Bruce Charlton's Notions

*
In evaluating this world we live-in as mortal incarnate Men, the standard by which we should judge it is not in terms of whether it is as happy and as pain-free as it possibly could be. Clearly it is not optimal in terms of pleasure and comfort; but that is not the function or purpose of this world.

The function of this world is to be the best possible kind of place for building gods: that is, to be the best kind of place for theosis, sanctification, spiritual progression.

That is our destiny - in the sense of our chosen and appointed task.

*

Our general destiny (purpose in life) is common to Mankind, but also unique - because each soul is unique, and significantly and importantly distinct.

*

We are each born into a specific time, place and circumstances - was this merely random?

Clearly not - that would be to sabotage destiny.

Therefore, since our situation was not random then it must be (to some extent) intended, planned in some way; but how intended?

*

Not one way but several.

Each of our specific, personal destinies was:

1. Chosen by us (as pre-mortal un-incarnated spiritual beings) - on the basis of what we want.

2. Allocated by God - on the basis of what is good for us (as individuals).

3. Modified and constrained by our choices and the choices of people around us (and the workings of the 'laws' of space, time, mass etc.) - thus modified and constrained by freedom and contingency.

Presumably, what happened - the specific time, place and situation - took into account these various considerations.

*

And this is the basic human condition.

We were placed in a time, place and circumstance - that was not random chance; but the placing had to take into account distinct considerations, was only in general and in a compromised sense, and the situation of placement is necessarily open to change.


Our personal destiny is specific but constrained and (in a sense) approximate; and also subject to modification and evolution.
*

*
The on-going mass-media-manipulated mass-hysteria (characterised by rampant self-advertisement and moral grandstanding) is not to be mistaken for mass-repentance and a spiritual Great Awakening - quite the opposite: this is a ratchet-step-turn further away from God.

*  

*
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-01-028-laborers-in-the-vineyard?category=bible-videos-the-life-of-jesus-christ&lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-10-053-jesus-declares-the-parable-of-the-wheat-and-the-tares?category=bible-videos-the-life-of-jesus-christ&&lang=eng

Here are dramatizations of four of Christ's parables about the nature of salvation and Heaven.

What I get from these, taken together, is the way in which such parables cannot exactly, satisfactorily, be 'explained' in terms of ideas - any more than a great novel or play can be explained in other words.

I also see that while all are profoundly true; taken in isolation any one of these could easily be misleading - while taken together they show multiple facts of a truth which lies behind them all.

This is a theme upon which I have often harped - the Christian message cannot be obtained from minute analysis of its components taken one at a time and then re-assembled - it is much, much clearer and simpler than that!

So; here the story of the labourers in the vinyard show the easiness and equality of being saved; (yet) Christ's prefatory remark to Peter shows that there is a special reward for the devout both in this world and the next; (yet) the wheat and tares parable show that worldly success and thriving is no guarantee of salvation; (yet) the mustard seed parable shows that the greatest things may come from (apparently) the most insignificant (in worldly terms); (yet) even an apparently small thing, like yeast - or the church - can make a visible difference, in this world, for the better.

Putting it together, salvation is easy because Christ has done it for us, but beyond salvation there are differential rewards for the best and worst of us; the benefits and fruits of Christ's work are seen in this world, but this world is not a picture of Christ's will.

*

*
CG Jung is unusual among geniuses, in that he was dishonest about his own work and its implications.

That he was a genius I think is correct; he made numerous discoveries and conceptual breakthroughs  - and he is an unseen but pervasive influence behind vast areas of modern culture including psychology, psychiatry, therapy and (especially) that vast and vague phenomenon called the New Age movement (almost everything about the New Age has a Jungian lineage - even when this is not generally known or acknowledged).

But that Jung was a thoroughly-dishonest and deceptive man is something equally undeniable. Jung was never plain and honest when that was inexpedient - Jung was not driven by a pure pursuit of truth; because truth was readily and repeatedly sacrificed when the consequences were unwanted by Jung.

He craved respectability as a Professor, psychiatrist, scholar, scientist - and would trim his published views to ensure this. He wanted wealth, status, admiration - and patients were charmed, strung-along and generally exploited to ensure this.

Jung wanted to be regarded as an unworldly sage - but worked to create an organization dedicated to his own self-promotion. He was a wholesale sexual seducer of his patients and trainees right into old age; and had a long-term live-in mistress who functioned as a second wife (while being unmentioned in his autobiography - he also used his personal magnetism to maintain a household of handmaidens to dote upon and serve him.

