I have recently been listening to live performances of Beethoven sonatas by some of the great pianists (Richter, Arrau, Gilels, Horowitz and the like) - and I was struck that they all make mistakes - every single one of them makes mistakes in every live performance of a piano sonata, and often quite a few.
(You have to know the pieces and be reasonably musical to notice them, but they are objectively present.)
Indeed, some of the recordings of famous pianists of the very earliest recording era - considered great virtuoso interpreters - are riddled with errors (by my recording-bred evaluations).
But I grew up on studio recordings, which seldom have any mistakes at all. Even when they are mediocre performances, and the execution in general is imperfect - they don't have 'bum notes' or that kind of obvious error, because these are edited-out during the recording process.
It seems that listening to recordings has been bad musical training for me - in some ways! Because I find that I am rather unreasonably distracted by these errors, and they somewhat impair my appreciation of what may be a truly inspired performance.
My zero-tolerance of errors is a result of my having been misled - because errors are a part of any real musical performance: the error-free performance of a Beethoven Piano Sonata is an artificial construction of the editor; not the achievement of any actual pianist.
My conclusion is that musical performance in the past was much more of a gestalt - an overall impression of the whole, or perhaps judgement was of the peaks of execution - and that there was not even a goal of being error-free.
To even be able to play-through something like a Beethoven piano sonata is something of a human miracle; to play it musically a rare achievement; and to play it with inspiration and flair - really to communicate its musicality via the interpreter... well that is a supreme accomplishment.
But to do all this and have zero errors is probably not human at all - but more akin to a Hollywood starlet whose face has been smoothed and body 'enhanced' by plastic surgery; or a middle aged leading man whose torso has been cut and sculpted by hormone supplements (the visual result tided up by careful make-up and lighting).
To demand error-free 'perfection' in real life is asking to be deceived, and to miss-out on the peaks of human accomplishment. All true greatness is sui generis (one-off); and in scaling the heights a genius inevitably breaks the rules, and slips and stumbles.
Aim high and you risk failure - indeed you will fail, sooner or later and probably sooner: demand freedom from errors and you can only get close by aiming low and trying to be accurate instead of great.
**
Note added: I would recommend, as a long term project, listening to the Beethoven Piano Sonatas. They are very various in style and mood, and so deep as to be inexhaustible. Perhaps I have listened to these, and to Bach's keyboard writing, more than any other music over the past 35 years. They are quite difficult to appreciate (and of course you won't like them all, or in all performances! - I personally find that much of the famous Hammerklavier is usually hard to enjoy); but my advice is just to keep playing them over and over. Sometimes they can be background music, which builds familiarity; sometimes you can listen with 100 percent attention. But I can state that the one thing you need not worry about, is getting 'fed-up' of them.
Sunday 18 October 2015
Saturday 17 October 2015
Checking the validity of knowledge derived from Imagination
Continuing from:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-function-of-imagination-understood.html
Imagination is an organ for gaining knowledge of the imperceptible world - of that part of reality which cannot be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted.
But of course Imagination can be wrong, that which is Imagined often is wrong.
On the other hand, so can the senses be wrong - there are hallucinations, illusions, misinterpretations, there are sensory deficits and neurological disorders where people cannot 'make sense' of their perceptions (e.g. agnosia).
So, senses are not always right, and must be validated; therefore the sometimes wrongness of imagination is not decisive so long as there is a way of validating Imagination.
If we consider how we validate our senses, this may tell us how we validate imagination. In brief, we validate our sensory inputs first in terms of coherence - does it make sense? And secondly in 'pragmatic' terms of living by the knowledge we get from sensory perceptions - and (in a very broad brush kind of way) deciding whether this 'works'.
For instance, if, by regarding our visual knowledge as true, we keep bumping into invisible things; then we may conclude there is something wrong with our vision.
The same kind of thing holds for Imagination: first we look for coherence (does what we Imagine make sense in light of other knowledge, including knowledge from memory?) If our basic approach to Life does not 'work' and we keep bumping into un-Imagined realities - then we may conclude there is something wrong with the way we value, or ignore, Imagination.
The proper question is: does it 'work' in Life, when we live on the basis of this Imagination-derived knowledge?
But what do we mean by 'work'? That word is doing a lot of work here!
The answer is that we ourselves have a say in deciding the criteria by which we judge something is working. The test of 'working' can be as shallow or deep as we choose to make it; and as specific and focused, or generalized and holistic.
Much Imagined knowledge works in some kind of short-term and very specific way (e.g. we don't instantly suffer agonies or die) - and on the other hand if we take a broader and deeper definition such that Life should be meaningful, purposeful and that we should feel to be in a real engagement with and relation to Life... then it is hard to link a specific piece of Imagination to such a very general and multi-causal outcome.
So it seems we can have a precise but rather useless specific evaluation; or a deep and real evaluation that is so imprecise that it can seldom or never be used to test any specific bit of Imagination.
And who says we should want more than just a very specific and short-term validation? Well, nobody 'says' it - but the point is: are we, personally, satisfied?
We can see this when somebody's Imagination is pathological - when somebody is clinically melancholic (endogenous depression) or else psychotically manic. (This has some equivalence to being blind or deaf.) The melancholic regards their Imagination as coherent and lives from it - thus he is wracked by guilt, demotivated, despairing, suicidal... The Imagination is dark, distorted, powerful.
The depressive regards the Imagination as true; but is the depressive contented with the outcome? Certainly not.
A harder case is the manic - who may be energetic, masterful, optimistic, indeed euphoric. Manics are usually contented with their state - most of the time; and from their perspective the problems are caused by 'other people'. This is like a form of sensory distortion - the only clue to the manic that he may be wrong, is that nobody else in the world agrees with him - he would have to trust some other person more than he trusted himself to escape this kind of delusion.
Something similar applies to people whose imaginations are disordered by paranoid (self-referential) and persecutory delusions - they are unhappy, perhaps terrified; but blame it on other people. However they are profoundly miserable - and again, if they could deeply trust someone else - instead of fearing everybody for their covert hostile motivations - that would provide the only possible escape.
Taking these into account, I think we can see that the judgement of whether Imagination 'works' depends upon our perceived environment, against-which we are evaluating our Imaginations. The question is: what is the Reality by which we judge whether something works?
And in this regard the most striking example is the world of Western modernity - in which 'reality' is the world of mass media and bureaucracy - and what is 'true' is that which conforms to these worlds.
This, I believe, is how the West has gotten itself into the situation of positively embracing and defending a world view in which the Imagination is seen as purely subjective - as a matter of psychotherapy at best and mere entertainment and distraction as the norm.
The fact that rejection of the objective validity of Imagination has led us to despair, demotivation and alienation is rendered irrelevant - because 'real life' is now the mass media and bureaucracy - and they tell us that this situation is true, inevitable, and indeed 'good'.
So, instead of judging Imagination by an ultimate good outcome in Life - we now (in essence) regard a good outcome in Life (i.e. a life that is meaningful, engaged, purposeful) as the product of delusion.
In sum, for Imagination to take its place as a viable form of knowledge requires that Life be grounded-in - judged in terms of - common sense and personal experience and close and trusting relationships.
