible force to escape the yoke of evil rulers; to initiate a Golden Age of peace, plenty, beauty and Godliness.
Such a King could not save modern Britain because many, perhaps most, people do not want to be saved.Taking cue from their leaders; the inhabitants hate themselves and their country, and actively seek (by multiple means) to disparage its people and forward its destruction
For a start, the Men of Albion do not want beauty or Godliness - only pleasure and comfort.
Also, they do not regard their current rulers as evil - indeed, because they have rejected God, modern Men neither understand nor believe-in the reality of genuine evil (regarding 'evil' as merely selfishness).
Any returning King would find more people against, than with him; and those who were with him so fear-full and this-worldly as to lack the courage to take any significantpersonal risk or suffer even short-term inconvenience. They will not even risk other people saying they aren't nice.
What we have now is very purely a spiritual war, and the problem is that few people recognize the reality of the spiritual realm.
Indeed, the essence of the spiritual war is exactly about this denial. One cannot take sides in the war of Good versus evil, God versus the demons, until these are known as realities.
So the nature and validity of any returning Good King would itself be denied. He would be interpreted as a (reactionary) political leader merely, aiming at material benefit merely; selfishly seeking the Good of Britain merely.
Nonetheless, the Rightful King can return - but not as a mass leader; and not to impose his will on the nation.
He can return, but in the spiritual and not the material realm.
He can return, but not to conquer and overwhelm the unwilling and indifferent - but must be asked and welcomed by choice of one person at a time.
The King can return into the hearts of Men, to fortify and encourage, to provide understanding and guidance. He would unite and direct the spirit - not the bodies - of Albion.
What the King would rescue us from is passivity, un-consciousness and denial of God and the immortal soul.
Hence, the Awakening King must be invited into your human heart and mine, each by a deliberate and personal act of decision.
And the goal will be to save the spirit of Albion - to save it for that eternity into-which all will be welcomed who truly desire it.
I have noticed that most people who are 'concerned' about the direction the world is taking are clearly unaware of the actual state of the actual world now.
The media are full of warning of what might (or will) happen if present trends continue; when it would instead be accurate to say that these bad outcomes have already happened - often some decades ago.
Therefore, such warnings are profoundly, mischievously, misleading - and indeed reality-denying.
For example, those who warn about the increasing corruption of science, when the fact is that science (real science) is long since dead: its motivations, funding, practices, publications, prestige-system and personnel are all overwhelmingly anti-scientific - and have been for decades.
Those who warn about the 'danger' of incipient totalitarianism in the wake of a successful global totalitarian coup in early 2020 - evidenced by mono-themed, multi-institutional, omni-surveillance and micro-control which everybody has personally experienced.
Or warning about the possible collapse of the Christian churches due to demographic shrinkage; when these churches are revealed now as pseudo-Christian (Anti-christ-ian) shells, having taken the side of Satan in the ongoing spiritual war.
In other words; people seem to have no idea about the actual state of the actual world - now!
This is, ultimately, because there are no objective facts; and the state of the world is something that each of us creates by the concepts we bring to understanding it.
It is the truth - or otherwise - of these concepts that determines the reality of this mortal world. It is the pervasiveness of anti-God, anti-divine creation, anti-Good concepts that blinds the world to the world.
By my observation; what has happened is simply that the concepts have changed en masse; passively, among the world population, by absorption of a global and micro-directed top-down and purposively-evil ideological control...
And therefore the reality of the masses is now interpreted in ways that accord with the Satanic agenda.
The way out - the only way out - is to adopt the concepts of God, and reject those from the devil.
And this can only happen (in the world as-is) by each of us consciously choosing the true concepts for our-selves; from our God-given and divine autonomy and agency.
Active, conscious choice is now the only path to Good; and all that is passive, automatic and merely absorbed or obedient is organized in opposition to divine creation.
The simple answer is that the anti-establishment counter-culture went-into novels, plays, poems, visuals, TV, movies and online.
In media there are endless totalitarian dystopias, insightful eccentrics, and self-sacrificing heroes. The masses live this intensely and vicariously.
But in Real Life among the masses there is unprecedented lying, conformity and cowardice; bland self-blinding and denial complicity in the construction of a global Black Iron Prison dedicated to evil.