*

The point is that Jung's many compromises, deceptions, evasions, and lies are so consistently dedicated to his own comfort, convenience and gratification that the picture is one of a highly charming and dominant; but heartless, manipulative and selfish psychopath.

*

So far, Jung is the precursor of the modern intellectual - the 'tenured radical', the charismatic bureaucrat, the bourgeois bohemian, the alpha-male academic, the medical research project manager, the therapist-entrepreneur, the charity CEO, the self-help/ help-yourself guru, the sexual healer...

But this could be put aside as mere hypocrisy - and that is something of which we are all guilty (it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise). But Jung's dishonesty went even deeper than that, to invade his primary achievement.

Because Jung's work is incoherent at the very deepest level - and this incoherence has afflicted his legacy. And this incoherence was not the result of confusion, but the result of dishonesty.

*

An example is the idea of synchronicity; which has become an extremely influential cultural idea - but which is deployed in a way that makes no sense. And this incoherence is not due to misunderstanding Jung, but comes directly from Jung's written contradictory accounts and evasions of the implications of his own insight.

Colin Wilson exposed this in his marvelously insightful short study: Lord of the Underworld: Jung and the twentieth century (1984); especially the chapter the Sage of Kusnacht, where Wilson goes through the writings on synchronicity with a fine toothed comb, and tries to pin down what Jung really believed, or meant - and comes up against a mass of obfuscation and self-refutation: of giving with one hand and taking back with the other.

Jung's last recorded words from his death bed seem appropriate: "Let's have a really good red wine tonight." The final statement of a man whose personal gifts were astonishingly great - but who consistently and successfully deployed them for his own comfort, convenience and glory.

*

*
From The Two Towers; Chapter: The Palantir; Pippin speaking about his vision in the Palantir:

The the stars went in and out - they were cut off by things with wings. Very big, I think, really; but in the glass they looked like bats wheeling round the tower. I thought there were nine of them. One began to fly straight towards me, getting bigger and bigger. It had a horrible - no, no! I can't say.

Whenever I read this I am sorry to say that I snigger - because I cannot think of any decent horrible thing which the Nazgul might have, which Pippin could not say.

Now, I don't really believe this is the one and only example of smutty innuendo in The Lord of the Rings - although if there was to be such a thing, Pippin would surely be the most likely character to make such a comment.

But I cannot think what the horrible thing was that Pippin could not bring himself to mention, even under the influence of a 'truth spell' from Gandalf.

Any (non-indecent) suggestions?

*

*

I have done this about five times, and had plenty of time to reflect on the experience - so here are some suggestions...

Firstly, it is best to be young - in the teens or early twenties, or else in that state of psychological neoteny which sometimes afflicts academics, scientists and artists. Indeed, I doubt whether it is worth reading James Joyce if you are a mature adult - married, a father, that kind of thing.

*

Of course I am suggesting that it is worth at least some people reading some of Joyce; and that is because he does what he does very well - and he was a master of language (when he wasn't writing merely to advertise his technique, or to exemplify some tiresome theoretical framework).

But while Joyce's skill as a prose artist is of the front rank, and he took great pains with his writing; as a man he was immature, conceited, pretentious and shallow - so there is a limit to how much one can (or should) get from reading Joyce.

So Ulysses contains some really wonderful parts, and even more pointless, turgid and/ or wilfully obscure stuff (by my interpretation Joyce deliberately deployed obscurity to hide his self-obsessed monomania).

*

When Joyce is good, he is always writing about himself - in the form of his alter ego Stephen Dedalus. The other characters either serve the goal of elucidating, highlighting, aggrandizing Stephen - or else they are essentially padding (and that stricture includes Leopold Bloom, as well as his wife Molly, insofar as he is not interacting with Stephen).

At root, Ulysses is an episode in the life, in the artistic development, of Stephen Dedalus - who is implicitly the author of Ulysses; Ulysses is 'about' what made it possible to become the man who went-on to write Ulysses.

*

But, but, but - it is incredibly-difficult/ impossible for the naïve reader to know what the heck is going on in Ulysses.

Therefore, to read Ulysses, you need already to know Stephen - which means you need already to have read the earlier stages of his biography in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

But Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is also incredibly difficult to understand - therefore you need already to have read its plainly written draft version: Stephen Hero. 

*

(Comparing Stephen Hero with Portrait shows the great increase in Joyce's skill as a writer - but also the degree to which he deliberately used obscurity in order to make his writing seem more impressive.)

*

So, here is the scheme for How to read Ulysses:

1. Read Stephen Hero. (And if you can't abide Stephen - which would be understandable, stop here.)

2. Read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

3. Read the parts of Ulysses concerned with Stephen; skipping-over the rest.

*

In fact, just read the first three chapters of Ulysses - which are the best things in the book - and if you don't like them then you may as well give-up at that point and save yourself a lot of pain.