That would complete the proper feed-back loop by which Imagination could be evaluated - and would again give us access to knowledge of the imperceptible aspects of reality.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-function-of-imagination-understood.html
Imagination is an organ for gaining knowledge of the imperceptible world - of that part of reality which cannot be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted.
But of course Imagination can be wrong, that which is Imagined often is wrong.
On the other hand, so can the senses be wrong - there are hallucinations, illusions, misinterpretations, there are sensory deficits and neurological disorders where people cannot 'make sense' of their perceptions (e.g. agnosia).
So, senses are not always right, and must be validated; therefore the sometimes wrongness of imagination is not decisive so long as there is a way of validating Imagination.
If we consider how we validate our senses, this may tell us how we validate imagination. In brief, we validate our sensory inputs first in terms of coherence - does it make sense? And secondly in 'pragmatic' terms of living by the knowledge we get from sensory perceptions - and (in a very broad brush kind of way) deciding whether this 'works'.
For instance, if, by regarding our visual knowledge as true, we keep bumping into invisible things; then we may conclude there is something wrong with our vision.
The same kind of thing holds for Imagination: first we look for coherence (does what we Imagine make sense in light of other knowledge, including knowledge from memory?) If our basic approach to Life does not 'work' and we keep bumping into un-Imagined realities - then we may conclude there is something wrong with the way we value, or ignore, Imagination.
The proper question is: does it 'work' in Life, when we live on the basis of this Imagination-derived knowledge?
But what do we mean by 'work'? That word is doing a lot of work here!
The answer is that we ourselves have a say in deciding the criteria by which we judge something is working. The test of 'working' can be as shallow or deep as we choose to make it; and as specific and focused, or generalized and holistic.
Much Imagined knowledge works in some kind of short-term and very specific way (e.g. we don't instantly suffer agonies or die) - and on the other hand if we take a broader and deeper definition such that Life should be meaningful, purposeful and that we should feel to be in a real engagement with and relation to Life... then it is hard to link a specific piece of Imagination to such a very general and multi-causal outcome.
So it seems we can have a precise but rather useless specific evaluation; or a deep and real evaluation that is so imprecise that it can seldom or never be used to test any specific bit of Imagination.
And who says we should want more than just a very specific and short-term validation? Well, nobody 'says' it - but the point is: are we, personally, satisfied?
We can see this when somebody's Imagination is pathological - when somebody is clinically melancholic (endogenous depression) or else psychotically manic. (This has some equivalence to being blind or deaf.) The melancholic regards their Imagination as coherent and lives from it - thus he is wracked by guilt, demotivated, despairing, suicidal... The Imagination is dark, distorted, powerful.
The depressive regards the Imagination as true; but is the depressive contented with the outcome? Certainly not.
A harder case is the manic - who may be energetic, masterful, optimistic, indeed euphoric. Manics are usually contented with their state - most of the time; and from their perspective the problems are caused by 'other people'. This is like a form of sensory distortion - the only clue to the manic that he may be wrong, is that nobody else in the world agrees with him - he would have to trust some other person more than he trusted himself to escape this kind of delusion.
Something similar applies to people whose imaginations are disordered by paranoid (self-referential) and persecutory delusions - they are unhappy, perhaps terrified; but blame it on other people. However they are profoundly miserable - and again, if they could deeply trust someone else - instead of fearing everybody for their covert hostile motivations - that would provide the only possible escape.
Taking these into account, I think we can see that the judgement of whether Imagination 'works' depends upon our perceived environment, against-which we are evaluating our Imaginations. The question is: what is the Reality by which we judge whether something works?
And in this regard the most striking example is the world of Western modernity - in which 'reality' is the world of mass media and bureaucracy - and what is 'true' is that which conforms to these worlds.
This, I believe, is how the West has gotten itself into the situation of positively embracing and defending a world view in which the Imagination is seen as purely subjective - as a matter of psychotherapy at best and mere entertainment and distraction as the norm.
The fact that rejection of the objective validity of Imagination has led us to despair, demotivation and alienation is rendered irrelevant - because 'real life' is now the mass media and bureaucracy - and they tell us that this situation is true, inevitable, and indeed 'good'.
So, instead of judging Imagination by an ultimate good outcome in Life - we now (in essence) regard a good outcome in Life (i.e. a life that is meaningful, engaged, purposeful) as the product of delusion.
In sum, for Imagination to take its place as a viable form of knowledge requires that Life be grounded-in - judged in terms of - common sense and personal experience and close and trusting relationships.
That would complete the proper feed-back loop by which Imagination could be evaluated - and would again give us access to knowledge of the imperceptible aspects of reality.
Friday 16 October 2015
Positive and Negative theology
I first came across the idea of a Positive (as well as a Negative) Christian theology in the writings of Charles Williams - he also called it Romantic Theology and the Via Affirmativa or the path of affirmation of images. The general idea was that Christian theology had typically been a path of negation, denial, asceticism, celibacy - but that there was also a (neglected) path focused on romantic love, art and poetry, richness of imagery etc. Williams regarded these as equal alternatives.
But it is hard to see how they could be equal, since they are so different - alternatives, yes, but in real life one or other of such vastly different paths is surely to be preferred; one or another must become the focus of societal aspiration and organization - one cannot aim both at being a celibate, solitary ascetic hermit or monk; and also at being a husband and father engaged with 'the world'.
Charles Williams knew (so far as I can find) nothing about Mormonism - and he would likely have found it to be boring or unpleasant if he had known anything - but Mormonism has for a long time been advocating and practicing something pretty close to Positive Theology: a Christian 'way' focused on marriage, family and engagement; and with no tradition of monasticism or the eremitic (reclusive) life.
Fundamentally I believe there are very different aspects of human psychology at work behind the positive and negative paths. The negative path aims at the relief of suffering, and the positive path at making life more fulfilling.
To feel the desire for the Christian negative path seems to me a desire to escape the sufferings of this world and live, instead, in a state of static bliss - absorbed in a permanent communion with God (who is, in essence, an abstract entity about which nothing positive may be asserted): doing nothing, simply being.
In the negative path, Love is seen as a sameness, a fusion of wills, the loss of barriers and all strangeness.
And there is no sex - indeed there are no sexes: maleness and femaleness are lost.
To desire the positive path is to wish that the best things in life be amplified and sustained - it also stems from the concern that static bliss would (sooner or later) become boring; and the conviction that the only thing which is not, ultimately, boring is actual, real, other-persons.
The dyadic goal of Mormon salvation can be seen in this light - the ultimate bliss is not the state of an individual soul in permanent communion with God, it is a man and woman in a permanent and divine Loving relationship at the centre of a network of loving relationships including God the Father and Jesus Christ (who are solid persons).
The difference between this version of the positive ideal and the negative ideal is profound - because in a permanent and eternal dyadic and sexual relationship between husband and wife, there would not be a desire for fusion and sameness but rather a delight in fundamental and complementary difference.
Sexual difference, and sexuality, both entail difference - a you and a me: not communion nor fusion nor loss of self nor consciousness. Instead a perpetual delight that 'we' are not the same, but 'fit together'. There needs to be the perpetual possibility of being delight-fully surprised; which means that there can never be full communion. Indeed if communion is full, it renders void the separateness and necessity of the dyad.
If a husband and wife become one, they stop being husband and wife.
