How should we choose our assumptions?

We can all see how obvious other-peoples' assumption are - and how these are completely resistant to emerging evidence. 

(Such is a property of all assumptions: they are prior-to and "above" all possible evidence; because assumptions select and interpret all evidence.) 

This is particularly evident when it comes to large scale and abstract matters. For instance, geopolitical assumptions are indestructible, even across generations - especially when the assumptions are negative: as when it comes to be assumed that a particular nation (or national leader) is hostile, a threat, evil. 

Similar assumptions govern attitudes between some races - and these need not be symmetrical (i.e. one race may regard another as intrinsically hostile, but that feeling may not be reciprocated). 

Of course there is also an element of the self-fulfilling prophecy at work; but even without anything of that kind, such assumptions cannot be overthrown by experience.  

Yet, although evidence-immune, assumptions may be abandoned and replaced. 

And assumptions must be adopted in the first place - even when they are unconsciously socially inculcated. 

So - given that factual information is irrelevant - is there any valid basis by which particular assumptions ought to be adopted or abandoned? 

My answer would be several layered. 

First and most important is awareness...

As of here-and-now; assumptions ought to be (or become) conscious, and we ought to be aware that they are prior to evidence (because assumptions structure our choice and understanding of evidence). 

So we should not assert that our assumptions are obvious or inevitable; and should not suppose that our assumptions derive from factual evidence. 

Such a recommendation of what not to do, is easier said than done! I break it habitually, several times a day - yet in doing so I am making an error - with many ill consequences. 

But I still have not said anything about choosing between assumptions? 

The answer, as with all ultimate matters, is always a matter of intuition - which we cannot go beneath; but which we can recognize and acknowledge as the reality behind our engagement with the world. 

I think it could be said that (assuming we desire to be coherent) our assumptions need to fit our deepest and most solid intuitions. So, for a Christian, all further assumptions need to fit with that ultimate intuition (including the ultimate intuitions of what "being a Christian" actually means). 

Once we have identified our our assumptions; we should then choose whether we really do wish to retain them as assumptions - or else replace them with others - as we are free to do! 

It is a matter of admitting this necessary freedom as our own active choice, and of taking responsibility for its exercise. 

Become aware, by experience - rather than "making use" of hearsay

In this bureaucratic and totalitarian world; most of "knowledge" (including among Christians, including among the most "traditionalist" and orthodox Christians) is second-hand hearsay without experiential understanding; and this knowledge is only learned as a means to the end of "making use" of it. 

Information comes in a template of check-lists, bullet-headings, action points - generic responses to general problems - that reveals the essential motivation to be the manipulation of reality in conformity to will. 

On top of this; experience is rigged by ideology and propaganda; such that the implications even of the obvious may be inverted. 

Likewise; the outcomes of our actions and attempted manipulations are immunized against learning from them - so that whatever happens, ideology is confirmed.   

Consequently; mainstream modern people actually strive to live their lives like those who make friends in order to make-use of them. 

Our proper task is very different; and includes the need to become aware of much that is unconscious neglected, ignored, denied.

But being aware is not merely knowing about them - in the typically second-hand, externally-imposed modern fashion. 

The necessary awareness is an experience of existential consciousness. We know them by comprehending them in our thinking; as a single and whole action of apprehension: we know them, and know that we know them - all at once. 

That is experiential awareness; that is learning - and the purpose of such learning is not knowable until after it has happened.  

Psychic attacks - and self-defence

"I am of the opinion that psychic attacks are far commoner than is generally realised, even by occultists themselves. Certainly the general public has no conception at all of the sort of things that are done by people who have a knowledge of the powers of the human mind and set to work to exploit them. 

"I am convinced that this factor played a large part in the witch-cult, and was the real cause of the universal horror and detestation of the witch. These powers have always been known to students of occultism, but nowadays they are known and used by people who would be exceedingly surprised to find who are their fellow-practitioners. 

"Mrs. Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, stumbled on to these methods empirically without ever acquiring any rational knowledge as to their modus operandi. She endeavoured to teach them in such a way that they could only be used for good and their power for evil should be concealed; but that she herself was well aware of their possibilities if abused is witnessed by the dread of what she called "Malicious Animal Magnetism," which shadowed her whole life. The methods of Christian Science, without its strict discipline and careful organisation, were developed and exploited by the innumerable schools and sects of the New Thought Movement. 

"In many of the developments the religious aspect was lost sight of, and they simply became a method of mental manipulation for purely personal ends, though not necessarily deliberately evil. Their exponents advertised that they would teach the art of salesmanship, of making oneself popular and dominant in society, of attracting the opposite sex, of drawing to oneself money and success. 

"The amazing number of these courses advertised shows their popularity; in a recent issue of an American magazine I counted advertisements for sixty-three different courses in various forms of mind-power. They would not be so popular if they achieved no results at all."

From Psychic Self-Defence, by Dion Fortune, 1930

I believe that psychic attacks, of the kind described by Dion Fortune a century ago (together with suggestions for defeating them) are nowadays much more common and much more effective. 

The reason is that materialism - the absolute exclusion of the "Psychic" or Spirit World from all mainstream public discourse, is much more complete than it was in Dion Fortune's day; and this renders people wide-open and helpless in the face of those who employ these spiritual methods of mental manipulation for selfish and evil ends. 

This explains why mainstream Christians are equally helpless against such manipulations - because the major churches have also excluded participation in the Spirit World as a valid goal - regarding this realm as necessarily evil, and therefore suppressing awareness of its reality and power. Christians mostly dwell in a world just as devoid of spiritual beings, as that of atheists.  

What this means is that normal, common-sensical, ordinary people - who pride themselves on being "down to earth" and realistic; are typically utterly convinced by whatever incoherent and evil-intending beliefs that are currently emanating from politicians, officialdom, corporations, the mass media and "celebrities". 

This is why so many people conform their lives and religions to such manipulations - why they have been so easily, repeatedly and fully hoodwinked into intense yet fluctuating and contradictory mass attitudes (including fear, resentment, self-hatred, promiscuous abstract altruism, and strategic self-destruction) - and why they ignore and deny what is being-done to them.   

The answer to endemic mental manipulations via the Spirit World, includes acknowledging the reality of Spirit World, and then becoming aware of it. 

And including the possibility of Psychic attack as among the valid possibilities that affect ourselves and the world. 

**

NOTE: Psychic attacks emanate from the Spirit World - which is occult/ hidden, and immaterial; but needs to be distinguished from the Spiritual War of this mortal life that relates to the Divine World. 

The Spiritual War is about eternal salvation and damnation, and evil need to be invited-in (to some extent). But Psychic attacks come from within this mortal world; and are largely to do with earthly manipulations and shorter-term motivations such as power, sex, greed, spitefulness etc. 

I am no kind of expert on Psychic defence; beyond recognizing that By Far the most important aspect is to recognize that one really-is being-attacked. 

The pathetic vulnerability of the mass of mainstream modern people stems principally from their refusal to acknowledge even the possibility of Psychic attack - and then an extreme absence of awareness of its likely sources, and probable intentions. 

It only takes One side to make a war

As the world continues to walk a knife edge on the verge of the already-happening WWIII becoming an all-out, all-in affair - it is very evident that there are serious problems of understanding what is happening. 

For a start; people insist on analysing all wars as essentially the same, and essentially symmetrical - which is rooted in the deceptive notion that it takes two sides to make a war.  This is deceptive because, while true, it neglects to mention the actual alternative to war in some situation - which is allowing oneself to be "genocided": to be destroyed either as a nation, culture plus/minus physically. 

Genocide only takes one side; and war may be the only realistic alternative (and, of course, it may not work - and the social or material genocide may happen anyway). 

A further problem is to understand who is causing all the wars, and attempting escalations and widening of wars (including the engineering of multiple civil wars) - and what they are aiming-at. 

Because Modern Man does not have a coherent concept of evil, warmongering is nearly always explained in terms of some group attempting this-worldly advantage: getting power, money, sexual goals, and things like that. 