So much for the educative role of the arts; so much for the inspirational effect of examples, so much for being forewarned by history, so much for more education and wide availability of detailed information...
And so much for the Christian Churches with all their teaching, expertise in theology and scripture, their extensive rituals, their restrictive rules, their sacraments, prayers and communities.
2020 has exposed our vast systems of delusion, false claims, errors and pretense with unprecedented suddenness and completeness.
What we thought we knew about the world and our-selves - we now know that we did not; and there is nowhere left to turn for discernment and motivation... but God, our own hearts and (perhaps) one or a handful of beloved persons.
It seems possible that Christianity came very early to Britain, shortly after the ascension of Christ, and probably to Glastonbury; at the time of the native Celtic Britons.
Perhaps because of this, and for many centuries, there was historically very little conflict in the British Isles (and no recorded conflict at all in Ireland) between Celtic paganism and the new Christianity.
This had a lasting effect. Because the new Christians were not persecuted by pagans, when Christians became dominant they did not persecute the pagans but assimilated them. Churches were deliberately built on the pagan sacred sites.
And the old pagan deities were downgraded rather than suppressed; to be named among ancient kings, mythic heroes, or even being transformed to saints.
Also Britain was the centre of druidism, the place where continental Celts sent their druids for a very prolonged and difficult education - presumably in colleges of some kind; all this knowledge being memorized and never written (although there was perhaps a written language at the time, using ogham letters)
Druids were leaders of the Celts; with, apparently, a wide-ranging role including ritual, scholarship, divination, healing and warfare. They conducted sacrifices, including human. And these druidic pagans were exceptional in the known world for their strong belief in a personal afterlife - an afterlife in which Men retained their individual identities.
That this belief in an afterlife was strong is evidenced by Julius Caesar, who gave it as the reason for the exceptional courage in battle of the Britons; that it involved retained personal identity may be inferred from the Ancient Briton's practice of guaranteeing loans (IOUs) to be paid-off in this afterlife.
Both of these imply that the Celts knew a lot about the afterlife - in that they had apparently rather exact expectations of what it would be like.
The Celtic expectation of eternal life contrasted with the Greco-Roman and Jewish belief in a afterlife as merely depersonalized ghosts in Hades/ Sheol. The Greco-Romans apparently interpreted the Celtic belief as reincarnation - like the Pythagoreans - but it was more likely a belief in Paradise: Men living eternally in an ideal kind of society and situation (on a magical island to the west, for instance).
This means that when a pagan Celt converted to Christianity and a belief in Heaven it was qualitatively different from the situation for a Roman or Jew. The Roman or Jew expected annihilation of the self - while the Celt expected preservation of the self.
Therefore, for the Roman or Jew Christianity Heaven offered a qualitative transformation of the self, whereas for the Celt it was more like a quantitative enhancement - a divinization - of the self.
I would speculate that this difference in pre-conversion expectations may have led to a difference after conversion. The Greco-Roman or Jew perhaps focused on the new fact of eternal life - and was therefor almost exclusively concerned with salvation. While the Celt would have been more impressed by the enhancement of the self towards becoming a god: a 'Son of God', much like the ascended Jesus - and therefore more focused on theosis - on working to become 'more divine' during mortal life.
At any rate, mainstream Roman/ Western Christianity was rather vague (and indeed uncertain) as to the details of the afterlife; at least until the Mormon revelations from 1830, which began to provide a much more detailed description - and expectations.
But I would guess that the Celtic Christians would have had similarly detailed expectations of Heaven, inherited from their pagan predecessors.
In terms of its organization, Celtic Christianity resembled Eastern Orthodoxy much more than Roman Christianity. Whereas the Roman church was dominated by Bishops and Priests; Orthodoxy is spiritually dominated by Abbots and Monks - and with semi-autonomous hermits inhabiting remote 'desert' regions and performing heroic acts of asceticism (fasts, vigils, prayer), often at the summit of holiness.
But Celtic Christianity was substantially cut off from Constantinople, as well as Rome; and developed along the native lines established very early. These included a great emphasis on mysticism (communion with God) and miracles, with most of the Saints being wonder-workers (most famously Cuthbert).