There is indeed a desire for surprise, for open-ended possibilities. Once static bliss is put aside as a goal; it becomes essential that eternal life be interesting, rewarding, creative and (in some sense) progressive or evolutionary - changing, growing, developing without end-point or end. Otherwise - if life were static, or merely cyclical - it would become predictable and boring, and we would prefer a state of blissful loss of self.
It seems to me that Heaven must either be mostly like either the Negative or Positive ideal and that God would have a preference between these goals for Man - but I do not see why Heaven would have to be exclusively the one or the other.
So I see the Positive Way as primary, and God's first wish for us, and the basis upon which eternal life and Heaven are organized. But I see the Negative Way as an option available (on Earth and in Heaven) to those who - more than anything - wish to escape from suffering and hope to lose-them-selves in blissful communion with the divine.
Note added: Charles Williams descriptions of Positive Theology are at least difficult to understand, and probably fundamentally incoherent - this is because Positive Theology is metaphysically Pluralist - or at least implies this; while Charles Williams was very much a Monist who sought always to reduce apparent dichotomies (e.g. Good and evil) to unity.
If relationship is an ultimate goal and possibility, then there must be at least two irreducible entities to have the relationship - because if Man and Woman can be reduced to one, and Man with God can be reduced to one, then reality is One; and Positive Theology merely an indirect and off-route means to the same end as that which Negative Theology aims-at directly: viz oneness.
So Mormons - as pluralists - are the true Romantic theologians; and Charles Williams is fundamentally and ineradicably confused!
But it is hard to see how they could be equal, since they are so different - alternatives, yes, but in real life one or other of such vastly different paths is surely to be preferred; one or another must become the focus of societal aspiration and organization - one cannot aim both at being a celibate, solitary ascetic hermit or monk; and also at being a husband and father engaged with 'the world'.
Charles Williams knew (so far as I can find) nothing about Mormonism - and he would likely have found it to be boring or unpleasant if he had known anything - but Mormonism has for a long time been advocating and practicing something pretty close to Positive Theology: a Christian 'way' focused on marriage, family and engagement; and with no tradition of monasticism or the eremitic (reclusive) life.
Fundamentally I believe there are very different aspects of human psychology at work behind the positive and negative paths. The negative path aims at the relief of suffering, and the positive path at making life more fulfilling.
To feel the desire for the Christian negative path seems to me a desire to escape the sufferings of this world and live, instead, in a state of static bliss - absorbed in a permanent communion with God (who is, in essence, an abstract entity about which nothing positive may be asserted): doing nothing, simply being.
In the negative path, Love is seen as a sameness, a fusion of wills, the loss of barriers and all strangeness.
And there is no sex - indeed there are no sexes: maleness and femaleness are lost.
To desire the positive path is to wish that the best things in life be amplified and sustained - it also stems from the concern that static bliss would (sooner or later) become boring; and the conviction that the only thing which is not, ultimately, boring is actual, real, other-persons.
The dyadic goal of Mormon salvation can be seen in this light - the ultimate bliss is not the state of an individual soul in permanent communion with God, it is a man and woman in a permanent and divine Loving relationship at the centre of a network of loving relationships including God the Father and Jesus Christ (who are solid persons).
The difference between this version of the positive ideal and the negative ideal is profound - because in a permanent and eternal dyadic and sexual relationship between husband and wife, there would not be a desire for fusion and sameness but rather a delight in fundamental and complementary difference.
Sexual difference, and sexuality, both entail difference - a you and a me: not communion nor fusion nor loss of self nor consciousness. Instead a perpetual delight that 'we' are not the same, but 'fit together'. There needs to be the perpetual possibility of being delight-fully surprised; which means that there can never be full communion. Indeed if communion is full, it renders void the separateness and necessity of the dyad.
If a husband and wife become one, they stop being husband and wife.
There is indeed a desire for surprise, for open-ended possibilities. Once static bliss is put aside as a goal; it becomes essential that eternal life be interesting, rewarding, creative and (in some sense) progressive or evolutionary - changing, growing, developing without end-point or end. Otherwise - if life were static, or merely cyclical - it would become predictable and boring, and we would prefer a state of blissful loss of self.
It seems to me that Heaven must either be mostly like either the Negative or Positive ideal and that God would have a preference between these goals for Man - but I do not see why Heaven would have to be exclusively the one or the other.
So I see the Positive Way as primary, and God's first wish for us, and the basis upon which eternal life and Heaven are organized. But I see the Negative Way as an option available (on Earth and in Heaven) to those who - more than anything - wish to escape from suffering and hope to lose-them-selves in blissful communion with the divine.
Note added: Charles Williams descriptions of Positive Theology are at least difficult to understand, and probably fundamentally incoherent - this is because Positive Theology is metaphysically Pluralist - or at least implies this; while Charles Williams was very much a Monist who sought always to reduce apparent dichotomies (e.g. Good and evil) to unity.
If relationship is an ultimate goal and possibility, then there must be at least two irreducible entities to have the relationship - because if Man and Woman can be reduced to one, and Man with God can be reduced to one, then reality is One; and Positive Theology merely an indirect and off-route means to the same end as that which Negative Theology aims-at directly: viz oneness.
So Mormons - as pluralists - are the true Romantic theologians; and Charles Williams is fundamentally and ineradicably confused!
Thursday 15 October 2015
The function of Imagination understood - the faculty providing knowledge of imperceptible reality
I have had a breakthrough in my understanding of the Imagination - which came to me when reading a passage from Jeremy Naydler's essay Ancient Egypt and modern esotericism - from the book The Future of the Ancient World (2009). I now feel I understand the function of Imagination.
Excerpted:
The cosmic being who presided over Ra's diurnal voyage across the sky was the heavenly goddess Nut. It was she who gave birth to Ra each morning, and who received him into herself again in the evening.
Each evening, when the sun god Ra entered her interior realm, he entered the secret and wholly invisible world that the Egyptians called the Dwat [usually spelled Duat]. The Dwat was conceived as being on the other side of the stars that we see when we look up at night. The stars were imagined as being on the flesh of the goddess Nut, and the Dwat was in some sense behind or within the world of which the stars demarcated the outermost boundary.
All creatures were believed to return to the Dwat at the end of their lives, and wer born from it again, just as the sun God was born from the Dwat each morning.
Knowledge of the interior world of the Dwat was considered by the Egyptians to be the most important, most profound knowledge, for people living on Earth to acquire. The Dwat was not only the realm of the dead, but the realm of the gods and spirits, and furthermore the realm from which all living things emerge. All life issues from the Dwat.
To know this mysterious interior world was to become truly wise, because then one would know both sides of existence - the invisible along with the visible.
The Egyptians lived with an awareness of a dimension of reality that is best described by the term 'Imaginal'. It is a nonphysical yet objective reality that we become aware of through the human faculty of Imagination.
In other words, the reason that Men posses the faculty of Imagination, why it is built-into us, is so that we may know imperceptible reality.
That is what Imagination is for.
So, Man knows perceptible reality via his perception - the senses of vision, hearing, smell touch and taste - that is why we are born with eyes, ears, noses, tongues and skin receptors; and Man knows the imperceptible reality via the faculty of Imagination: that is why we are born with the faculty of Imagination.