This is always partially true, because leadership classes (and to a lesser extent the masses) are motivated towards war by such considerations.  

Therefore material advantage could be described as a proximate cause of war. 

But at present, here-and-now in the world, the ultimate cause of war - the initiating and multiplying and underlying cause behind the proximate causes, is not material advantage - but a spiteful desire for causing destruction, pain, fear, despair - such an ultimate motivation has very seldom been operative at a strategic level in the past. 

For as long as such persons have power to do what they want to do; then they will continue to start and escalate wars - without regard to winning these wars, and without regard to gaining materially from them. 

Indeed; for this kind of individual and group; war aims include the destruction of what is supposedly their own side.

In other words "mutually assured destruction" is not a deterrent, but a desirable outcome. To be clear - the "best" outcome is a war in which each side simultaneously destroys the other. 

Therefore, when "assistance" is provided to one or other side, the real aim is to continue and escalate the war (and its destructiveness and miseries) and not to win the war.  

And, unless this motivation is noticed and acknowledged, then such individuals will probably get their way - because, given sufficient time and resources and in an almost universally morally bankrupt world such as we inhabit wars and the continual escalation of wars can be made impossible to resist.

When "provocations" are sufficiently extreme and frequent; then wars and escalations will occur sooner or later - excepting only when a group do not oppose their own annihilation (as seems likely to be the situation in Western nations).   

This is where we have been for more than two years, and where we continue to be as provocations continue, become more frequent, and more extreme. 

Yet a very large proportion of the population of the world (and especially Western nations) are utterly oblivious to their situation. And not negatively oblivious - but armour-plated and pre-immunized against discovering and knowing. It's yet another of those subjects where no external help can be expected, and the only hope is of more individual persons seeking to take responsibility for their world-understanding. 

"Resenting-the-resenter" - a disguised manifestation of the master sin of modernity

I have often harped-on about the sin of "resentment" - because of two reasons: first, it is seldom regarded as a sin, often considered a virtue; and second that it is the master sin of leftism - which is the basis both of the "Ahrimanic" materialist-totalitarian impulse, and of its now succeeding "Sorathic" motivation of spiteful destructiveness and each-against-all chaos. 

Perhaps the major socio-political movement of the past couple of hundred years has been the creation of ever-more resentment groups: examples include the working class, particular nations, women, non-white races, non-Christian religions, and any sex and sexuality other than married families or celibacy. 

Such groups are formed by their resentment, and are joined-with other resentment groups by the mutuality of their sin. 

There is a resentment-group for everybody now - including the richest, most powerful, and famous people in the world. Indeed, one of the twists of resentment is that it often presents in terms of resentment "on behalf of others".

This has always been a feature of resentment-rooted politics. The ruling class always made-up a majority of influential and powerful communists. Feminist men likewise. And resentment "on behalf of" other races and religions is a veritable industry. 

Resentment-on-behalf-of also disguises personal resentments - which, although covert, may be the true and most powerful motivator. 

  

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of resentment is that it is seldom acknowledged - either to others, or even to oneself; and whatever is unacknowledged cannot be repented.

Much of this is to do with the fact that whoever or whatever is resented always - in a false but often compelling sense - "deserves it"; so the resentment can be disguised as "simply the facts". 

Furthermore, resentment appears under the guise of "resenting-the-resenter"...

Resenting-the-resenter means that I resent some person or group, on the basis that they resent me.

(And therefore are trying to harm me).

The fact that their resentment against me may well be true, is used to disguise the fact that I have myself developed a sinful and motivating resentment. 

(And whatever is unacknowledged cannot be repented.)

What needs to be borne in mind, is that resentment is a sin because of the harm it does to the resenter; therefore resentment is always wrong - and therefore wrong no matter how apparently "factually based" it really is. 

In other words, the facts are nothing at all to do with the sin - except in providing a fake excuse, a false and irrelevant "justification", for not repenting it. 

That is: a person or group may really and truly be dedicated to harming others - but it is still and always a sin to develop an attitude of resentment towards him or them. 

Because the sin harm us - whatever it may or may not do to others. 

Take a (semi-humorous) example from this blog. I often indulge in rants against The Normans. 

I genuinely believe that The Normans are a problem, that they are constitutionally lacking in empathy, and have caused and still cause a great deal of harm to many people in may places (not just in the UK and Ireland). 

I also believe that modern Normans are strongly motivated by resentment - especially against the native English people. 

Those may be regarded as The Facts (from my point of view), and they have various real world implications for choices and actions. But at times I confess that I have fallen into resentment against The Normans... 

Now; I need to be able to recognize when this has happened - I need to recognize when I am actually resenting The Normans. 

Because this always needs to be acknowledged and repented - because otherwise I am doubling-down on a sin.  

 

Nobody "deserves" to be resented - no matter what they have do or want to do - because resentment is not about Them but about Us. 

"Deserving" has precisely nothing to do with it. 

It is a favourite (and highly effective) ploy of Satan to win adherents in the spiritual war of this world; by the false conception of "justified resentment" against his agents. He encourages a resenter; and that resenter then creates further resentment. 

Thus Satan gains supporters on both sides - because both sides are in fact unrepenting sinners, and thus (in truth) are affiliated to Satan. 

My take-home message (to myself as well as others) is simply that: All resentment is un-justified.

Metaphysics Rules! Because we Are ruled by metaphysical assumptions, these will only change when Replaced

Modern Man's fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality (that is - his metaphysics) is By Far the most important reason for the continued and increasing rule and domination of evil in this world.

This is because Metaphysics Rules! (OK?)

Over the long term, and irresistibly, how we regard the fundamental nature of reality will dissolve anything that contradicts it. 

I see people all over the place, in daily life and writers, who are flailing-around and going around in futile circles; because they are trapped by metaphysical assumptions of which they are unaware, or deny to be assumptions (but instead regard as "facts"). 

Their intuitions, hopes, aspirations, insights, instincts, logic, may point away from the mainstream ideology; but these are all eroded and made-ultimately-irrelevant by the deeper conviction arising from ultimate assumptions: "But, it's not real!"

All the potentially good things in life (e.g. beauty, virtue and morals, truth, coherence, relationships) are continually undermined by corrosive convictions of that have become primary assumptions: 

There is No God; this universe is Not a Creation but made by "physics", "mathematics", "evolution"; there exists only The Material realm (nothing spiritual, no divine); every-thing that ever happened was either utterly random, or else determined by physical cases.   

And these, and other similar, assumptions structure reality; so that people cannot help but regard life as without purpose or meaning. 

Unless these metaphysical assumptions are changed - then nothing else matters in the long run; anything else - any other changes or aspirations - will be destroyed. 

But metaphysical assumptions cannot be removed; they must be replaced. 

This is because we do not and cannot consciously live without metaphysics. It is not possible; because all meaning, action, purpose... depends on assumptions. Without these is only chaos.  

And this means that people will-not, they cannot, give up their current metaphysics; until they are able to replace it with another metaphysics. 

Which is why our situation is so difficult! People hold themselves in a double-bind. They will not first give-up their current metaphysics because it explains everything already. They will not adopt another set of fundamental assumptions because - from their current POV - any other metaphysics is just arbitrary, false and... wrong!

To happen, metaphysical change needs to be simultaneous. As the one dissolves, the other takes its place.  

(This is a "conversion experience.")  

Everybody has already experienced this, because we are born and spend early childhood with very different assumptions; and during childhood and adolescence have absorbed mainstream modern materialist metaphysics from our social situation.     

But that was passive and unconscious; and thus seemed like "reality" - seemed like The Facts - seemed an inevitable consequence of growing more mature, informed, intelligent; and came from externally, from "authority" and from "experts", and was endorsed by all the institutions with power, wealth and high status. 

Whereas from here and from now; what needs to happen is conscious and active - thus inwardly initiated and sustained; and has aspects of becoming more childlike ("immature") and simple-minded ("dumb") and apparently arbitrary ("crazy"). 