Although normal in Eastern Orthodoxy, given the pagan assimilation this mysticism may also link up with druidic initiation, which went through many rigorous levels and aiming at spiritual powers that were regarded as magical.
In particular; it may be that the folk heroes of the British may be traced back to those ancient Celtic Gods, assimilating into Christianity. According to the work of Geoffrey Ashe (e.g. Avalonian Quest); Arthur may have derived by many steps from the original primordial titan that was assumed (in the oldest chronicles) to be the ruler of England when it was invaded by Men originally from Troy. This character reappears as the giant Albion in William Blake's prophecies.
Merlin (originally Myrddin) may go back even further, to an even more ancient God who ruled the island of Britain originally. Merlin was originally a place-namefor a fortress- but became a personal name. The first recorded name for Britain can be translated as Merlins Precinct, or enclosure. The Merlin of literature could have been derived from this ancient god.
By Geoffrey Ashe's account in Merlin: the prophet and his history; the Merlin that we know from literature seems to be derived from a title, role or nature of a person - probably one with prophetic and magical abilities, due a relationship with the ancient god - perhaps as a reincarnation or by divine inspiration.
This led to the the first two known historical Merlins - Ambrosius/ Emrys, the Welsh magician prophet Merlin who mostly contributed to the Arthurian mythos via Geoffrey of Monmouth's History; and Lailoken the later mad prophet Scottish Merlin - who is represented in Geoffrey's later Merlin poem, and who features in the stories of the Scottish Saint Kentigern/ Mungo (the first Bishop of Glasgow, and a missionary of major historical importance).
Another 'Merlin' may have been the Welsh bard Taliesin, author of the oldest surviving native poetry; he is recorded as a companion of Lailoken-Merlin, by Geoffrey.
The Merlin of literature (and his descendants among many other wizards) exerts a continued - perhaps increasing - fascination in Britain (and the Anglosphere more generally). This may have spiritual significance, as some kind of folk-memory of the Celtic Merlin god, via the historical-and-legendary Merlins of the Dark Ages - as assimilated and transformed by the unique nature of Celtic Christianity.
It may even be that - to the Romantic Christian imagination - Merlin is a Celtic name for the archangel of Albion: the angelic being who has been responsible for that ancient and indomitable spiritual reality which underlies modern 'Britain'.
This vital question is given an excellent answer by William Wildblood in his post todayEdited excerpts follow - but read the whole thing...
People often question what there is in Christianity that is not in other religions since many of the moral teachings are very similar and some even pre-date the birth of Christ. This is missing the point.
What there is in Christianity that is nowhere else is Christ himself. The actual person of Christ who through his crucifixion and resurrection transformed the whole world, even those parts of it that had no conscious knowledge of him.
He changed the spiritual goal fundamentally, opening up the Kingdom of Heaven to all who accepted him whereas before there were only states analogous to Limbo, Hades, Sheol, Bardo and the like for most souls with Nirvana as a possibility for those who were able to detach themselves completely from identification with their created selves.
But the new reality of Heaven (new as far as human beings were concerned) meant that the fallen self could now be redeemed and transformed into a being of light. For Heaven involves the union of spirit and matter instead of their separation. It's a marriage not a divorce.
Prior to the actual Incarnation the spirit of Christ will have begun to permeate the higher worlds, affecting all those able to respond to it on that level. Thus, the teachings of Christ will have begun to be established in the world. A similar thing happened after Christ's death and means that all spiritual forms in the world that were open to it, whether ostensibly Christian or not, will have begun to be influenced by what we can call the Universal or Cosmic Christ.
Christianity is the religion in which Christ is most fully present but surely you did not think he could not manifest himself and be present as a spiritual force and influence in other religions? He is primarily a spiritual being and as such can be present everywhere to those who are open to him. Such people may not know him by the name Jesus Christ but they can know his spiritual presence and that is what really counts.
I would add that this explains why it is the almost-exclusively materialistic, this-worldly, assumptions of modernity that has made it so difficult for modern people to understand Christianity; and led to misunderstanding Jesus as essentially a 'moral teacher', or a societal-transformer.
But the essence is that what Jesus did was indeed Cosmic; he transformed the nature of reality and thereby made new possibilities - everywhere and for everybody; which is why Christianity is universal.