Of course the Imagination can err - but so can the senses. But to deny the reality of Imagination as a source of knowledge - of real, objective, necessary knowledge - is akin to denying the reality of everything we get from our senses.
Yet, of course, that is what mainstream modern public discourse does assume - that Imagination is a mixture of hallucinations and refers to nothing real. We are in the position of someone who assumes that everything he sees, hears, tastes, touches and feels is a hallucination.
Which neatly explains the strange psychoticism of our Imagination-denying society - its gross and yet systematically un-noticed pathology.
It is is a difference which goes far to explain why Ancient Egypt was so adaptive as to persist for 3,000 years, why The West will not reach 300.
Excerpted:
The cosmic being who presided over Ra's diurnal voyage across the sky was the heavenly goddess Nut. It was she who gave birth to Ra each morning, and who received him into herself again in the evening.
Each evening, when the sun god Ra entered her interior realm, he entered the secret and wholly invisible world that the Egyptians called the Dwat [usually spelled Duat]. The Dwat was conceived as being on the other side of the stars that we see when we look up at night. The stars were imagined as being on the flesh of the goddess Nut, and the Dwat was in some sense behind or within the world of which the stars demarcated the outermost boundary.
All creatures were believed to return to the Dwat at the end of their lives, and wer born from it again, just as the sun God was born from the Dwat each morning.
Knowledge of the interior world of the Dwat was considered by the Egyptians to be the most important, most profound knowledge, for people living on Earth to acquire. The Dwat was not only the realm of the dead, but the realm of the gods and spirits, and furthermore the realm from which all living things emerge. All life issues from the Dwat.
To know this mysterious interior world was to become truly wise, because then one would know both sides of existence - the invisible along with the visible.
The Egyptians lived with an awareness of a dimension of reality that is best described by the term 'Imaginal'. It is a nonphysical yet objective reality that we become aware of through the human faculty of Imagination.
In other words, the reason that Men posses the faculty of Imagination, why it is built-into us, is so that we may know imperceptible reality.
That is what Imagination is for.
So, Man knows perceptible reality via his perception - the senses of vision, hearing, smell touch and taste - that is why we are born with eyes, ears, noses, tongues and skin receptors; and Man knows the imperceptible reality via the faculty of Imagination: that is why we are born with the faculty of Imagination.
Of course the Imagination can err - but so can the senses. But to deny the reality of Imagination as a source of knowledge - of real, objective, necessary knowledge - is akin to denying the reality of everything we get from our senses.
Yet, of course, that is what mainstream modern public discourse does assume - that Imagination is a mixture of hallucinations and refers to nothing real. We are in the position of someone who assumes that everything he sees, hears, tastes, touches and feels is a hallucination.
Which neatly explains the strange psychoticism of our Imagination-denying society - its gross and yet systematically un-noticed pathology.
It is is a difference which goes far to explain why Ancient Egypt was so adaptive as to persist for 3,000 years, why The West will not reach 300.
The shaving ritual
Shaving has taken-up a substantial chunk of my life, but on the whole it is a positive experience - a ritual.
As such, it has very specific ritual equipment.
- Badger bristle brush
- Pears transparent soap
- Erasmic shaving Soap
- Bic twin bladed disposable safety razor (for sensitive skin)
- Johnson's Baby Lotion
...Yes, it is all rather let-down by the plastic disposable razor; but these are simply the best that money can buy - for my needs (as well as being unmatched value for money). Anything else cuts my face.
(I would also note that the late great broadcaster Alistair Cooke was a user of Bic disposables.)
Bowl of warm water - chuck in the brush and razor. Wet face, then rub it with the Pears soap. Take brush and rub brush first onto Pears soap, and then give it a good frothing in the bowl of Erasmic shaving soap. Use brush to apply creamy froth to face, and massage into face with brush ad lib. Shave. Rinse. Dry. Apply Johnson's Baby Lotion.
The strangest aspect is the use of two soaps - all I can say is that this combination results in the creamiest and most effectively lubricating type of froth.
Badger bristle is acknowledged to be the best - my brushes were very expensive (both gifts) and are about twenty-plus years old. My understanding is that the contributing badger died of natural causes after a happy life.
Note: If you mess-up and nick yourself under the ear, so that you have one of those rapid-flow cuts - then I recommend dry it then instantly applying a dab of Driclor - which seals it with an invisible skin; as previously described:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/driclor-is-effective-treatment-for.html
Wednesday 14 October 2015
Spirituality hijacked by sexuality - the need for goals as well as rules
I am recurrently struck by the extent to which spiritual movements are so often subverted, hijacked and destroyed by sexuality.
The clearest example is the mid nineteen 'hippie' counter-culture, which was supposed to be about a kind of spiritual revolution, including many Eastern religious elements, a critique of materialism, the desire for meaning and an escape from alienation, the formation of a more organic and ethical society and so on... but which very rapidly became primarily about the sexual revolution and the other stuff just a camouflage... a tool for seduction, as it were.
But this scenario has been played in many times and places over the past couple of hundred years - a socio-political movement starts out as spiritual, but ends up as sexual. (Indeed, nowadays, almost everything ends-up as being 'about' sex and the sexual revolution.)
Sexual takeover does seem to be a highly significant problem - presumably because it s not just a powerful instinct for humans, but something which spontaneously disguises itself, excuses itself, and operates at many levels.
In fact, sex is nearly all 'in the head' - a sexualized atmosphere may dominate in a person, a group even an institution with only a tiny proportion of actual sex, or none at all: it is nearly-all about anticipation, fantasy and memory. And sexuality is also far more strategic than is commonly acknowledged - with seducers engaging in detailed long-term planning and attempted manipulation.
(The secret that sexuality as a goal of life simply does not work, that sex does not ever or even remotely yield what it 'promises', makes the whole thing a bad joke; and humanity a bunch of existentially pitiful fools.)
Altogether, sexuality is a formidable foe - not to be underestimated! And real religions do not underestimate it; but always have in place some kind of explicit goals and rules.
Both goals and rules are needed; although rules get most of the attention. It is as if, when goals are lacking, then sexuality is the next-most-powerful thing, and will expand to take the place of goals.
So celibacy is one goals which many religions have put into place as a way of controlling sexuality - indeed for many religions celibacy is the highest goal, and the religions regard sex as a failure. This would seem extraordinary and paradoxical, except that sexuality is so powerful that even when it is all-but prohibited and at least strongly discouraged, enough still goes-on to perpetuate the group. However, there are obvious problems with holding celibacy as the ideal.
But marriage (in various forms) with an orientation to family is the main way in which the usurping tendency of sexuality is controlled, and indeed beaten, by religion.
Given this fact, it is surprising to me that marriage has so seldom been recognized as the highest spiritual aspiration - higher than celibacy. But when this happens, the advantages seem obvious.
Marriage with family is the goal, and there are also the rules. Religious people are used-to insisting on rules about sex, but without a goal then rules are merely negative: and a life based around a series of 'thou shalt not" statements is grossly incomplete, inorganic, maimed... and this fact has been noticed, exposed and exploited to the hilt by those who oppose religion.