Metaphysical replacement is also something done alone - there aren't people, or organizations (not even churches - except partially and therefore incoherently) that encourage it - because that is the nature of the modern world. Modernity is built on modern metaphysical assumptions. 

You see the depth of the problem? You see why so many people and organizations are embarked on a strategy of self-destruction and chaos? You see why this multi-generational trends has been to very resistant to change and reverse? 

They are simply manifesting their metaphysics. 

The good news is that the answer is in our own hands, each and all of us... 

And that is the bad news as well. 

Why are Men and The World so badly designed for a successful mystical/ spiritual life?

Whenever I read any kind of plan, scheme, method, or even ideal about how to lead a qualitatively better spiritual or religious life - and this could range from reading the principles and practices of monasticism, works on how-to-do meditation, descriptions (as in The Way of a Pilgrim) of how prayer can transform life... Or even the structures of recommended mainstream church observances for laity - concerning attendances, meetings, and practices. 

When I consider such schemes, sooner or later I am thrown back by the tough question of why such elaborate, tough and prolonged procedures - with little or no guarantee of success - are (apparently) necessary for human beings to live The Good Life?

Surely (I think) the asserted need for such complicated and sustained procedures in order to live in accordance with God's will, is evidence that Men themselves, and The World in general, are very badly designed?   

Why should God the Creator have designed things so badly that difficult and long-term disciplines and training are, apparently, needed? 

And if an answer is put forward concerning Man's fallen state, the propensity to sin; or the interventions of demons - then that just kicks the can; because God created these beings and situations too.  

Another version of this question is to ask why God created a world in which it was so extremely difficult to do the right thing, so much easier to do the wrong? 

There are many aspects to this question, and I have written extensively about it elsewhere on this blog; but here I just want to focus on how strange it is that Christianity ever became identified so deeply with plans, schemes, methods and ideals of living a qualitatively better life. 

My understanding is that "Christianity" is (properly) about following Jesus Christ to resurrected eternal Heavenly life - it is essentially about our living after this mortal life and world.

It seems to me clear that this post-mortal goal of Christianity does not have any necessary, close, or specifically-mapped-out relationship to the quality of life in this temporary mortal life. 

Of course there is a profound relationship between this mortal life and the eternal life to come - in that both are lived by "us", both lived by "our-selves". 

But it seems almost obvious that when mortal life is temporary, and when we ourselves and the world in general are so... imperfect - that this mortal life must surely be mainly a preparation for resurrected life everlasting? 

When mortal life is understood as a preparatory experience, conducted by extremely varied mortal Men, in an extremely mixed and diversified world - then the idea seems very bizarre that there would be some special prescribed form of Christian Life, that would be expected positively and qualitatively to transform this inevitably insufficient and time-limited existence... 

Such considerations fill me with a deep puzzlement at the direction the main-stream of Christianity took after the death of Jesus.

Because (in apparently most times and places, and still) the emphasis of Christianity is nearly-always on attempting a qualitative improvement in this mortal life. 

And, by contrast with the detailed prescriptions and strong instructions of how to live here-and-now; the primary goal of resurrected eternal life is presented as a very uncertain proposition... Uncertain in terms of whether we can actually attain it, and uncertain in its actual nature if we do.   

To me; this is very strange, and my awareness of its strangeness continually increases. 

Won-over by Magpies in Newcastle upon Tyne

From The Detectorists. The performers (The Unthanks) are local to Newcastle.

Folk feelings about magpies (i.e. the Eurasian magpie, Pica pica) are strong in both directions. 

In folklore the birds have a generally negative reputation. They are mostly feared; especially when seen (apparently) alone - as with the magpie nursery rhyme "One for sorrow..." in its several variants. 

They may be addressed with the kind of propitiatory respect accorded to fairies. 

All this is on display in one of Terry Pratchett's best fantasy novels Carpe Jugulum; where the vampire villains are Count de Magpyr and his family, and flocks of magpies are eyes, spies and scavengers under vampire control. 

Magpies have a deserved reputation for theft of bright objects (e.g. Rossini's "Thieving Magpie" opera), and for carnivorous aggression - including against song-bird chicks.

Here in Newcastle, the local magpies are credited with having been first to discover how to peck through the foil tops from old style milk bottles, and drink from them; thereby infecting the local population with Campylobacter food poisoning. 

(I've suffered this illness, although neither from milk nor magpies, and it was undoubtedly one of the most painful and generally unpleasant weeks of my life! I shall spare you the - ahem - details.) 

And yet - I also felt a kind of pride that our local magpies were (allegedly) the ones to discover how to access this source of nutrition (shame about the human misery and occasional fatalities...). 

Such positivity towards magpies is - of course - reflected in the world famous black and white vertical stripes of Newcastle United football club: who are nicknames The Magpies. 

At times the city streets will be "ablaze" with people dressed as "magpies" with black and white striped flags, shirts, hats, scarves and... pretty much everything. 

Newcastle United/ B&W magpie symbolism quite often features on gravestones, too (some rather magnificent).

A Newcastle United fan-badge with magpies instead of sea-horses on the club crest:

Magpies are frequent visitors to our garden; and this led me to observe the birds for myself; and gradually to warm towards them. 

Magpies are quite noisy, so their presence is usually obvious. I noticed that they live and work in pairs, and research led me to discover that these are mating pairs, and the bird is monogamous - more close-knit and loyal than most (modern) human marriages! 

Mr and Mrs Magpie will operate together in a highly intelligent and coordinated way; and by doing so can repel far larger numbers of other birds; crows - for example when competing for nesting sites, or when crows try to drive magpies away from the vicinity of their nests (and chicks). I have watched a pair of magpies holding-off a great flock of big, mean crows - maybe twenty at a time? 

At one point we were feeding the squirrels in our garden, and began to leave out a few peanuts on the platform of the feeder. After just a couple of days I realized that the magpies had already noticed, and were watching and waiting so that the nuts would be taken before I had even walked back to the house. 

I began to play a kind of game, by making the nuts harder and harder to access - hiding them, or placing them behind the feeder. The magpies seemed to enjoy this; and would hunt-out the nuts, always finding and getting them - at extremes even hovering beside the feeder to use their beaks to pull-out a single nut tucked between the feeder and the tree. 

I asked my scientist colleague Michael Woodley about this; and he confirmed that magpies (and Corvids generally) were indeed one of the most intelligent of native British birds in terms of problem-solving (surpassed only by jackdaws). 

So, here we have a clue to the split opinions about magpies: they are more similar to humans than other birds. 

We admire and identify-with some of their traits, and are dismayed to see ourselves reflected in others. 

And magpies are one of not-many birds (the robin is another) with whom we can feel a personal connection, a flash of empathy between very unlike creatures. 

Handsome, as well!

Why the evil of the One Ring cannot be resisted by anyone - lessons for "conservatives" and those who "study the arts of the enemy"

Honest, Frodo - I'd only be using the One Ring for the Greater Good!

It is striking that the possession of the One Ring is rejected by even the most good and most powerful characters of The Lord of the Rings.

Why this should be, is explained at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

**

The reason is a variation of what I have often termed The Boromir Strategy - or "Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!".

The Boromir Strategy is the usual form taken by would-be resistance to global totalitarian leftism - which is why so much time and effort is expended in the mass media and blogosphere in "studying the arts of the enemy" in order (supposedly, purportedly) to discover and use the enemy's methods against the enemy...

Yaas...  

In the NCP-blog post I make clear that to do this is already to have joined-with the enemy. 

To claim The Ring is a counter-productive pseudo-attempt to fight the enemy by moving onto the enemy's own ground; or - more precisely - trying to fight the enemy after opening the door and inviting him right inside the castle keep.

The reason the Boromir Strategy is so popular as to be near universal, is that it is a mask of good intentions used to cover the reality of evil motivations.