4. If you have liked all of this, then read the rest - why not? But I warn you that much of the second half is both worthless and intensely-annoying - perhaps especially the 'Oxen of the Sun' and 'Circe' episodes.

**


Sincere Note: Do not, I implore you, attempt to read Finnegans Wake.

You will not succeed; but even if you did you will have wasted your time and energy.

Everything that was bad about Ulysses, and nothing that was good, is put into Finnegans Wake - and amplified to the nth degree.

*

*
My answer is going to be no, this is not entailed - and further that the nature of the evidence/ experience of precognition is evidence against the future having 'already happened'.

*

I have often seen it stated that precognition - for example visions in dreams that predict the future - entails that the future has 'already happened' - either because everything is pre-determined and merely unfolds, or else because Time is simultaneous rather than sequential.

Therefore, evidence of the reality of pre-cognition - for example evidence to support the reality a prophecy, or foresight, or precognitive dreams - is taken to be evidence that the future has already happened, and that this already-happened future was somehow glimpsed by the precognitive prophet.

*

Of course, many/ most people who write in the public domain deny the reality of precognition altogether and dismiss the evidence for its occurrence. However, this denial and dismissal is a minority view, very unusual in the modern world and almost unique in world history: most people have done and still do believe in precognition; and many people have experienced it in their lives.

*

So I will assume that precognition is real, and look at the nature of the evidence for its reality. When this is done, it seems to be the pattern that precognition may be more-or-less precise in the specifics of what happens, but is always imprecise, vague, non-committal about the exact time and place and circumstances in which the prediction will happen.

This fits with the idea is that true precognitions and prophecies are made-to-happen in the future (presumably by some supernatural entity or force) - and not that that have 'already happened' and are merely being read-off.

It also implies that God (or whatever makes the thing happen) is constrained by free will and other contingencies. Such that the thing predicted will happen, but the exact time, place and circumstances are flexible - depending upon individual choices and other circumstances.

So, the prediction is that 'sooner-or-later this thing will happen', by some means or another, to some person or another - but that it can be brought forward, delayed, made to happen in one place rather than another, and so on.

This, I assume, is why even true and correct prophecies nearly always turn-out somewhat differently - sometimes surprisingly differently - from how they were imagined; because circumstances and choices dictated that that was how they had to turn out.

*
In summary:

1. Experience, evidence and the consensus of mankind confirm that precognition is sometimes real.

2. The nature of the real and reliably-reported experience of precognition implies that some future events can be foreseen, but not located precisely in time, space and person.

3. Therefore, the evidence is exactly consistent with what would be expected if the future was not fixed: and that the future can be made to happen, but only within constraints that determine how and when it happens.

4. In a nutshell: Evidence seems to suggest that the occurrence of some future events happens may be fixed; but how and when it occurs is un-fixed.

5. Our experience is that future - while specific elements may be predictable - is essentially open, undetermined, contingent - presumably (at least partly) because of the reality of free wills which really are free, hence unpredictable.

*

*
The Northumbrian Small Pipes are a type of bagpipe which uses air blown from bellows under the left arm - they have a wonderfully sweet and plaintive sound.

A special characteristic is that when all the fingers are pressed onto the holes the chanter is silent - each note is 'let-out' by raising a single finger. This naturally creates a detached, staccato sound with each note clearly separated; and makes runs and arpeggios much trickier than on normal wind instruments - so the virtuoso tradition has been to prize the ability to play quick runs and arpeggios cleanly and evenly - and the competition pieces tend to be variations of increasing levels of decoration.

The qualities of the instrument have led to the highly characteristic musical structure of Northumbrian folk music - and a far greater volume of tunes than from any other part of England.

*

The Small Pipes were popular by the 1700s, and discussed by Thomas Bewick (the great wood engraver) - and kept going through lean years of the early 20th century by some few dozens of dedicated amateurs, until there was a revival and flowering from the mid-1960s until now - when there are I guess many hundreds (or thousands) of players.