Among the modern middle classes it is usual to put forward 'a career' as the proper goal of life; but we know from experience that this cannot work - the goal of a career is a pitifully feeble thing to pit against human sexuality! For the obvious reason that a career is a grossly inadequate and impoverished life goal - it simply cannot and does not do the job.
We need to have marriage as the goal, for individuals, and sustained by culture. From this perspective; I find it highly significant that in the modern West it is at best regarded as offensive to propose marriage with family as the proper and best goal of life - this is increasingly taboo; and indeed (in the UK, at least) it is illegal in some situations.
But the spiritual goal of marriage and family is what is needed; it is what is absolutely necessary for any effective and resilient spirituality in modern conditions: and nothing less will suffice.
The clearest example is the mid nineteen 'hippie' counter-culture, which was supposed to be about a kind of spiritual revolution, including many Eastern religious elements, a critique of materialism, the desire for meaning and an escape from alienation, the formation of a more organic and ethical society and so on... but which very rapidly became primarily about the sexual revolution and the other stuff just a camouflage... a tool for seduction, as it were.
But this scenario has been played in many times and places over the past couple of hundred years - a socio-political movement starts out as spiritual, but ends up as sexual. (Indeed, nowadays, almost everything ends-up as being 'about' sex and the sexual revolution.)
Sexual takeover does seem to be a highly significant problem - presumably because it s not just a powerful instinct for humans, but something which spontaneously disguises itself, excuses itself, and operates at many levels.
In fact, sex is nearly all 'in the head' - a sexualized atmosphere may dominate in a person, a group even an institution with only a tiny proportion of actual sex, or none at all: it is nearly-all about anticipation, fantasy and memory. And sexuality is also far more strategic than is commonly acknowledged - with seducers engaging in detailed long-term planning and attempted manipulation.
(The secret that sexuality as a goal of life simply does not work, that sex does not ever or even remotely yield what it 'promises', makes the whole thing a bad joke; and humanity a bunch of existentially pitiful fools.)
Altogether, sexuality is a formidable foe - not to be underestimated! And real religions do not underestimate it; but always have in place some kind of explicit goals and rules.
Both goals and rules are needed; although rules get most of the attention. It is as if, when goals are lacking, then sexuality is the next-most-powerful thing, and will expand to take the place of goals.
So celibacy is one goals which many religions have put into place as a way of controlling sexuality - indeed for many religions celibacy is the highest goal, and the religions regard sex as a failure. This would seem extraordinary and paradoxical, except that sexuality is so powerful that even when it is all-but prohibited and at least strongly discouraged, enough still goes-on to perpetuate the group. However, there are obvious problems with holding celibacy as the ideal.
But marriage (in various forms) with an orientation to family is the main way in which the usurping tendency of sexuality is controlled, and indeed beaten, by religion.
Given this fact, it is surprising to me that marriage has so seldom been recognized as the highest spiritual aspiration - higher than celibacy. But when this happens, the advantages seem obvious.
Marriage with family is the goal, and there are also the rules. Religious people are used-to insisting on rules about sex, but without a goal then rules are merely negative: and a life based around a series of 'thou shalt not" statements is grossly incomplete, inorganic, maimed... and this fact has been noticed, exposed and exploited to the hilt by those who oppose religion.
Among the modern middle classes it is usual to put forward 'a career' as the proper goal of life; but we know from experience that this cannot work - the goal of a career is a pitifully feeble thing to pit against human sexuality! For the obvious reason that a career is a grossly inadequate and impoverished life goal - it simply cannot and does not do the job.
We need to have marriage as the goal, for individuals, and sustained by culture. From this perspective; I find it highly significant that in the modern West it is at best regarded as offensive to propose marriage with family as the proper and best goal of life - this is increasingly taboo; and indeed (in the UK, at least) it is illegal in some situations.
But the spiritual goal of marriage and family is what is needed; it is what is absolutely necessary for any effective and resilient spirituality in modern conditions: and nothing less will suffice.
Tuesday 13 October 2015
The two main reasons why 'diversity' is a bad thing
1. Diversity is never what the organization is about.
The organization is about Christianity, or education, science, military effectiveness or something like that: some function.
So a policy of diversity in-principle weakens functionality: always.
2. Diversity is a blank cheque for destruction.
Even in theory 'representativeness' is impossible because there are an open-ended number of ways in which representativeness can be demanded, and of situations in which it can be demanded.
Achieving the impossible is... impossible.
Actual real-life examples of allegedly-desirable diverse categories that 'ought' to be represented include: race (including sub-races) and skin colour (which somewhat cuts-across defined races); religion - and rival/ hostile denominations within religions, and types of no-religion; nationality and also the regions within nations; language use; immigration/ migration status; political views; age (old and young); sex - initially men and women but now now including inter sex and self-defined gender; sexual preferences between and within sexes (and there are a lot of these)...
Diversity requires first representation; then proportionate representation.
Even mere representation is impossible to attain. Simple representation of all diversity is mathematically impossible in almost all relevant situations.
But once proportionate representation rears its head - which it always does - then the mathematical impossibility of achieving proportionate representation at all significant levels and in all segments of society becomes even more obvious and less deniable. Just attempting to achieve it will inevitably be destructive.
Diversity demand representativeness, but does not limit representativeness. There are ever-more categories which are demanded representation leading onto proportionate representation. Further, diversity is continually abolishing its own definition of progress by continually introducing new categories - so the scale of 'injustice' remains fresh and urgent; justice remains ever out-of-reach.
All this is obvious; and if it wasn't obvious to dumb or naive people twenty-five years ago it is obvious now.
Therefore the proponents of diversity are deliberately and strategically destructive.
The advocates of diversity do not, not, NOT have 'good intentions' - insofar as they demand diversity for organizations and nations which have some good to their functionality - then their intentions are evil; because they are demanding the destruction of the organization by a principle which will displace its proper goals and which is impossible to achieve.
Diversity is not just a nice idea which can be abused, as most conservatives apparently suppose: it is a fundamentally wicked idea - it is an idea whose very principles are cancerously fatal.
We need to recognize the simple truth that the supposed 'ethical principle' of diversity is evil: root and branch - and not by accident, but by calculation.
Therefore, we should never acknowledge that 'diversity' is a desirable goal, we should never approve even just a little local bit of 'diversity' to be good, welcome or nice; because this is opening the door to evil, and asking it to enter.
Diversity is neither desirable, nor a goal.
**
The organization is about Christianity, or education, science, military effectiveness or something like that: some function.
So a policy of diversity in-principle weakens functionality: always.
2. Diversity is a blank cheque for destruction.
Even in theory 'representativeness' is impossible because there are an open-ended number of ways in which representativeness can be demanded, and of situations in which it can be demanded.
Achieving the impossible is... impossible.
Actual real-life examples of allegedly-desirable diverse categories that 'ought' to be represented include: race (including sub-races) and skin colour (which somewhat cuts-across defined races); religion - and rival/ hostile denominations within religions, and types of no-religion; nationality and also the regions within nations; language use; immigration/ migration status; political views; age (old and young); sex - initially men and women but now now including inter sex and self-defined gender; sexual preferences between and within sexes (and there are a lot of these)...
Diversity requires first representation; then proportionate representation.
Even mere representation is impossible to attain. Simple representation of all diversity is mathematically impossible in almost all relevant situations.