The argument was deployed in Lord of the Rings to justify Boromir forcibly trying to take the One Ring from Frodo in order to use it himself - for his own purposes, including his greater power and glory. 

The pretence was that this was done only to save Gondor, and to defeat Sauron - but that was not true. 

Well - Boromir realized this, and he repented (and confessed); and did his best to atone for the damage he had done. 

And... what Boromir did in the story, anybody can do in "real life". 

 

The Medical Hypotheses Affair - 14 years on

...Consider the case of the critical thinking journal Medical Hypotheses. Founded by British scholar David Horrobin in 1975, this journal published novel, radical ideas about health likely to be rejected by conventional journals. A single editor decided what to publish, with no review panel. 

In the 2003 British Medical Journal obituary, Horrobin was described as ‘one of the most original scientific minds of his generation’. In 2009 Medical Hypotheses became a cause célèbre. Bruce Charlton, who succeeded Horrobin as editor-in-chief, accepted a highly controversial article by Berkeley virologist Peter Duesberg, who contested the HIV basis of AIDS and argued that the South African government was right not to administer antiretroviral drugs to AIDS sufferers because the HIV–AIDS link remained unproven. Publication caused furore in the scientific world. Scientists associated with the US National Institutes of Health threatened to remove all subscriptions to Elsevier titles from the National Library of Medicine. Their demand was not only that Elsevier withdrew the article, but also to institute peer review at the journal. 

Elsevier agreed and dismissed Charlton. Mehar Manku, who replaced him, assured that the journal would now ‘be careful not to get into controversial subjects’, the reverse of what Horrobin intended. Charlton later remarked: ‘The journal which currently styles itself Medical Hypotheses is a dishonest fake and a travesty of the vision bequeathed by the founder Professor David Horrobin; and as such it ought to be closed down—and on present trends it surely will be.’

From "Did Robert Maxwell start the censorship of science?" In Conservative Woman, 22 may, 2024. 

The article suggests that the - completely successful - capture of science by "peer review" was actually begun by the publisher and spy Robert Maxwell being bankrolled by British Intelligence to buy up Pergamon Press in 1951 (later part of Elsevier) and institute the beginnings of peer review, on an international scale.  

Whether or not the details provided are correct, it seems certain that something of the sort was afoot; as part of a multi-pronged (and, as I said, completely successful) strategy to capture and destroy real science; but transfer the name and prestige to what had become just-another branch of the global totalitarian bureaucracy.

And not just science but all of academia, education, the arts, law, churches, mass media - and all other major social systems.  

The authors of this article end by saying: "For the sake of humanity, we need to revert to an open and objective scientific enterprise".

Clearly the authors don't grasp the depth and scale of social transformation: that "They" have won; and that "science" is long-since dead. 

So there can be no "reversion" from where we now are, back anything good 

All institutions are corrupt, and assimilated to the agenda of damnation. 

From here, anything good (whether honest science, beautiful art, or whatever else) must be created anew from the ground-up. 

And, quite frankly; in this existing world of secular-leftist-materialism triumphant; there are insufficient people, with inadequately strong motivation, for this actually to happen. 

**

NOTE: I tried to summarize the Medical Hypotheses Affair for a general audience in this article. Further information is available in subsequent posts of the same blog. 

BTW - I was completely wrong when I predicted that the fake-journal styling itself Medical Hypotheses would be closed-down: it wasn't and isn't! It was not until a couple of years later, after assimilating the significance of the events, that I realized the totalitarian bureaucracy could and would often keep "alive" the formal identity of institutions it had assimilated - so long as this is useful for the larger agenda. And until The Whole Thing began its inevitable and irreversible collapse, which has not yet (at the time of writing) begun to be undeniable.     

Final Participation needs to aim at participation in Divine Creation, not "The World"

It has often been recognized that modern Man is alienated from life, feels cut-off by his consciousness from both the divine and from the "Spirit World". 

A desire to alleviate this alienation is behind a lot of spiritual activity, and many of the spiritual "movements" of the past couple of centuries. 

The problem was incisively analysed by Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield: both were clear that we should not, and indeed could not effectively, "go back" to earlier modes of unalienated consciousness.

Instead we need (and must, unless we are not to suffer spiritual death and self-chosen damnation) to move forward to a new kind of integration with the divine and the spirit world: this desired state Barfield termed Final Participation. 

(Named on the basis that participation-in the world is the opposite of alienation-from it.) 

Steiner believed (or, at least, asserted) that Final Participation could be attained by spiritual exercises in a new kind of meditative practice, and made schemes of such training - but after a century of near-total failure, it is reasonable to conclude that such techniques/ methods/ training don't work - or don't work well enough to make a significant difference.

I think the reason that Final Participation cannot be achieved by such procedures is partly that FP must be part of a Christian life and operate in that context. Christianity is necessary, and must come first.

(A fact sometimes apparently denied, and often backgrounded or down-played by Steiner and Barfield - certainly it was not clearly explained in terms of God's motivations.) 

And also that this kind of participating consciousness requires to be motivated by Love. And Love cannot be attained by techniques, nor can it be had simply by deciding. 

It is false to try and make ourselves love this or that (or everything). 

Therefore, Final Participation needs to begin from actual Love; and build from that.

I now strikes me that this also makes sense from the perspective of what exactly is is that Final Participation should desire to participate-in.   

We should not - as Christians - desire to participate in The World, not the entirety of reality - because this includes evil. The attempt to participate in "everything" is not Christian, but part of oneness spirituality - which has a very different aim than salvation*. 

Instead; we should aim to participate in Divine Creation. That is, we should aim to participate in that of this world (and only that) which is a "product" of Love. 

Not try to participate in the whole world, but to align myself with Divine Creation... I find this insight to be clarifying! 

(Whether the insight will lead to greater success in my seeking of Final Participation remains to be seen.)

*Note added. To clarify - those who wish to participate in the world, the whole world; do so on the basis that all is one - and the distinction between good and evil is illusory because this mortal world is illusory. I would have thought it fairly obvious that this is not what Christians believe; despite that many who call themselves Christian espouse it. Christians should (surely?) believe that evil is real, not illusory. Although - in this mortal life - we cannot help but be involved in evil, this ought to be discerned, and repented. So it does not make sense to have an an ideal participating in everything that goes on in this world. Our hope is to be resurrected to eternal life in Heaven, where everything may be participated, because all derives from love.   

When a nation becomes a rabid dog - a geopolitical overview

When a nation deliberately cultivates a reputation as a rabid dog, that might do anything at any time; in the short-term, others will try to avoid confrontation with you - and you will probably get your own way... 

In the short-term... 

So, because the rewards are up-front; rabid aggression is a tempting strategy. 

Furthermore; since a rabid dog can do anything at any time; sooner or later the insane beast will be blamed for atrocities it did not actually commit. 

And then who will believe its denials?

(A rabid reputation is much more easily gained than lost.)

But over the longer-term, a rabid dog cannot be tolerated. 

If it cannot be cured or safely-confined, sooner or later the dog will be destroyed by those it threatens.

And, no matter how ferocious and formidable it once was; a rabid dog will surely be getting weaker and weaker... 

Those who inhabit rabid nations - and there are more of these, getting more rabid - should know what to expect. 

And be unsurprised when their demise is greeted with the same general relief, as when any other destruction-crazed vermin has been eliminated.

 

Bricks and the building: You can't build real churches without real Christians

It seems futile to discuss how to improve churches by making changes, or resisting change, at the organizational level; when the underling problem is that there are not enough real Christians to make a church (at least, not a church of a size sufficient to register as significant in the modern world). 

Of course, most Church discussers would not agree with me that there were insufficient real Christians. At nearest, they might believe that the good Christians were outnumbered by bad and fake ones; or (more often) that fake pseudo-Christians had too much power within Churches, or had taken-over the bureaucracy. 

But my conviction that - in the West, in 2024 - there just aren't enough real Christians distributed such as to make a real Christian church - would be regarded as untrue; and a negativistic, despair-inducing pessimism liable to lead to the situation it asserts in a self-fulfilling way*.