Among the amateur virtuosi none have a higher reputation than Tom Clough of Newsham (1881-1964) who was called the Prince of Pipers. From the evidence of a handful of home-made recordings, Clough was a remarkable virtuoso. Clough played in the 'classic' style described above:


In the following generation, Billy Pigg (1902-1968) - a pupil of Tom Clough's - became known at the King of the Pipers. Pigg's father apparently played the Scottish Highland bagpipes - and, going against the grain of the smallpipes, Pigg introduced techniques from that instrument - which has an open chanter, and therefore separates adjacent notes using grace notes, and also deploys slurs or slides between notes. This suited a wild, romantic, passionate quality in Pigg's playing which is most evident in his playing of slow airs:


Among the current generation, the premier Northumbrian piper is Kathryn Tickell (born 1967) - who is the first to become professional. She is well known in the world of world music, having been involved in many cross-over experiments with other genres.

Here is Kathryn Tickell playing one of my favourite tunes (and also a favourite of my Father's) which was written by Billy Pigg and is named Bill Charlton's Fancy (but probably no relation to me - William, along with George, was a very popular name for the olden Charlton surname/ clan):


So, here you have the Prince, the King and the Queen of the pipers.

I love them all, but who is my favourite?

Well, that would have to be Billy Pigg - whose playing (judged from from the slender and defective recorded evidence, and ear-witness accounts) sometimes rose to a level of genius in which he captured something close to the essence of Northumberland.

*

*
Bulimia nervosa is a common disorder - endemic and 'normal' in some groups - in which a person gorges on food, then induces vomiting: it is a matter of insatiably wanting to eat food; but to avoid nourishment.

Although this is understandable in a world where food is abundant and obesity is more of a problem than starvation; biologically, bulimia is a perversion of appetite - utterly to separate eating from nutrition. Its implicit goal is continually and unrestrainedly to gorge on whatever food takes your fancy - and yet be thin.

*

Sexual bulimia is a common disorder - endemic and 'normal' in some groups - in which a person gorges on sex but eliminates fertility: it is a matter of insatiably wanting to have sex; but to avoid having children.

Although this is understandable in a world where sexual stimulation is abundant and the appetite for sex exceeds the supply; biologically, sexual bulimia is a perversion of appetite - utterly to separate sex from conception. Its implicit goal is continually and unrestrainedly to gorge on whatever sex takes your fancy - and yet be sterile.

*

Thus to be a gourmet but thin, to be polymorphously promiscuous but sterile this is the modern ideal - to gratify and amplify proximate instincts without restraint or limit; while denying and extinguishing the ultimate goal and purpose of these instincts.

*

Bulimia is still generally regarded as a misfortune, if not a disease; but when it comes to sex we have not merely normalized but aggrandized pathology into the ideal.

Yet conception is as basic a biological need as nutrition - indeed, at the margin more so; since conception is more proximate to reproductive success than is prolonging survival.

Modern society has become numb and blinded and in an aggressive state of denial with respect to the objective, biological pathology of modern sexuality and reproduction - we have come to love disease more than health, death more than life.

This is what it is to live in a world without God.

*

*

From The Craft of the Novel, by Colin Wilson - 1986 - a superb work of literary criticism, almost completely neglected.

I found this book very helpful when writing my MA thesis

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6450/1/6450_3750.PDF

and I think it could be very valuable as a 'how and what to write' manual for aspiring story writers (novel, play, movie etc) who are aiming-high.

*

Most talk about 'artistic detachment is disingenuous. No writer can depict the whole world... all he can do is offer 'typical samples', like a grocer allowing you to taste a piece of cheese. 

But as he holds out the cheese to you on the end of his knife, he is clearly implying that this sample tastes exactly the same as the rest of the cheese on the counter.

The same goes for the novelist; as he hands you his 'slice of life', there is a tacit understanding that, so far as he knows, this slice tastes very much like any other slice he could offer you. 

This is what the critic Matthew Arnold meant when he said that literature is a 'criticism of life'... It is handed to the reader with the implication : this is what life is like. 

...But if we examine Zola's work [and that of the other 'naturalist novelists] ...  we shall find that they always seems to be a prosecution witness against life, and never try to present the defence.


*

Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with the bulk of art in the past century; its excuse is that it is realistic, but in practice that is dishonest - and art (...literature, cinema, even music) functions as a prosecution witness against life. 

Then, this bitter, twisted, nihilistic view of life is presented as if it was a discovery about life - rather than something deliberately built-in by the artist.

Any other - more balanced - perspective on life is dismissed as dumb or derided as deceptive.

But then, for a work of art honestly to present life as anything other than horrible does require that it at least allows for the possibility, even as a mystery, that there is something more than life.

And that possibility is ruled out, in advance, by many or most artists.

*

*
Since we are in the 'End Times' or 'Latter Days', then it is interesting to speculate when the end will come.

The Bible is clear that the time and date are not to be known in advance (even to Jesus Christ) - but what might be the principle that determines when God brings this world to an end?