But once proportionate representation rears its head - which it always does - then the mathematical impossibility of achieving proportionate representation at all significant levels and in all segments of society becomes even more obvious and less deniable. Just attempting to achieve it will inevitably be destructive.
Diversity demand representativeness, but does not limit representativeness. There are ever-more categories which are demanded representation leading onto proportionate representation. Further, diversity is continually abolishing its own definition of progress by continually introducing new categories - so the scale of 'injustice' remains fresh and urgent; justice remains ever out-of-reach.
All this is obvious; and if it wasn't obvious to dumb or naive people twenty-five years ago it is obvious now.
Therefore the proponents of diversity are deliberately and strategically destructive.
The advocates of diversity do not, not, NOT have 'good intentions' - insofar as they demand diversity for organizations and nations which have some good to their functionality - then their intentions are evil; because they are demanding the destruction of the organization by a principle which will displace its proper goals and which is impossible to achieve.
Diversity is not just a nice idea which can be abused, as most conservatives apparently suppose: it is a fundamentally wicked idea - it is an idea whose very principles are cancerously fatal.
We need to recognize the simple truth that the supposed 'ethical principle' of diversity is evil: root and branch - and not by accident, but by calculation.
Therefore, we should never acknowledge that 'diversity' is a desirable goal, we should never approve even just a little local bit of 'diversity' to be good, welcome or nice; because this is opening the door to evil, and asking it to enter.
Diversity is neither desirable, nor a goal.
**
Note
added:
Diversity
is insatiable: Diversity is Ungoliant - the primal she-spider of
Tolkien's Silmarillion.
Diversity lusts
to consume all that lives, grows and is Good. But its hunger is never assuaged,
not in the slightest degree. If we feed Diversity, it grows in strength but is
never satisfied.
Ultimately
Diversity would consume the world - and then, when nothing else was left to
eat, consume itself.
Monday 12 October 2015
Steeleye Span - The Weaver and the Factory Maid
From Steeleye Span - electric folk music of the early 1970s at its wonderful best.
The first part is a composite Luddite social history/ protest ballad about the impact of factories on the lives of handloom weavers, and of love among the weavers - and remarkable for its fiddle 'obbligato' and top-notch singing (and word-pointing), also an astonishing and irregular time signature and syncopation using electric guitars, bass and dulcimer.
(There was a vogue for unconventional time signatures in early 70s rock - the most famous is perhaps the 5/4 rhythm used in Jethro Tull's Living in the Past.)
The second part (starting at 4:25) is a lament for the old days, done by Maddy Prior as a multi-track unaccompanied harmonization - And if you can concentrate and listen to this in stereo, without your eyes welling and neck hairs prickling... well, you must have a heart of stone or a tin ear, or both!
Sunday 11 October 2015
Thinking about thinking - how do *you* do it?
One thing I have learned from asking people about their own experience of thinking is that most people have never thought about it - and quite a few seem unable to think about it.
Many people find it very difficult/impossible to introspect, that is, to look within themselves - their own thinking is experienced as a 'black box' process - they feed things into the box, things come out - but they have no idea what goes on inside the box (and perhaps very little interest).
But a couple of interesting answers were:
1. That thinking about a topic was like selecting a video and replaying it - experiencing pictures and sound; and
2. That thinking was like looking-up text - being in a library and reading passages - thinking was primarily in words, and words were then experienced as pictures and sounds
Neither of these experiences much resemble my own - which is neither visual nor auditory, but rather that of trying to grasp simple concepts, a process of 'feeling' around in a medium, or discarding inessentials... trying to get things so simple that I can grasp them whole... Probably something more tactile than visual or auditory.
I would be interested to hear about other people's experiences of thinking, described in this kind of metaphorical way?...
Many people find it very difficult/impossible to introspect, that is, to look within themselves - their own thinking is experienced as a 'black box' process - they feed things into the box, things come out - but they have no idea what goes on inside the box (and perhaps very little interest).
But a couple of interesting answers were:
1. That thinking about a topic was like selecting a video and replaying it - experiencing pictures and sound; and
2. That thinking was like looking-up text - being in a library and reading passages - thinking was primarily in words, and words were then experienced as pictures and sounds
Neither of these experiences much resemble my own - which is neither visual nor auditory, but rather that of trying to grasp simple concepts, a process of 'feeling' around in a medium, or discarding inessentials... trying to get things so simple that I can grasp them whole... Probably something more tactile than visual or auditory.
I would be interested to hear about other people's experiences of thinking, described in this kind of metaphorical way?...
Saturday 10 October 2015
An eyewitness account of the life and teaching of Jesus - John's gospel
Over a period of two half days, I mas moved to read the bulk of the middle of John's Gospel - that Book being my favourite part of the Bible - and I found myself to be in an unusually receptive mood for scripture, such that several things seemed clear for the first time.
For those who do not know it, John's Gospel was written by Jesus's disciple, who was the most spiritually advanced of the disciples, and the only one who remained loyal to Jesus after his arrest and who was present at the crucifixion - where he was given the care of Mary, the Mother of Christ.
John's Gospel it is the only direct, detailed eye witness account of the life of Jesus - although such accounts are embedded elsewhere the New Testament. (Furthermore, the disciple John is - so the end of this Gospel tells us - still alive and at work.)
As an eye-witness account there are many vivid, apparently arbitrary details which are included (one feels) because they were remembered vividly and in case they might be important. Jesus writing in the dust during the parable of 'the woman taken in adultery' is just one example.
Among all of scripture, John's Gospel therefore has immense and distinctive authority.
The take-home message of this Gospel is perhaps the most wonder-full, positive and optimistic statement of the human condition that has ever been. Such is the simplicity, that to attempt summary leads to an impression of platitudinous bathos.
But importantly we are instructed to be of good cheer and not to worry, to be loving - especially among Christians, to be engaged in the world, but indifferent to the world's opinion.
In sum, John's Gospel teaches us what it should be like to 'believe on' Christ; and if our lives are not like this, then we are not living it. In particular, if we are filled with angst and fear of the future, and are focused on what 'the world' thinks and does - then we are (so far) missing the point.
We are also told firmly that - because of the example and teaching of Christ and the continued witness of the Holy Ghost - we know everything we need to know: we know the nature of God, and that we share in that nature; we know that both the Son and the Father regard us like beloved friends, and not as servants or vassals; we know what we should do and how we should be; and we know that there is ultimately nothing stopping us doing everything necessary now.
For those who do not know it, John's Gospel was written by Jesus's disciple, who was the most spiritually advanced of the disciples, and the only one who remained loyal to Jesus after his arrest and who was present at the crucifixion - where he was given the care of Mary, the Mother of Christ.
John's Gospel it is the only direct, detailed eye witness account of the life of Jesus - although such accounts are embedded elsewhere the New Testament. (Furthermore, the disciple John is - so the end of this Gospel tells us - still alive and at work.)
Among all of scripture, John's Gospel therefore has immense and distinctive authority.
The take-home message of this Gospel is perhaps the most wonder-full, positive and optimistic statement of the human condition that has ever been. Such is the simplicity, that to attempt summary leads to an impression of platitudinous bathos.
But importantly we are instructed to be of good cheer and not to worry, to be loving - especially among Christians, to be engaged in the world, but indifferent to the world's opinion.