This came to mind when reading discussions about whether or not it would be a good thing for the Roman Catholic Church to remove the current demand (or preference) for celibacy among its priests, and return to its more ancient practice of having married priests; and as a normal thing (rather than, as now, only as a minority of exceptions, intended to be temporary - such as the Anglican Ordinariate). 

Yet, none of this matters either way when there are not enough real Christians among Roman Catholics who might potentially become priests - plus enough real Christians already existing and in-place to make a (Christianly-valid) System for the choosing and training and regulation of a priesthood.  

If the Church is a building, and the people who make it up are bricks; then the question seems to be whether (spiritually) the building makes the bricks, or the bricks make the building? 

Can there be a valid Christian church "building" consisting of a majority of not-real-Christian "bricks", especially when the not-real-Christians dominate the leadership? 

Indeed, which seems relevant here-and-now; can there be a valid Christian church when there are probably (in significant areas of The West) no real Christians at all - none among the Priesthood, none among the laity - the Church rank-and-file, the masses?  

The answer (if the building and bricks analogy is valid, which it can be only partially, at best) depends on whether you believe that the Christians make the Church, or the Church makes the Christians - or, at least, on the nature of the relationship. 

And the question has particular relevance for an Episcopal Church that asserts its own indispensability for salvation.  

Can a silk purse be made from a sow's ear? 

The debate then moves on to the nature of the real Church, which would be said to be ultimately mystical - and non-identical with the worldly organization. 

And in the past this conceptualization seems to be been sufficiently clear and understandable that it was not a problem - but it has become a problem now. 

The problem is that while people can argue about stuff (especially about abstractions to do with how best to organize an ideal Church); and people can say or write almost anything about what they would most like to be true and real - strong and lasting human motivations are another matter altogether! 

We see all around us that when strong and lasting human motivations that are also Christian are lacking; then words/ doctrines/ laws etc. mean next-to-nothing; and Churches, Priest and the Masses fall into line with... well, they fall into line with whatever the global totalitarian System is currently asking them to believe, support, and do. 

Perhaps, the thing that lies underneath all these discussions relates to the discernment that this material mortal world (and especially The West) is currently under the leadership of those in service to supernatural and spiritual evil.

This, I believe; and I believe this is a clear and obvious fact; such that those who do not see it, or who deny it, are actually and in practice on the side of demonic evil - whether unconsciously and implicitly, or consciously and explicitly, or some point between. 

I am aware of several Roman Catholic priests, even a few Bishops, who clearly and simply and decisively perceive this fact of evil-dominance; and who are real Christians.

(And not merely megalomaniac power seekers.) 

So there are some such people.  

But that is only less than half of what is needed; because the most important factor is that real Christians (including, for an Episcopal Church, at least some Bishops) be strongly and lastingly motivated to re-make the corrupted Church in a positive fashion, into a worldly organization dominated by real Christians. 

Are there enough such people, are they in sufficient agreement about what needs to be done; and do they attract sufficient support more widely?

To me, the answer is Obviously Not; or else we would not be where we are, and we would know about it.  

There are some strong and true bricks from which, in principle, something might be built; but at present these bricks are very few, and scattered among the rotten bricks making-up a rotten building that is already collapsing. 

And these strong and true Christian "bricks" often seem to repel each other - or even try and damage or destroy each other!**

Clearly this is no basis for any kind of building, any kind of Church. 

Given the actual choice between being included in a large-but-rotten building increasingly dedicated to the Satanic agenda, or else trying to make a Good building from mutually-repellant materials; sooner or later the "bricks" - i.e. the individual Christians - will be compelled to take primary responsibility for their Christianity, and cease to rely upon being a part of any kind of building. 

+++

*Church Christians are (sadly) very prone to the "boosteristic" delusion that enthusiastic optimism about their Church is good-for Christianity - when it is actually just good-for business... a very different thing from real Christianity nowadays.

**This inability to agree, indeed propensity to disagree with (extreme) vehemence, among traditional, orthodox and conservative Christians - including within denominations such as the RCC - is a consequence partly of decades of disunity/ conflict within the churches, and the loss of a Christendom that would diffuse a coherent Christianity among a whole society. 

By my understanding; partly it is also and more fundamentally due to significant (and, ultimately, divinely-ordained) changes in the consciousness of human beings towards greater autonomy and agency; therefore away-from that spontaneous propensity to absorb religion from external sources and an innate psychology of groupishness - which prevailed in pre-modern times.

What this means is that - no matter how traditional/ orthodox/ conservative a modern Christian aspires to be; as a matter of fact he has chosen his own beliefs and loyalties - has indeed "picked-and-chosen" them from among competing alternatives - in a way that seldom happened in pre-modern times.   

Salvation and theosis are the purpose and meaning of life - indivisible; both needed

Traditional Christians are often salvation-focused; and may be hostile to ideas of theosis (regarding it as an heretical belief in salvation by works); may ignore theosis almost-entirely in their overwhelming desire for salvation at the end of life; or else may conceptualize theosis (or variant concepts such as sanctification deification, spiritual progression, exaltation) as "merely" a means to the all-important end of salvation. 

On the other side "spiritual but not religious" people (including the "anything-but-Christianity" kind of spiritual people) are often focussed upon theosis while rejecting the need-for or desirability-of salvation - their end-point is not resurrected Heavenly life, but reincarnation, or some sort of oneness-Nirvana. 

The basic stance is that this life is (or ought to be) about continual spiritual self-improvement; and that to introduce considerations of what happens after death is a contamination of spiritual purity by an ego-driven desire for self-gratification.   

My understanding is that salvation and theosis are indivisible - that we must both aim-at resurrected eternal life, and also live this mortal life such that we learn-from its experiences. 

This may be made clearer by regarding salvation as the purpose of life and theosis, as the meaning of life.

Distinguishing-between purpose and meaning is a perfectly valid thing to do; yet ultimately they are indivisible and we cannot have one without the other. 

The purpose of life is what makes meaning possible within that purpose; and the meaning of life is how purpose actually manifests in life. 

When not-Christians pooh-pooh the Christian demand for salvation as the purpose, they also obliterate any possibility of coherent meaning; and spirituality degenerates into merely a kind of self-therapy, which itself becomes indistinguishable from pleasure-seeking or suffering-avoidant hedonism - as can be seen with the New Age movement. 

And when Christians revile, neglect or subordinate theosis and "the spiritual" they destroy any ultimate reason for continued mortal life - mortal life becomes a negative thing - a double-negative attempt to avoid sin (which, Jesus tells us - and Paul) is impossible; and a mere waiting for death that is an implicit denial of the validity of God's creation. 

But when salvation and theosis are understood as indivisible purpose and meaning of this mortal life; then we have a solid basis for a properly aimed and fulfilling existence here on earth. 

Heaven is Not about perfect happiness - but life everlasting as resurrected Sons of God

Heaven is not a place or situation of perfect happiness, and people get terribly confused by trying to explain how it could be! 

Heaven could, in theory, be a place of perfect happiness; but only by changing people very fundamentally - including permanently destroying their individuality and freedom. 

People would need to be re-made as Beings incapable of anything but total happiness. 

Maybe this could be done (perhaps by some kind of supernatural-spiritual equivalent of genetic engineering, psychopharmacology and lobotomy?) - and if it was done then the people in Heaven would always be happy, whatever Heaven was actually like. 

After all, they couldn't Not be happy! 

Such modifications would overcome any and all possible objections of the "I couldn't be happy in Heaven, and would not want to go there, unless..." type. e.g. I would not want to be in Heaven "unless my wife was also in heaven" - or "unless my wife was not in Heaven" perhaps?

The only realistic answer (if Heaven is to be happy) is that in such a Heaven we will be re-made such that nothing could ever possibly disturb our state perfect happiness.  