1 comment: Sunday, 3 October 2021 There are no 'bare-facts' - instead, we should focus on spiritual realitiesThat The Enemy are liars - and fundamentally so, because they deny reality - raises the temptation of trying to counter Enemy lies with 'bare-facts'; to counter false/ misleading/ manipulative imputed-causes with real ones.
But this mechanical fact focus is an alluring snare - a species of spirit-denying materialism and tending to confirm that the only serious truth is mechanical causality. It encourages exactly that mode of thinking which the Enemy wishes to impose on the world.
We need, instead, to become primarily aware of the spiritual realities behind the material 'facts'.
There are no solely material events in reality - therefore there are no bare-facts; and there are no purely material causes.
Every-thing that happens in the world has an underlying spiritual dimension; every proximate cause, event or observation is embedded in ultimate spiritual causes.
The bare-fact is just the tip of a spiritual iceberg - and our job is to know the invisible part of the iceberg.
How? By consciously choosing this attitude and practice.
We know, for-sure, that the mass mainstream narrative of facts and causes is always false. We know that every-thing from the Establishment is intended to manipulate not communicate.
Thus, we set it aside without wasting thought.
And instead allow our intuition, our heart-thinking, our God-aligned discernment - to contemplate the spiritual motivation behind the fake story.
We all have inner guidance from being children of God and external guidance from the Holy Ghost - so we can always know the spiritual realities that are spiritually necessary to us; always - so long as we are (at that time) genuinely on the side of divine creation, aligned with The Good.
If so, then suddenly we become aware of the spiritual reality and existential nature of the situation; the hidden iceberg of spiritual intent beneath the visible materialism and mechanical causality of public discourse!
Suddenly, we understand the enemy; suddenly it becomes clear what we personally need to do in order to oppose the powers of evil.
As a young child, aged about five or six, I quite suddenly became afraid of death. That is, I became afraid of other peoples' death - I became afraid that someone I loved, among my family, relatives and close family friends - would die and be lost to me.
At this point in my life I was not an atheist; but neither was I a Christian. I was, indeed, somewhat hostile to Christianity as it was taught me. And I was (as perhaps all Men are) a natural pagan; therefore I did not love the gods, and I assumed that the gods did not love me; but instead they wanted propitiation, worship, sacrifice. They did not want to be 'asked', but needed to be begged.
Thus I prayed - whenever the thoughts of death came to mind - with desperate pleading and multiple repetitions. I prayed for the preservation of those I loved; that they would not be taken from me and lost from my life.
Death seemed like the greatest disaster that could befall me - but at that point I could hardly comprehend my own death; so the worst I could imagine was to be left bereft, unprotected, in a world of strangers who were probably indifferent and uncaring at best; and some were spiteful, hostile, nasty.
I realized, with perfect truth, that to live within the loving warmth of family was the greatest possible benefit the world had to offer; and that death threatened this happiness and security more - and more irreversibly - than anything else.
In general; I think that these spontaneous and natural beliefs of early childhood are truths - truths implanted by God or known from our pre-mortal lives. Therefore, not only truths about this earthly mortal life; but eternal truths.
...Yet, of course, truths as understood by the mind of a child.
Therefore, our best goal as adults to to return to these spontaneous childhood beliefs, but this time consciously and by choice; and understanding what they really mean in an eternal context.
I now understand my young-childhood fear of death to be representative of the real terribleness of death when (as naturally) understood as an end to mortal life with loss of the self - loss of what makes each person who they are.
It is this legitimate fear that Jesus Christ came to save us from. A child could understand it - and indeed a young child is nowadays more likely to understand what Jesus offered than almost anyone else.
A child's fear comes from the fact that he knows, deep down, that the death of our loved ones in mortal life can only be delayed - and that sooner or later everyone will die. It is indeed, the awareness of death that triggers this stage in childhood.
Spontaneous human thought (among children, and those whose minds are child-like) cannot get further than this the fear of death and the desire to delay death. The child cannot see past the fact of death. Neither, apparently, could the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament who regarded all Men's lives as terminated in Sheol, nor the Ancient Greeks who regarded all lives as terminated in Hades - both of which entailed loss of the self.