In sum, John's Gospel teaches us what it should be like to 'believe on' Christ; and if our lives are not like this, then we are not living it. In particular, if we are filled with angst and fear of the future, and are focused on what 'the world' thinks and does - then we are (so far) missing the point.
We are also told firmly that - because of the example and teaching of Christ and the continued witness of the Holy Ghost - we know everything we need to know: we know the nature of God, and that we share in that nature; we know that both the Son and the Father regard us like beloved friends, and not as servants or vassals; we know what we should do and how we should be; and we know that there is ultimately nothing stopping us doing everything necessary now.
Thursday 8 October 2015
Veneration, homage, devotion are like nutriment to the soul (from Rudolf Steiner)
Whoever seeks higher knowledge must create it for himself. He
must instil it into his soul. It cannot be done by study; it can only be done
through life.
Whoever, therefore, wishes to become a student of higher knowledge must assiduously cultivate this inner life of devotion. Everywhere in his environment and his experiences he must seek motives of admiration and homage.
If I meet a man and blame him for his shortcomings, I rob myself of power to attain higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I gather such power. The student must continually be intent upon following this advice…
Man has it in his power to perfect himself and, in time, completely to transform himself. But this transformation must take place in his innermost self, in his thought-life. It is not enough that I show respect only in my outward bearing; I must have this respect in my thoughts.
The student must begin by absorbing this devotion into this thought-life. He must be wary of thoughts of disrespect, of adverse criticism, existing in his consciousness, and he must endeavour straightaway to cultivate thoughts of devotion…
It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do with cognition. This is due to the fact that we are inclined to set cognition aside as a faculty by itself — one that stands in no relation to what otherwise occurs in the soul. In so thinking we do not bear in mind that it is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition; and feelings are for the soul what food is for the body.
If we give the body stones in place of bread, its activity will cease. It is the same with the soul.
Veneration, homage, devotion are like nutriment making it healthy and strong, especially strong for the activity of cognition. Disrespect, antipathy, underestimation of what deserves recognition, all exert a paralyzing and withering effect on this faculty of cognition.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/English/RSPC1947/GA010_c01.html#sthash.KsQ5eIsM.dpuf
Whoever, therefore, wishes to become a student of higher knowledge must assiduously cultivate this inner life of devotion. Everywhere in his environment and his experiences he must seek motives of admiration and homage.
If I meet a man and blame him for his shortcomings, I rob myself of power to attain higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I gather such power. The student must continually be intent upon following this advice…
Man has it in his power to perfect himself and, in time, completely to transform himself. But this transformation must take place in his innermost self, in his thought-life. It is not enough that I show respect only in my outward bearing; I must have this respect in my thoughts.
The student must begin by absorbing this devotion into this thought-life. He must be wary of thoughts of disrespect, of adverse criticism, existing in his consciousness, and he must endeavour straightaway to cultivate thoughts of devotion…
It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do with cognition. This is due to the fact that we are inclined to set cognition aside as a faculty by itself — one that stands in no relation to what otherwise occurs in the soul. In so thinking we do not bear in mind that it is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition; and feelings are for the soul what food is for the body.
If we give the body stones in place of bread, its activity will cease. It is the same with the soul.
Veneration, homage, devotion are like nutriment making it healthy and strong, especially strong for the activity of cognition. Disrespect, antipathy, underestimation of what deserves recognition, all exert a paralyzing and withering effect on this faculty of cognition.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/English/RSPC1947/GA010_c01.html#sthash.KsQ5eIsM.dpuf
Understanding Rudolf Steiner's remarkable 1918 prophecy of the twenty-first century
If it is accepted that Rudolf Steiner was inspired in the remarkably exact and accurate prophecy of 1918 about which I posted recently
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/rudolf-steiners-remarkable-prophecy-of.html
Then it is worth thinking for a while about the causes.
I will attempt here to explain what I think Steiner was saying, in some mere generic version of his frame of understanding - rather than my own beliefs; and I think this exercise may be worthwhile given the validity of his prophecy.
To summarize (as I understand it); Steiner was arguing from a belief that humanity is supposed to move towards a new kind of consciousness - that is a new relationship between Man and the world - one which combined the 'immersive' awareness of spiritual realities that characterized the most ancient human societies (think about the shamans of hunter gatherers), with the alert self-consciousness of more recent eras (think about an archetypical scientist skeptic).
One intended mechanism for this evolution was the work of angels operating on what Steiner terms the Astral body - which I understand to mean the alert, awake consciousness... I think this means that we are supposed to know, explicitly, about this change of consciousness and to choose it.
The spiritual problems of our day are said to derive from the fact that instead we consciously fight, deny, and reject spiritual evolution; and instead of working on the Astral body, the angels are forced to work upon us while we sleep - and cannot resist them.
But this means that the angels are forced to work on us at an unconscious, inexplicit, instinctive level - they 'show us' (I presume he means in dreams, mostly un-recalled but still having an effect) images and simple ideas about the future goals.
I think Steiner is saying that the deep problems of our day derive from unspiritual attempts to enact spiritual goals - so that we actually enact in modern unspiritual society something like a hideous parody of spiritual goals.
The spiritual gaols which angels are attempting to communicate are threefold:
1. Brotherhood of Man - a sense of direct empathic communication between all people.
2. Divinity of Man - a direct appreciation of the divinity of all Men which will render formal religious practice unnecessary because all of life will then become a sacrament.
3. Final Participation - the change in consciousness whereby Man will be able to relate with spiritual realities through alert, conscious thought.
The effects of consciously rejecting this step includes, according to Steiner, the threefold consequences of disordered sexuality, the deployment of medical knowledge to harm and manipulate, and the abuse of powerful physical forces.
How do we get from the spiritual goals to the consequences? My understanding is that what happens is that good instincts are perverted by a culture which is spirit-denying.
So, for instance, the good and necessary spiritual instinct to regarding all Men as brothers is taken by modern society and made, on the one hand, into the utterly un-spiritual indeed anti-spiritual form of political and economic organization that used to be known as socialism, or Leftism.
In sum; in the un-spiritual context of modernity, spiritual brotherhood is re-made into social equality.
And this is made the focus of existence - as if it was a religion.
But on the other hand, spirituality cannot in practice be expunged from humanity - and the goal of brotherhood works at an instinctive level via the sexual instincts; to drive the sexual revolution - an incremental expansion of ever-more disordered sexual possibilities and practices.
In a sense, the sexual revolution can be regarded as a distortion of the impulse to universal Brotherhood - an impulse towards a kind of utopia of universal unrestricted sexuality.
And this is made the focus of existence - as if it were a religion.
The direct perception of the divinity of Man, and the goal of a world where spiritual realities are so immediate that 'the church' is not needed, is something foreseen in the Book of Revelations of The Bible - but that is in The New Jerusalem, on the other side of death, and as Heaven.
The unspiritual parody of this unconscious impulse is anti-clericalism (a major feature of early communism), hostility to the Christian church, and the dismantling and destruction of 'organized religion'.
The church is discarded, but not because Man has moved to a higher level of spiritual consciousness and the need for formal structures has been transcended; not because Man no longer needs the church, being spiritually-perfected; but because the church is seen by modernity as something which is preventing progress to the ideal state of divinity of Man.