In other words, if we do try to make Heaven a place of perfect and unalloyed happiness, then we have defined Heaven in terms of how people react to it; which makes Heaven all about the constitution of the people in it, their set-up, their capabilities and reactions. 

But in reality Heaven is (surely?) what it is - and therefore not how all people will react to it? 

In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus tells us that Heaven is the place of eternal life after this mortal life, or life everlasting. He describes its characteristics by means of stories and symbols - in what we might regard as "poetic" or metaphorical language. 

Heaven is the "place" where we go when resurrected. Its basis is love. When in Heaven we are fully Sons of God. 

Heaven is a choice, and Jesus assumes that some, many or most people will not choose it - will not want it. 

We get there by "following" Jesus (the Good Shepherd). 

Jesus desires that we shall be his friends, not his servants. 

And so on...

The point is that resurrection to eternal life is not described in terms of how we feel about it; but in terms of the new possibilities that Jesus has made available to Men. 

Instead of a life of this mortal life of partial and temporary gratifications, lived among evil from others and within our-selves; Heaven is a place of love, with everlasting and transcendent satisfactions. 

..As with the "living water" Jesus describes to the Samaritan woman; or the "meat which endureth into everlasting life" he contrasts with earthly food - including manna - he expounds after feeding the five thousand.

But even aside from the descriptions of the Fourth Gospel - based on the assumptions that God is the prime creator, wholly Good, and our Father (and Men His Sons); a Heaven of total happiness doesn't make sense - while a Heaven of eternal resurrected wholly-loving life can make sense. 

 

The spirit world, and what to do about it?

There is the physical or material world inhabited by incarnated mortal Beings (i.e. the only world acknowledged as real by the modern mainstream ideology). This contains a mixture of good and evil, some Beings on the side of God and divine creation; other Beings opposed to this - and all mortal Beings are some mixture of these motivations. The material world is subject to entropy - subject to change, decay, disease, degeneration, and death - the irrevocable dissolution of physical forms. 

Then there is the Divine World - "inhabited" by God, the ascended Jesus Christ/ The Holy Ghost. And also - since the work of Jesus Christ, the divine world is inhabited by the denizens of Heaven - resurrected Men (and, presumably, other Beings). It is a realm entirely of Good, that is to say that all is motivated by love. It is also an eternal realm, without entropy. 

But there is another realm: the underworld/ dream-world realm of spirit Beings. 

The spirit world. 

For ancients, this was the realm of dreams, the place where souls went after death (perhaps being reincarnated from there). 

A wide range of Beings have been supposed to inhabit this "psychic" realm: gods, angels, demons, nature spirits, chthonic monsters, ghosts, non-human sentient spirits of many kinds and degrees.

Like the physical realm the "underworld" is mixed; with Beings that contain both good and evil motives - and including Beings affiliated to the agenda of evil. 

However; this realm, like the physical realm, will also be "visited" by the wholly-good denizens of the Divine Realm.  

The spirit realm is like the physical world in being also subject to entropy - in that, although spirits do not "die" in the way that physical Beings die; they are subject to destructive change - to degeneration, disease, loss of self... 

The spirit world is a fact of life. It is "all around" us, always, and wherever we happen to be; and has influences. 

This means the spirit world is (like the physical world) differentiated, heterogeneous, varied by time and place.

Thus the spirit world (whether we are aware of it or not) will affect us - somewhat like geography, climate, seasons and weather affect us. At some times and/or some situations the spirit world will be benign and helpful, maybe enjoyable. 

But in other circumstances, the spirit world will be net hostile, fear- or misery-inducing perhaps, or having evil influences - therefore hostile in specific ways.  

The striking fact of modern life for Men - including most, not all, Christians - is that we have all-but lost any spontaneous consciousness of the spirit realm. We live "in" it, but unaware, typically denying its reality. 

It is as if we wandered from the Arctic to the Sahara, while unaware of the differences, and taking no account of them in our lives. 

This is part of our alienation: modern Man is cut-off from a multitude of relationships with the world. These relationships are potentially bad and good both, as with the physical world: but most importantly they are real and unavoidable. 

The consequence is that we "miss" the spiritual realm - and (even if unconsciously) we know that our experience and knowledge of reality is incomplete. We are, to that extent, maimed. 

Further: this situation is made worse by many Christians, who regard the spirit realm as nothing but a threat, a spiritual danger, the domain of demonic temptation - that must be avoided. They regard the underworld as at best inessential, at worst a constant threat. 

More moderately, but with the same result; Christians regard the spirit world as an "optional extra" for life; something that we do not need, and is therefore best avoided because of its spiritual hazards. 

This is one way in which mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christianity has not just failed to meet the challenge of modernity; but has indeed worsened the situation. 

But suppose that we do - as a matter of fact - both need the spirit world, just as we need the physical world; and anyway cannot avoid it - even when we want to? 

We may fence ourselves in - but we cannot fence the spirit world out. We can only make ourselves unaware of it, and explain away its effects. 

What then?

Well, in my judgment there are no really good models from the past, that work for this present among Western people, no good models concerning how we ought to regard and relate-to the spirit world.  

There are, of course, plenty of people who - even nowadays - are aware of the spirit world in some way - "clairvoyants" or "psychics" of many kinds. Maybe they have visions of spirits, converse with spirits; and seek-out such contacts. 

The problem is that these are mostly Not wise or knowledgeable people. They are often silly, or motivated badly. By my evaluations; their knowledge (apparently derived from contacts with spirits) is unreliable, and often incoherent nonsense, or rather blatant self-gratifying fantasy. 

They often seem to be seeking spirits to help them gain worldly gratifications (health, sex, power status - the usual stuff). 

Or, on the other side, they seem to be seeking to surrender to the world of spirits, to be overpowered and controlled by the spirits they encounter. Self-annihilation... Not good.  

At any rate, the "fruits" are often bad - in that a majority of those who are (or claim to be) in contact with the spirit world are (to me) unimpressive, and usually have taken the side of evil in the spiritual wars. But then again, so have most self-identified "Christians", and those of other religions! 

(There is no "safe" path to salvation and theosis that can be objectively described or externally imposed - and the greatest danger is for those who believe there is.)   

To me, "the Spiritual" are mostly unimpressive... and yet not always! 

While - like all mortal Men - mixed-Beings who are prone to errors and being misled; there have been some people (and in the "modern" era) such as William Blake, Rudolf Steiner, Dion Fortune, and Gareth Knight - who seem in important ways to have benefitted from their contact with the spirit realms. These I like, respect and admire. 

Nonetheless, we cannot assume that any of these people are themselves a model for other people differently constituted, and belonging to later generations, whose consciousness is different. Nor (whatever they may have claimed) can we assume that such past-exemplars were able to describe a general model by which other people can (or should) attain a positive relation with the spirit world. 

In particular; I am increasingly convinced that past attempts (and maybe successes) in positively affecting human society (e.g. nations, or relations between nations) are not possible here-and-now - due to the change in human consciousness. 

Those same changes that have made spontaneous spirit awareness so rare, have also enhanced the potential human spiritual autonomy and individual agency. Past human consciousness was social, pooled, in ways that is no longer the case. 

Our situation is different. What was effective and good then, is often feeble and harmful now.  

As so often nowadays, external influences are overwhelmingly likely to be bad; so we need to (and should) rely on our personal judgment and take spiritual responsibility for our choices. 

My own notions are as follows:

We should be aware that there is a spirit world of Beings, that it is real and important. 

And, on general principles in this era, we should strive to become aware of whatever is real; so, in some fashion, it is good to become conscious of the spirit world as it is affecting us "here-and-now"; and where possible be prepared to act on the implications of that effect. 

(Maybe avoiding situations in which the spirit world is exerting a malign influence - or continuing a life-path that seems to be sustained by that which is good in the spirit world.)  

What about developing personal relationships with specific spirit Beings? 

Well; many spirit Beings are benign; and some of these are likely to have a positive and personal interest in ourselves. 