The dead were not the people they had been in mortal life; and so there was no consolation in their persistence as 'ghosts'.
Nonetheless, a Christian knows that he has been instructed Not to fear, that fear is a sin - and this prohibition on fear includes death. So for a Christian the fear of death is just the beginning of the matter - not its end.
As an adult we can and should realize that the best (and only) possible gift to address this childhood fear of death would be that this mortal life would be followed by an immortal life in which were still our-selves, and could (potentially) live forever with those that we had loved in mortal life.
In other words, The Answer to death is: that-Heaven promised by Jesus Christ - that Heaven (I would add) particularly as clarified by more recent, more detailed Mormon revelations concerning the nature of Heaven and the continued existence and importance of the family*.
Unlike paganism; Heaven is not a spontaneous insight of childhood. Its necessity - as the only solution to the problem of death which answers to the desires of a loving young child - could perhaps consciously be derived from the conviction that the Christian God the creator is our loving parent (thus very far from the gods of paganism, and from the abstract deities of some philosophies and religions).
But the Christian Heaven - that is, of resurrected Men living eternally as 'children of God' (ie. as ourselves creative gods) and in familial 'brotherhood' (i.e. in families and divine friends) and knowing the ascended Jesus... such a Heaven could not realistically be inferred by a child. The child would need to be told; and then he might - or might not - believe Heaven was true.
I decided (as child of about six, a while later than the above-described stage) that the Heaven I was told-about was not true, but was made up from manipulative motives...
I would still agree - that Heaven as it was told me(or, as I understood it) was Not true; and that the description had been contaminated by this-worldly motives related to making me behave in certain ways.
Yet I erred in throwing-out the whole idea of Heaven; rather than (as I should have done) thinking more deeply about Heaven, aimed-at discerning how Heaven really was.
I disbelieved in the Heaven that I was told-about - but I should have believed in Heaven as it really is; and I should have made it my life's task to comprehend that that real Heaven offers the only full and satisfying answer to the problem of death.
My suggestion is that others should do the same. You should think upon the idea of Heaven, and how Heaven would need to be in order to answer the problem of death.
Only when you have grasped what Heaven really would answer that problem, have you discovered what it is that Jesus is asking you to believe... Or, more exactly, what Jesus is offering to those who want Heaven.
And you will find that when the problem of death has been answered; then the fear of death - I mean that inescapable existential angst - is indeed cured.
At least, such fear is cured whenever we have Faith and Hope based upon Love (or 'Charity'); and even when we don't experience the cure, we can know that restoration of that Faith, Hope and 'Charity' will drive-out our fear.
*I regard mainstream Christianity as having lost sight of some of these key revelations about the nature of God, Heaven and the Family - which was why I believe that Joseph Smith and some of the other Mormon prophets were inspired to articulate these vital truths in a new, radical, and superior metaphysical theology. This appears in the work of early Mormons and some recent writers - along with other non-essentials and errors; therefore requiring, as always, discernment. But these truths having been articulated was of great value to me. Instead of having to work them all out, I was more easily able to recognize intuitively their truth, beauty and virtue; then (without too much effort) to organize them in my understanding.
2 comments: Friday, 1 October 2021 The immorality of opera (and many other arts)One of the most powerful experiences of my life was at the end of a 1978 live performance (from Scottish Opera) ofDer Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss - the trio for three soprano voices (lyric, dramatic and mezzo) -
followed directly (without break) by a duet for the lyric and mezzo-sopranos who are the young lovers (the mezzo plays a young man - a 'trouser role', common for lower ranged female voices) - which is immediately followed by the end of the opera.
This piece of music is almost unbearably beautiful to me; with its combination of interweaving voices singing long, supple melodic lines; scored for very large, shimmeringly lush forces, by probably the greatest orchestrator of all the great composers - here working at his peak.
The effect (on someone susceptible) is overpowering in a good live performance (or, for that matter, in a recording - I could not watch more than a few seconds of the above movie version without tearing-up).
By the time the two young lovers had inched to the climactic high notes of their duet, I was literally sobbing - and had to remain in my seat for a few minutes after the curtain in order to recover sufficiently to leave the theatre.