The End Times (presumably) refers to dwindling of the Christian religion, in relation to Mankind as a whole - after a period of many centuries when there was growth.

The concept of End Times can therefore (perhaps) be translated into saying that the trend is established that number of souls being saved is getting fewer and fewer.

*

My speculation is that the end will come when, due to apostasy and corruption, more souls are being lost than are being saved.

This would seem to be the time to 'end the experiment' of this world; because once this point is passed, then the longer the end is delayed, the more souls will be lost.

But - no matter how bad are the conditions on earth; up until this point where losses begin to exceed gains, it is always better to delay the end - because on balance souls are being saved.

*

This (presumably) means that so long as the world has not ended - such as now, at this time of writing - the world is Good overall, or Net Good; and that although fewer souls are saved than in the past, more souls are still being saved than lost.

(Presumably due to Christianity being vibrant in places life China, Africa and South America - rather than in The West, Middle East, Asia Minor and South Asia: gains in C, A, & SA currently more-than-offsetting losses in other places.)

Which is, I think, an encouraging thought! - Overall.

*

*
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/why-should-modern-society-why-should.html
*

*
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/very-well-read-but-disgracefully-badly.html
*

*
Hobbits: South of England folk music, including Morris dances.

Men of Rohan - The Border Ballads from the Scottish English border, bagpipes.

Men of Gondor - Roman Catholic unaccompanied choral music - e.g. Palestrina, Victoria etc.

Elves of Rivendell - Welsh folk music, harp etc.

Elves of Lothlorien - Byzantine chant (Greek Orthodox tradition)

Ents - Russian Orthodox choral music (featuring Basso Profundo)

Dwarves - Hmm. Something that suitable to be sung by deep, gravelly tuneless voices; perhaps simple chanting alternating between two notes of a minor third (rather like a police siren) perhaps?...

*

Some Hobbits doing a Morris dance with clubs:

*
Good leadership is:

1. Recognizing what most crucially needs to be done.

2. Discovering how to do it.

3. Doing it.

*

It is not about being without faults - not about avoiding mistakes/ blame; it is not about doing 'something' useful (but not doing THE thing that needs to be done).

It is not about doing something, then persuading people that that was what needed to be done.

It is not about saying  things, giving speeches, making plans, embarking upon consultation exercises,starting 'conversations', taking polls, making votes.

Fake-leadership is complex and easy; Real Leadership is simple and difficult.

Real leadership is difficult, because what needs to be done is often obvious; and the reason that has not been done is because of the obstacles which stand in the path of doing the right thing.

A real Leader overcomes those obstacles ad does the necessary; but a fake leader explains why the obstacles mean that the right thing cannot be done, and something else easier (which is not the right thing) should instead be done -  and then takes credit for doing what was easily do-able, instead of what was needed.

*

Real leadership is very rare.

But rarity is no reason to pretend that fake is real.

When there is no real leadership - when the leader is merely a corrupted careerist figurehead (which is nearly all of the time in high status and powerful institutions, nowadays) - then the best thing is to acknowledge the fact.

*

(Note added: There is another situation where there is a real leader who recognizes what needs to be done, discovers how to do it - and tries hard to do it, but is thwarted by other people so it doesn't get done. This has been the fate of some potential real leaders in recent years - such as Pope Benedict XVI, perhaps. In the event, the odds (and the system) were too heavily stacked against them. But, this is a bit conjectural, because without success it can never be known for sure that what they wanted to do really would have worked, or whether a better leader might have been able to overcome the thwarters.) 

*
Peak experience is a name for those times, perhaps moments, of highest and happiest consciousness.

Opening Christmas presents with the family, or sharing a funny experience at the dinner table; walking past the ruined chapel on a frosty morning, looking at the stars and seeing a meteor...

*

I think I always regarded them as 'true' in some sense, truer than the ordinary mundane consciousness, and truer than existential despair - but the question always was: true in what sense?

True in what sense?

*

Some would have it that the truth of peak experiences is about consciousness and human evolution - that peak experiences are the kind of consciousness humans ought to have always, a high energy/ high frequency consciousness; and their message is that we should try and live so that we have more and more of them (each peak experience being a clue to thin kind of thing we ought to be doing, and how to get further peak experiences), until the state becomes continuous...

Some would have it that peak experiences are premier examples of the power of the imagination, the imaginative mind - not objective in the sense of having real-world factual correlates; but, yes, objective in the sense of being really in our minds and a universal human experience - and the lesson is that we should become artists of our own lives;  so that our life becomes a self-creation...