For instance, there may be deceased and resurrected relatives or close friends whom we loved, or willing "spiritual mentors".  And such Beings may be in spiritual-proximity ("near") to us in the spirit world, and maybe be actively-desirous of aiding us in particular ways. 

My best guess is that such potential relationships with spirit Beings, are good and perhaps necessary. 

How to develop such relationships, while avoiding deceptions and temptations, and shallow or wishful thinking; is, in principle, a problem not different from the same question about our social relations among human beings in the physical realm. 

We cannot plan a good human-social life in the physical world - and rules or blueprints for good relationships are a misguided or malign attempt to subordinate the personal soul to inhuman materialistic-bureaucratic thought processes. Same for the spirit world. 

What is needed is realistic assumptions about the nature and purpose of life, then a secure rooting in personal intuition and responsibility - with a willingness to recognize and repent our errors.

Since, as Christians; we know that we inhabit a divine creation within-which we have a personal destiny; and that we are God's children capable of valid judgment, and that the guidance of the Holy Ghost is always available when required...

Knowing all this, and if our attitudes can also be grounded in such knowledge; there is every reason to suppose that we will be able to navigate the spirit realm in such a way as will benefit us spiritually - now and in the context of eternity.  

Richard Annand - twenty years since the death of this war hero

I like to visit the Durham Light Infantry Museum* - and always pause to re-read the display dedicated to Richard W Annand (1914-2004) who in 1939 was awarded the first Victoria Cross of World War Two.

I never fail to be moved, and deeply moved, by the words and pictures which stand in memory of this man.

Annand was something close to the Victorian English ideal of a hero and a gentleman; in that he was valiant, compassionate, and withal utterly modest: my admiration is unbounded.

1. Look at the man's face - a boyish openness of expression, almost innocent, from the earliest pictures and retained into extreme old age.

2. In the citation below, note the extreme ferocity and also the military effectiveness of his fighting. That it was not a single act done in the heat of battle but repeated acts of heroism - in despite of accumulating injuries and exhaustion.

3. Yet also the loyalty, affection and self-sacrifice returning to the battle ground - after all this - to try and save his 'Batman' (military manservant).

4. Finally, the complete absence of boastfulness, reluctance to talk about his heroism, fundamental decency of character. 

**


http://www.lightinfantry.me.uk/vcrannand.htm

Shortly after dawn on 15th May, the assault began when mortar fire hit "D" Company's position near the ruined bridge, badly wounding the Company Commander, Captain Bill Hutton. The main German attack across the river then fell on 16 Platoon and Second Lieutenant Richard Annand.

"About 11 am the enemy launched a violent attack and pushed forward a budging party into the sunken bottom of the river. Second Lieutenant Annand attacked this party but when ammunition ran out he went forward himself over open ground, with total disregard for enemy mortar and machine-gunfire. Reaching the top of the bridge he drove out the party below, inflicting over twenty casualties with hand grenades- Having been wounded he rejoined his platoon, had his wound dressed, and then carried on, in command."  

At the same time, German troops used a weir to cross the river and overran a platoon of "B" Company. After a desperate fight, this attack was halted but the Germans were not pushed back across the Dyle. The fighting continued until noon with neither side being able to overcome the other. During the afternoon, snipers, mortars and shell fire forced the Durhams to stay under cover. They all knew that the Germans would renew their attack that night.

As it grew dark, the Germans, under cover of intense machine gun and mortar fire, again attacked the ruined bridge in front of "D" Company.  

Platoon Sergeant Terry O'Neill, who lost his right arm in the battle, later explained -"Our position on the south side of the River Dyle was at the bottom of a long forward slope with a large wood [o our rear. The road leading to the bridge which had been destroyed was alongside our left hand section and the ground between the bridge and our own position was perfectly open. On the night of 15th May, Mr. Annand came to me at Platoon Headquarters and asked/or a box of grenades as they could hear Jerry trying to repair the bridge. Off he went and he sure must have given them a lovely time because it wasn't a great while before he was back for more. Just like giving an elephant strawberries." 

And Company Sergeant Major Norman Metcalfe, also of "D" Company, later wrote to Captain Button about the night attack -"In they came with a vengeance and weren't' they socked with a vengeance..... They seemed determined to get that bridge and therefore reinforcements were simply piled up with casualties..... Jerry couldn't move old 'D'! We had casualties, especially 16 Platoon, but they were wonderful. Mr. Annand, Batty, Wood, Surtees -they just went mad. Jerry got up to the other side of the bridge to their sorrow; they must have thought they had demons in front of them..... For two hours it was hell let loose, and then Jerry gave it up and withdrew." 

The Durhams continued to hold their positions, but elsewhere the Germans had broken through. Finally, at 11pm, Lieutenant Colonel Simpson gave his hungry and exhausted Companies the order to withdraw from the River Dyle. There was to be no transport. Anything that could not be carried would have to be left behind.

As Richard Annand led the few survivors of his Platoon away from their position in the early hours of 16th May, he learnt that his batman, Private Joseph Hunter of Sunderland, wounded in both his head and legs and unable to walk, had been left behind. Second Lieutenant Annand, despite his own severe wounds, immediately returned alone to the deserted trenches and found the missing soldier. Helping his wounded batman into an abandoned wheelbarrow, he set off up a forest path after the rest of his battalion.

All went well until they came to a fallen tree that completely blocked their way. Weak with exhaustion and unable to lift the wounded soldier over the obstruction, Richard Annand was forced to leave Joseph Hunter in the shelter of an empty trench by the side of the track and go on for help. When he finally reached his old Company Headquarters, it was deserted. Using his last reserves of energy, he set off again to look for help and was eventually found by one of 2 DLI's surviving Carriers commanded by Second Lieutenant Hugh Lyster-Todd.

Only then did Richard Annand collapse unconscious through loss of blood and exhaustion.

..."I don't suppose he knows the meaning of the word fear'. He never asked a man to do anything he could do himself...... He wouldn't talk much about it. He isn't that kind. It was just another job of work to him." [Platoon Sergeant Terry O'Neill]

*Reposted from 13/2/14. The DLI museum closed some eight years ago; but (apparently) there are "plans" to re-open it... 

To be positive and hope-full - but not delusionally optimistic: The challenge of these times

In this time and place, it is my understanding that people have painted-themselves-into-a-corner by their fundamental assumptions - and I include most Christians in this criticism. 

This is, in a sense, unfortunate - or at least hazardous - because it means that a good deal of negativity is required when it comes to the negativity (and indeed nihilism) which our civilization, culture, and most people has incorporated as the basis of our world view. 

So there nearly-always needs to be a good deal of demolition of despair-tending ideas and ideals - and this negativity can itself become a habit, a mind-set; whereas it ought to be merely a swiftly transcended preliminary phase, prior to embarking on a positive and hopeful life. 

We cannot live spiritually on the basis of double-negativity. Especially not modern Men who spontaneously tend towards alienation, cut-offness: the assumption that the world is purposeless, meaningless and indifferent. 

Because we cannot live spiritually in opposition, not even in opposition to evil. 

In order that we have "something to look forward to"; there is a temptation to worldly-optimism, or even to spiritual optimism - "optimism" being here defined as the belief that things Will get better - that our mortal lives will be better, that we are on a path of spiritual progression.

(Such optimism is the basis of the vast industry of self-help. And much that presents itself as self-help, as ways to a better life or world, is - in fact - a dishonest species of would-be careerism.) 

Optimism just-is delusional in this entropic and evil-ruled world - and leads not to a better world, but to systemic distortion and denial of realities.

(e.g. The distortion of being optimistic about what are actually evils - but presented as a path to Good. e.g. The denial of things going-nowhere or getting worse, by constant hyping, spinning and propaganda about minor and insignificant triumphs.)  

Yet, if optimism is excluded, but positivity demanded; then there are ways ahead; ways of approaching your actual life that focus on the spiritual and the eternal - and do not require anything resembling incremental and cumulative progress or long-term improvement. 