Human artistry at one of its peaks. And yet; Rosenkavalier is a thoroughly immoral story of selfish, dishonest, greedy and decadent courtiers engaged in sordid sexual intrigue among the (ig-)nobility.
The opera is also flawed by excessive length - such that the several musical high peaks are surrounded by a couple of hours of tediousness.
And even this final trio/ duet/ coda only offers the (shallow) redemption of the infinite hopes of untested adolescent love at first sight; this being enabled by the senior woman (a Countess), somewhat reluctantly, acknowledging that she is getting too old to retain the young man as her extra-martial 'toy boy'.
As a young man I regarded the best operas as fundamental to my world view; and I felt the same about the best symphonies, sonatas, plays, novels and poetry. Art (selectively) was a kind of religion in my life - taken with the utmost seriousness. I believed there was an intrinsic (even though inexplicit) Goodness to art - and that this was the highest Goodness.
This was, of course, a common idea from the end of the 19th century and up into the middle 20th century - the idea that the best art - deeply experienced - had an intrinsically educative, enlightening, and moral effect. it was Good For people - which is why the arts were widely subsidized and promoted.
However, in retrospect I can now see that most of these (including many of the most beloved) were actually harmful to me in a spiritual sense. Works such as Der Rosenkavalierdisplayed a very complete dissociation of the transcendental values - supremely aesthetic, yet hedonic or even inverted in terms of virtue.
In more general terms; artists are usually very flawed guides to values when accepted as primary.
A great artists few were themselves Good and providers of wisdom and virtue (JS Bach, JRR Tolkien, or William Blake for instance); but most were even more flawed than the average Man; and therefore their power to move and influence people was hazardous at best.
I would now assert that there may indeed be an intrinsic Goodness in art; but this is only the case when it is apprehended with discrimination and within a broader (Christian) perspective. Otherwise, (i.e. when taken as primary and fundamental) art will be more prone to corrupt than to improve a Man.
This is, indeed, what is found among the specialist (including the best) authors and practitioners of the arts. When The Man is bad, or has an immoral ideology; then no amount of creativity or immersion in the arts has any improving, or even deepening, effect on them.
It is a disillusioning experience to discover how trivial professional musicians usually are; how selfish and hedonic even the finest poets and novelists can be; and as for actors, dancers...
A life spent in artistic activity very obviously does not enrich or ennoble. And even acts of genius artistic creativity (which is a participation in divine creation) does not usually rub-off onto the Whole Man - but instead mostly remains encapsulated.
This is not to single-out the arts as especially defective; because the same applies in science, medicine, scholarship; or in the churches. Excellence, even brilliance, in the specialist activity, is apparently dissociated from broader, deeper and more important considerations.
But in the arts, the personal deficiencies come-out in the work. The work cannot genuinely be greater than the author; and if the author is not a great Man, then the work will not be great in terms of ultimate values - and in that sense, it will not be a worthy basis for living.
Note: By (non-)coincidence; William Wildblood has been inspired to write on a similar theme in today's post at his blog.
4 comments: Thursday, 30 September 2021 What makes prayer 'work'?There are so many misleading things said about 'prayer' that it seems to me yet another subject on which we must each, individually, seek clarification from intuition and by communing with the Holy Ghost.For example, I don't suppose that a typical modern Man will get anything positive simply from 'saying prayers' - because it would, to him, simply be just that: saying some words.
Before prayer can have an effect, there may well be a need to clarify some very basic things - such as that there is a creator, and the creator is a personal God, and perhaps too that that personal God creator loves us individually.
If someone can get such matters somewhat clear, then he can pray - effectually.
Or, maybe that is what his prayer might consist in: the inner desire to understand such matters.Before I could pray with effect and benefit, I myself needed to sort-out that there was a loving Father and personal God. And then I had some immediate effects of prayer which pushed me over the edge into becoming a Christian.
But many, many times, in earlier years, I had said prayers of many and various kinds but without any clear idea of what I was doing - and these 'prayers' did no good at all - so far as I could see.
In other words; the modern problem is deep and metaphysical - based on false basic assumptions, that are not even recognized as assumptions but instead habitual and/or regarded as necessarily true because supposedly massively 'evidenced'.
(There is no empirical 'evidence' relating to genuine basic metaphysical assumptions; on the contrary, it is these assumptions that determine what counts as evidence.)