Some would have it that peak experiences are an attunement with reality, moments when we cease to be separated from the rest of the world, and recognize our relatedness - moments when we become free of the curse of consciousness, the literalizing, factual, deadly and dead hand of 'rationality'; free of socialization, of civilization, modernity - and the lesson is that we should live naturally, instinctively, spontaneously, un-self-consciously: become again (like) animals inside action and inside the world and unaware of our situation...

*

But these and other variants amount to locating peak experiences in our own minds, so the peak experience is ultimately a psychological state - and the specific content of the peak experience is just a means to this state of mind.

So the frosty beauty of the morning and the light on leaves and crumbled walls is merely a means to the end of my state of mind; in particular that yearning element of the peak experience (Sehnsucht) - that yearning for some kind of ideal, eternal and perfect frosty morning - that is a thing which (by this consciousness-focused, psychological view) never can be satisfied, which has no independent existence.

*

By this consciousness-focused, consciousness-based view of peak experiences, the specific content of peak experiences are merely a trigger to the desired state of mind. So, the fact that (say) frosty mornings, the stars and planets, neolithic temples or the Cheviot Hills, or the thought of Numenor are reliable triggers - says something about me and my upbringing and the way my mind (brain) is set-up; but nothing about the ultimate nature of reality - and this consciousness-centred view of peak experiences would regard it as an error to suppose that I can ever find any of these thing in actual, factual reality.

In effect, peak experiences are like dreams - those rare paradisal dreams; and the only way that those dreams can be made 'real' is for us to dream them continuously.

By this perspective, the only possible 'place' we can find the content of our peak experiences is in the world of imagination. The only place I can find Numenor is in my own interpretation of the fictional works of JRR Tolkien and any further fictional works I may find or make on the topic; and the only way I could be in Numenor is to imagine I am in Numenor; and the only way - even in theory - I could be in Numenor 'permanently' would be to live in a dream (or a psychotic delusion).

*

So, to locate peak experiences, our best moments, in imagination is to yearn that life be a dream: a chosen dream, a lucid dream, a self-fulfilment dream - but 'just a dream' nonetheless.

*

By contrast, as a Christian my understand of peak experiences, and my interpretation of peak experiences as a glimpse of reality - locates them not in dreams, delusions, fictions, imaginations or the products of human creativity but in Heaven.

The feeling I get on a frosty morning becomes a glimpse of objective external reality, existing independent of myself and my mind or brain, and the reason I am made so happy about it is that this glimpse is a promise!

For a Christian, the yearning (the Sehnsucht) is like the child's yearning for Christmas - that is a yearning for something that really will happen; but it really will happen in a fully satisfying and permanent way. The only question being: whether I personally want to join this happening?

Christmas will happen, and it will be everything I hope for; the question is whether I want to 'join-in' and celebrate it?

*

But what of the specifics? If I yearn for the past, or an imagined place like Numenor, do they literally exist and could I literally live there in some kind of actuality that was not merely a self-gratifying daydream or happy delusion?

The answer is that these things and places and people are literally real but incompletely understood and distortedly understood - that all the things which trigger peak experiences are glimpses of the same thing - and indeed we already know this, instinctively.

We already know that peak experiences are not atomic and autonomous and one-off and disconnected and contradicting; but instead all peak experiences are linked, are separate glimpses of the same thing which - if we could see it properly and comprehend it - is one coherent and harmonious thing. Our peak experiences are momentary understandings of permanent reality; which is an actual place where we as actual people (as ourselves) can go and will go if we consent to it.

What we cannot have, is the partial glimpse only and detached; we cannot have a permanent and satisfying inhabiting of nothing-but a frosty chapel, a family joke, Christmas morning or Numenor.

Rather, what we can have is a life of the essence of all of these (and more).

*

So, in the end, peak experiences are either about a real, actual and possible place and situation that we ourselves could actually inhabit; or else they point to a world of lovely dreams and fulfilling delusions and gratifying self-deceptions.

That is the Christian difference. The peak experiences happen (thank God) either way: the frost on the fallen leaves has the same psychological effect up-front. But the Christian difference is that peak experiences are ultimately really real. It is what happens the moment after the peak experience that is different - when we ask ourselves 'what does that experience mean?

When I am a Christian, the momentary feeling of joy I get from that single frost-edged fern is a partial and distorted but true vision of some actual place that I can actually dwell-in.

And that difference makes for a big difference.

*

Think of it as a child would see it. The child has a fantasy which thrills him, which he loves, which he years-for - King Arthur or Robin Hood, Power Rangers or Bionicle, whatever it may be. He wants it to be real: really-real - actually existing as a place that he could go to, with all the things he most loves about it; and not a disappointment but as good as he hopes-for, when he gets there.