Indeed; I think that circumstances (as well as divine communications) tend to guide us towards exactly what is actually attainable - towards that which we our-selves can do, regardless of what other people are doing.

What has been taken-away on the one hand; is a gift on the other. 

The spiritual temptations of worldliness and expectations of increasing health, wealth, pleasure, social status are (realistically) eliminated; such that autonomous agency is is laid bare. 

That which is necessary and good is also, increasingly, the only viable possibility!

In sum: we can choose to be realistically-positive and hope-full, about a situation in which we cannot (in honesty, as Christians) be optimistic. 

  

For Christians, mathematics cannot be the ultimate truth

Mathematics - including geometry, which was the dominant type of maths in the ancient world; and for that matter the philosophical discipline of Logic; are a type of abstract model, and as such utterly de-contextualized and without-referents. 

For mathematics to have real-world relevance entails that it is legitimate to attach particular classes or categories of objects to the mathematical symbols. Clearly, the qualitative reality of these classes/ categories must be assumed. 

Furthermore, it must be assumed that mathematical procedures (as modelled by the maths functions etc) are valid and necessary real-world processes applicable to the the assumed classes/ categories. 

Thus, mathematics as-such has zero intrinsic real-world relevance...

Unless, like Pythagoreans and Platonists (ancient, medieval and modern) one additionally makes the fundamental metaphysical assumption that the real-world relevance of mathematics is necessarily true; because reality is ultimately mathematical. 

On this basis, the job of science, or any other empirical investigation, is to discover the real-world entities to which refer (perhaps approximately) the ultimate mathematical realities (e.g. Platonic "ideas"). 

In other words; for some Platonists (and those in this tradition), mathematics just-is valid; and the real-world is (merely) a temporary and perhaps partial approximation of these realities. 

In sum: one can assume that maths/ geometry/ logic is the ultimate reality; and explain everything else on that basis - and, because the assumption is metaphysical, it cannot be refuted by any observations.

But - if one does assume this, then one cannot be a Christian. 

At least not in the was that Jesus (especially in the Fourth Gospel) spoke and taught. 

If maths/ geometry/ logic is the ultimate truth; then God cannot be a person, cannot be our Father, and does not love us. 

The unexamined life... mundane-thinking, and not-thinking

The phrase attributed to Socrates that "the unexamined life is not worth living" has usually struck me as true: true for me, at any rate. 

But from my perspective the desirable - i.e. examined - life is one in which I am aware of living while I am living: it is partly a matter of consciousness. 

And it is one in which thinking is active and inner-driven, rather than passive and responding to external inputs and demands. 

Enemies of the examined life include mundane-thinking and not-thinking. 

Mundane thinking is that modern state termed "alienation"

It is that state in which my thinking is not involved with what is thought-about - it is thinking "about" stuff, rather than thinking-stuff. 

Thinking when there there is little "participation", but the thinking is disengaged, like a free-spinning cog. 

For instance, you go for a walk in the country, or attend a musical concert or play; and spend the whole time thinking about other things; thinking mundane thoughts; so that you may suddenly realize you might as well not have been there at all. 

Indeed, you have not actually been there; because you didn't "be" and you weren't inhabiting the "there" situation. 

Not-thinking is just being so wrapped up in doing, that one is unaware of doing. 

It is the usual situation for many types of "work" - and indeed leisure. Social interaction is all-too-often of this kind. 

e.g. Yesterday I did some house painting, which required constant and unremitting concentration for a few hours. The job needed doing, and was done; but it was really done by a machine that I inhabited; because I was not conscious of my self while I was doing the job. 

At the end of the day it felt somewhat as if I had been switched-off for most of the time. 

The fact that so much of my life is (and always has been) spent in mundane- or not-thinking - despite that I don't regard either of these as having intrinsic value; has always suggested to me that some people (and especially those who see or feel no imperative to "the examined life") might spend all - or nearly all - of their lives in either not- or mundane-thinking, or oscillating between these, without ever at any point becoming self-aware.   

Such people probably achieve and do many and useful things: more than I do; but I agree with Socrates that that kind of life does seem futile, and is an avoidance of "what we are here for". 

Of course "the examined life" can, and does, often revert to being just more mundane-thinking; a mere matter of thinking about the examined life, rather than actually living it. 

Like the difference between studying philosophy (its history, descriptions of it) such as modern professional academic philosophers; as contrasted with doing philosophy, thinking for- and from-oneself; with participation and self-awareness - which is "the examined life", and which perhaps everybody ought to do. 

Especially here-and-now; when the external and social world is overwhelmingly corrupt, and value-inverted, and evil-motivated. 

Here-and-now: the unexamined life is just a temporary phase of living-death. 

Good only comes from good motivations - not from the negation of evil

Good only comes from good motivations - not from the negation of evil.

This ought to be obvious, but human beings are confused by the scale and abstraction of modern civilization and life; so they mistakenly come to believe that the defeat or destruction of their "enemies" is evidence of increasing good in the world. 

It is grasping at straws - when it is not an indirect preparation for self-advertisement.

I see a lot of this at present. Al lot of commentators "crowing" over the travails of the most leftist corporations, the most zealously totalitarian nations etc. Predictions that this presages a turn of the wheel of fortune, that from the self-burned ashes of The West shall (inevitably, it seems) arise the beautiful phoenix of a Christian society... 

As the self-hating self-destructiveness of modern totalitarian leftism begins to erode social functionality in ever-more-obvious ways, with the incompetence, decline and collapse of signature evil-tending institutions; it is tempting to suppose this change represents a pendulum swing back towards good. 

It doesn't - at least, not in The West, and not on any socially significant scale. 

What is happening (almost always) is that the organized, bureaucratic evil of globalist/ leftist totalitarianism; is being eaten-away from within by the short-term selfishness and/or spiteful destructiveness of its component parts. 

Yet from a Christian perspective, the infighting of evil is almost irrelevant; because no matter how many evil institutions and persons degrade and impoverish each other; unless there are sufficiently good-motivated institutions and persons that will occupy the vacated social spaces - then matters are no further forward - and indeed whatever evil emerges triumphant will be energized and strengthened.  

Our problem is far deeper than "merely" being-dominated by an evil leadership class, evil government, evil corporations, evil education, an evil mass media etc.  

Our profoundest problem is lack of good. 

Most of those who crow most loudly over the demise of some disfavoured grouping or person, are manifestly core-motivated by one or other evil drive: money, sex, status, power - or a cynical sneering sadistic spitefulness/ Schadenfreude. 

Such people do want want as primary that which Jesus Christ offered - resurrected eternal Heavenly life - even when they have constructed a pseudo-Christian System as their public-consumption objective. 

Yet such people are not necessarily "evil" - overall and in net-effect; they may simply be the normal, average kind of person with mixed motivations; but who have allowed their "base" motivations to take first-place and determine their core allegiance*. Our civilizational problem is that even such-people are statistically among the best of us - and they are Not Good Enough! Nothing like good enough. Only those mixed persons (no matter how mixed) whose primary motivation and core allegiance is to God and Jesus Christ will suffice for what is needed here-and-now - and such persons are (to all appearances) exceedingly rare. 

In sum: beware the false triumphalism that celebrates evil persons and institutions coming to an evil end for evil reasons. 

Mix it how we will; a stew of evils can yield only soul poison - unless we discern, reject and repent the whole nasty brew. 

*A sign of false allegiance (a Litmus Test, if you like) is trying to emulate (to "learn from") the effectiveness of heroes and exemplars of evil. ("Oh, why can't we be more like [fill in the name of some evil success story]?") In sum: Advocating adopting the methods of evil, on the basis that these tactics have a strong track-record of changing the world, that they work.  

This is a Litmus Test of evil allegiance because such people have failed to learn that doing evil and doing good are not symmetrical. Evil is much, much easier than good; because destruction is easier than creation. 

It requires hard, prolonged and skilled labour to make a functional machine or a beautiful artwork; but any idiot can vandalize them in a moment.