Somehow or another; modern Man needs to get down to these depths (to his real-and-divine self, below the surface 'personality'); and discard these demonically-implanted falsehoods sufficiently to be able to pray.
At that point (only), he will become free; and can thenceforth intuit everything he needs to know for salvation (and theosis), by using the powers of discernment that we all posses.
But the common injunction of Christian evangelists for mainstream modern leftist-materialist-atheists to 'pray' about stuff, is almost certain to be a complete waste of time; leading to disappointment, disillusion and potentially hardening the mainstream anti-Christian prejudice that afflicts almost everyone.
About MeBruce CharltonDr Bruce G Charlton. Comments are moderated pretty severely - if some-thing (e.g. a name) is obviously-not mentioned in the post, it will not be published in the comments. Anonymous comments are not published, neither are topical news links. If you want to mention the Bible - quote it, not just the CV reference. eemale is (decode) bruce dotch arltonatou tlookdotc om... View my complete profileMy Blog ListBrief OutlinesTechnological WarFrancis Berger - BlogThe Failure to Recognize Evil Renders Man PowerlessFrom the Narrow DesertHow far will peck mandates go?Meeting The MastersMy Current Spiritual PracticeNo Longer ReadingThe Hall of Mirrors EffectSYNLOGOS - Christian Blog AggregatorNew World Island #blog-updatesBlog Archive 2021(437) October(20)Nae hauf-way hoose - life at the right extremeFavourite books to dip-into - but which you never ...In trying to understand why God allows suffering...Salvation and theosis - Gods two goals in creationWe need to be able to recognize evil to resist it;...Harsh life lessons resisted - and yet they might s...How to respond to squabbling orcs, and Saruman ver...Soothing abstractions and evasive professions of i...All material is spiritual - but some spiritual is ...Why arent things even worse? Negative evidence th...Why the new ultra-Gerontocracy? Answer: it takes a...The hill to die on? Ask the question, and you ha...The return of King Arthur - into the realm of cons...Denying what actually already is; by warning that ...Whatever happened to the anti-establishment counte...Merlin, the Celts and Albions native ChristianityWhy is Christianity universal? William Wildblood a...There are no bare-facts - instead, we should foc...The fear of death is spontaneous and natural - and...The immorality of opera (and many other arts) September(31) August(39) July(45) June(48) May(61) April(44) March(49) February(45) January(55) 2020(579) December(57) November(39) October(47) September(23) August(31) July(27) June(52) May(65) April(63) March(68) February(60) January(47) 2019(688) December(53) November(60) October(58) September(50) August(45) July(49) June(57) May(57) April(58) March(62) February(62) January(77) 2018(654) December(56) November(62) October(64) September(44) August(52) July(58) June(56) May(61) April(49) March(51) February(45) January(56) 2017(544) December(66) November(56) October(52) September(41) August(55) July(42) June(42) May(49) April(29) March(37) February(23) January(52) 2016(644) December(68) November(67) October(55) September(49) August(49) July(50) June(52) May(62) April(43) March(54) February(42) January(53) 2015(615) December(51) November(56) October(45) September(38) August(40) July(53) June(69) May(55) April(37) March(65) February(51) January(55) 2014(682) December(60) November(54) October(51) September(55) August(57) July(68) June(64) May(54) April(41) March(70) February(51) January(57) 2013(611) December(48) November(45) October(63) September(54) August(58) July(71) June(58) May(50) April(30) March(50) February(39) January(45) 2012(556) December(52) November(54) October(55) September(59) August(51) July(42) June(40) May(41) April(35) March(49) February(30) January(48) 2011(450) December(58) November(32) October(46) September(43) August(17) July(47) June(44) May(33) April(20) March(45) February(29) January(36) 2010(303) December(38) November(55) October(62) September(45) August(14) July(51) June(31) May(7) 2009(6) September(1) August(1) June(1) May(1) April(1) February(1) 2008(6) November(1) September(1) May(2) April(1) January(1)Some of my other blogs:Tolkien's The Notion Club PapersWilliam ArkleLazarus writes: reading the Fourth Gospel in isolationAddicted to DistractionOwen Barfield blogNot even trying: the corruption of real science
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