Anything less is a failure.

Anything less is not really-real.

Anything less is just something else - any adult who tries to tell the child that he really doesn't want that but wants something else, it perceived as practising a bait-and-switch.  

*

Christianity properly understood, properly explained, must be really-real, and must satisfy the most powerful yearnings of children - not of course immediately, here and now - but ultimately, the promise is (must be) to give us in reality what we most deeply want in our imaginations.

Not something else, but that.

Because those deepest yearnings are placed in us by God to guide us back to Him, and are (or should be) our source of hope beyond current circumstances.

*

Thus Christianity truly is wish-fulfilment - not whim-fulfilment, but that which we must deeply, earnestly, really wish for - what we, as children of God, and as actual children, most wish for - excitement, happiness, fighting and rest, knowing everything that we want to know, perfect health and healing of all hurts, to love and be loved - securely and forever.

That is the Heaven that is glimpsed by peak experiences. Anything less is not enough. Anything other is not what we want.

*

A straight answer to a plain question.

The child asks: is it real, can I go there?

The answer: yes, and yes.

*

*
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/notice-for-four-weeks-excellent-tv.html
*

*

Living near the city of Bristol during my schooldays, I naturally took it for granted that there would be several plays and other stage shows running all the time. I was not aware that Bristol was unusual, being the main centre of English drama outside of London.

Tom Stoppard - the premier playwright of recent generations, was a local lad and began his career in Bristol, as did the then-well-known Peter Nichols and Charles Wood. And among actors there have been a significant number of stars who learned their craft in the Bristol Old Vic and its drama school; including Peter O'Toole, Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart, Brian Blessed and Daniel Day-Lewis. (And, surprisingly, Gene Wilder! ^)

*

It was during my middle teens that I was able to take best advantage of this situation thanks mainly to an extremely enthusiastic and energetic English teacher (David Howe) who would book cheap tickets, and organize trips into the city and back home by minibus which he also drove. I am now amazed by his cheerful, generous dedication.

The Old Vic had a 'repertory' company - which changed a bit each year but throughout contained Alan Rothwell and Amanda Barrie as the character actor and actress, to play a wide range of villains and comic roles. I saw them perform a mixture of the classic plays - Shakespeare, Shaw, Wilde, Goldsmith etc; other popular pieces from earlier generations (Hobson's Choice comes to mind), and some new plays including Jumpers and Travesties by Tom Stoppard, which stand out in my memory as being perhaps my most dazzlingly-enjoyable theatrical experiences.

I was very interested in drama as literature, in those years; and until I was about thirty read a lot of plays for pleasure - mostly borrowed from the library. There was - it seemed - a lot of classic drama on television, especially on Sunday nights (Ibsen, Chekhov, Restoration drama, and moderns like Pinter, Wesker etc); so within a few years, extending into university, I had pretty well covered the standard canon and the high status modern playwrights.

*

For some reason, although I was a decent actor, and took principal roles in many Gilbert and Sullivan (and similar) musical productions and also comedy revues; I never did much 'am dram' straight acting, although I wanted to. In fact, I only did one production - at the age of 28 playing Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest, which went very well but was not followed-up. 

Perhaps the factor was moving to attend medical school in Newcastle upon Tyne at age 18; a city which was less good for drama, but better for another great love: classical music.

So, instead of acting; attending concerts and operas, and singing in shows and choirs, therefore became the main direction taken by my cultural interests.

**

^ Wilder's reaction in this clip is one of the best bits of comic acting I have ever seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B94lP-fZyLk

*
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/three-lessons-from-genius-triad.html
*

*
[Note - this is an addition to my embryonic autobiography/ memoirs. http://luckyphilosopher.blogspot.co.uk/]

**

I came across the idea of runes before the actuality - because there was a gap between me getting keen on the idea of The Hobbit from hearing runes named in the songs of Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrie Took's folk group Tyrannosaurus Rex before I actually read the Hobbit.

I had the notion that runes were probably ornate letters - something in Gothic script; and I and my friends started writing in this (invented) style on the covers of school exercise books using a facetious, formal and ornate type of phraseology - as I supposed it to be: this instead of Geography there was 'Geographical Studies', and so on. If a teacher noticed and adversely commented, or told us to change what was written, that only encouraged us.

Then there was my haversack. Having initially used a briefcase to carry school books, I soon realized my folly; and when it fell apart I got an army surplus haversack - which was more practical as well as 'fashionable' in that particular time and place.


I then proceeded to decorate the haversack with biro writings, using this supposed-runic alphabet for my name and various slogans or mottos, now forgotten.

Inevitably, I read the Hobbit, and copied out the runic alphabet used there (essentially Anglo Saxon runes) - and discovered that runes were in fact simple, straight marks - designed for easy scratching or carving on stone or wood. So I added more inscriptions to the haversack, using these real runes.

When I read Lord of the Rings, I found in the Appendices Tolkien's own runic alphabet - and transferred my allegiance to it. There was not much space left on the haversack, but I added one or two names of special significance; and I used it to mark a knobbed walking stick I made for myself from an elm tree we felled in our garden (killed by the terrible Dutch Elm Disease) - I still have this stick; and later an ashplant staff cut from a hedge on Backwell Hill.

Much later I had a big resurgence of interest in runes, and bought a set of them scored onto small glass pieces about the size of dominos, and various semi-scholarly/ semi-'channeled' New Age and faerie books, including a lavish illustrated volume by illustrator Brian Froud - this is the rune for B -


Our local Anglo Saxon museum sold some metal rune pendants on leather thongs, which I duly purchased - but I can't bring myself to wear 'jewelry' (except a wedding ring), not even if concealed.

Runes still have a special meaning for me - even the mere idea of them evokes a kind of thrill. Since reading Tolkien, and mostly deriving either directly or indirectly from him (our modern knowledge of runes comes from Tolkien - specifically The Hobbit, just as the modern awareness of dragons comes from that book).

I have of course come across runes all over the place - including that fascinating and grossly misleading compendium of The White Goddess by Robert Graves; not many fantasy writers can resist the power of runes: and power of some kind they do surely have, not least the power to transport the mind to other times, places, realities; a power as benign as the purposes for which they are deployed.



*

*
This question must be tackled by any Arthurian story with pretensions to depth and significance.

The usual examples that I have come across are related to things like 'peace and prosperity and justice'. Arthur is (supposedly) a Good King because he provides (or at least tries to provide) these - against a alternative backdrop of endemic violence, social chaos, starvation, and arbitrary tyranny.

*

But - while these outcomes are undoubtedly highly desirable - they are a means to an end - they are a paradise of the farmyard, rather than something especially human.

Therefore Arthur needs also to bring civilization. The stories which use the historical Arthur tend  to place him in the incipient 'Dark Age' period after the Romans left England; and therefore can present Arthur as a Roman - who wishes to restore a complex, literate and unified society.

This provides a higher ideal, especially if it is linked to the still existing international civilization of the Eastern or 'Byzantine' Roman Empire - although I have only come across Charles Williams who used this plot device.

*

So, thus far Arthur can be regarded as aiming to restore the Roman Empire and establish international exchanges of goods and ideas; as well as provide peace prosperity, and justice at home.

But who is to say that any of these things are Good?

After all, that is what most of Western Europe and the Anglosphere has had for the past couple of generations and the result has been a society which lives for distraction and strategizes to destroy itself.

Indeed, the modern Westerner is likely to see the uncivilized, illiterate and violent 'Celtic' and Gothic tribes as more admirable (certainly more 'romantic' - ironic pun intended) than the Romans - more proud, free, spontaneous, artistic and spiritual. The Romans are admired rather than loved; and indeed are perhaps more often hated than admired - so a Roman-restoring King does not have much appeal.

*

The missing element is, of course, Christianity. In restoring Roman Civilization, and rejoining the Byzantine Empire, Arthur was bringing his people back into Christendom: and that is (or should be) the ultimate reason why he was a Good King.

When writers (like Malory or Tennyson or TH White) set their Arthur legends in Medieval times, instead of the Dark Ages,  this profound Christianizing rationale is not available to them - because Medieval England was already Christian; and the artificial and unsatisfactory plot device of The Grail Quest has to be introduced to provide a bolt-on spiritual dimension for Arthur.

Modern people tend to suppose the 'Dark' in the Dark Ages refers to lack of goods and technology, or something material; but of course it actually refers to spiritual darkness.

Modern people forget that the Roman England had been Christian for several generations before the legions departed; and that when Rome fell the capital of the Empire had long since moved to Constantinople. Unfortunately, this meant that Britain was cut-off from (the New) Rome, except by a long, complex and dangerous sea voyage - and the consequence was rapidly catastrophic: materially and spiritually. 

*

But for a (semi-) historical, Dark Age, Romanizing King Arthur; the motivation of re-Christianizing an England slipping back into paganism, and rejoining England to  the international Empire of Byzantine Christendom, would represent an ideal spiritual motivation; and one whose potential has barely yet been tapped.

Now, if only I was a storyteller...

*