So, instead of the divine impulse that church organization will at some point disappear because Man has spiritually progressed to the point that the church is no longer needed; in modernity the church organization is destroyed because it is regarded as preventing spiritual progression.
This is part of the inversion-of-the Good which Steiner also predicts, in an exact description of our times:
In sum - the prophecy presents an interpretation of our current malaise which suggests that the evils of modernity can be seen as unconscious, un-spiritual and instinctive parodic distortions of Good impulses - impulses that are, indeed, being divinely encouraged and inspired (which perhaps explains their near universality, their simultaneous occurrence in many cultures).
Modern Man chooses consciously to reject these Good impulses by believing only in anti-spiritual rationality on the one hand and the unrestricted expression of instincts on the other hand - therefore the impulses emerge in horribly distorted forms; and yet their Good origins and benign intentions somehow make these evil distortions very difficult to defend against or to attack: our culture seems somehow helpless to resist them.
The answer? (Using Steiner's frame, more-or-less.)
We must (presumably) acknowledge the badness of our current situation, including the inadequacy of our consciousness; we must stop resisting the divine impulses so that they do not merely influence us against our will and during sleep, but also in our awake state; we must acknowledge spiritual realities - and allow ourselves to acknowledge, think about and experience spiritual realities in a state of full, alert awareness and in public discourse.
In sum, we need to stop fighting God's plans, and admit that God does have plans - and that we already-know enough of what these plans are (because this knowledge is built-into us); indeed, we need to stop actively denying the truth of God and of the spiritual, divine realm of reality - that would be a first step!
And the personal test of our success in moving towards this goal would - I think - be the advent and development of direct conscious experience of spiritual realities - including some kind of perception of the work of the angels.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/rudolf-steiners-remarkable-prophecy-of.html
Then it is worth thinking for a while about the causes.
I will attempt here to explain what I think Steiner was saying, in some mere generic version of his frame of understanding - rather than my own beliefs; and I think this exercise may be worthwhile given the validity of his prophecy.
To summarize (as I understand it); Steiner was arguing from a belief that humanity is supposed to move towards a new kind of consciousness - that is a new relationship between Man and the world - one which combined the 'immersive' awareness of spiritual realities that characterized the most ancient human societies (think about the shamans of hunter gatherers), with the alert self-consciousness of more recent eras (think about an archetypical scientist skeptic).
One intended mechanism for this evolution was the work of angels operating on what Steiner terms the Astral body - which I understand to mean the alert, awake consciousness... I think this means that we are supposed to know, explicitly, about this change of consciousness and to choose it.
The spiritual problems of our day are said to derive from the fact that instead we consciously fight, deny, and reject spiritual evolution; and instead of working on the Astral body, the angels are forced to work upon us while we sleep - and cannot resist them.
But this means that the angels are forced to work on us at an unconscious, inexplicit, instinctive level - they 'show us' (I presume he means in dreams, mostly un-recalled but still having an effect) images and simple ideas about the future goals.
I think Steiner is saying that the deep problems of our day derive from unspiritual attempts to enact spiritual goals - so that we actually enact in modern unspiritual society something like a hideous parody of spiritual goals.
The spiritual gaols which angels are attempting to communicate are threefold:
1. Brotherhood of Man - a sense of direct empathic communication between all people.
2. Divinity of Man - a direct appreciation of the divinity of all Men which will render formal religious practice unnecessary because all of life will then become a sacrament.
3. Final Participation - the change in consciousness whereby Man will be able to relate with spiritual realities through alert, conscious thought.
The effects of consciously rejecting this step includes, according to Steiner, the threefold consequences of disordered sexuality, the deployment of medical knowledge to harm and manipulate, and the abuse of powerful physical forces.
How do we get from the spiritual goals to the consequences? My understanding is that what happens is that good instincts are perverted by a culture which is spirit-denying.
So, for instance, the good and necessary spiritual instinct to regarding all Men as brothers is taken by modern society and made, on the one hand, into the utterly un-spiritual indeed anti-spiritual form of political and economic organization that used to be known as socialism, or Leftism.
In sum; in the un-spiritual context of modernity, spiritual brotherhood is re-made into social equality.
And this is made the focus of existence - as if it was a religion.
But on the other hand, spirituality cannot in practice be expunged from humanity - and the goal of brotherhood works at an instinctive level via the sexual instincts; to drive the sexual revolution - an incremental expansion of ever-more disordered sexual possibilities and practices.
In a sense, the sexual revolution can be regarded as a distortion of the impulse to universal Brotherhood - an impulse towards a kind of utopia of universal unrestricted sexuality.
And this is made the focus of existence - as if it were a religion.
The direct perception of the divinity of Man, and the goal of a world where spiritual realities are so immediate that 'the church' is not needed, is something foreseen in the Book of Revelations of The Bible - but that is in The New Jerusalem, on the other side of death, and as Heaven.
The unspiritual parody of this unconscious impulse is anti-clericalism (a major feature of early communism), hostility to the Christian church, and the dismantling and destruction of 'organized religion'.
The church is discarded, but not because Man has moved to a higher level of spiritual consciousness and the need for formal structures has been transcended; not because Man no longer needs the church, being spiritually-perfected; but because the church is seen by modernity as something which is preventing progress to the ideal state of divinity of Man.
So, instead of the divine impulse that church organization will at some point disappear because Man has spiritually progressed to the point that the church is no longer needed; in modernity the church organization is destroyed because it is regarded as preventing spiritual progression.
This is part of the inversion-of-the Good which Steiner also predicts, in an exact description of our times:
Man would
pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes
and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain
aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a
particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of
broad-mindedness! In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty,
ugliness.
In sum - the prophecy presents an interpretation of our current malaise which suggests that the evils of modernity can be seen as unconscious, un-spiritual and instinctive parodic distortions of Good impulses - impulses that are, indeed, being divinely encouraged and inspired (which perhaps explains their near universality, their simultaneous occurrence in many cultures).
Modern Man chooses consciously to reject these Good impulses by believing only in anti-spiritual rationality on the one hand and the unrestricted expression of instincts on the other hand - therefore the impulses emerge in horribly distorted forms; and yet their Good origins and benign intentions somehow make these evil distortions very difficult to defend against or to attack: our culture seems somehow helpless to resist them.
The answer? (Using Steiner's frame, more-or-less.)
We must (presumably) acknowledge the badness of our current situation, including the inadequacy of our consciousness; we must stop resisting the divine impulses so that they do not merely influence us against our will and during sleep, but also in our awake state; we must acknowledge spiritual realities - and allow ourselves to acknowledge, think about and experience spiritual realities in a state of full, alert awareness and in public discourse.
In sum, we need to stop fighting God's plans, and admit that God does have plans - and that we already-know enough of what these plans are (because this knowledge is built-into us); indeed, we need to stop actively denying the truth of God and of the spiritual, divine realm of reality - that would be a first step!
And the personal test of our success in moving towards this goal would - I think - be the advent and development of direct conscious experience of spiritual realities - including some kind of perception of the work of the angels.
Wednesday 7 October 2015
Tuesday 6 October 2015
How to initiate a Christian revival - any new ideas?
Since I wrote Thought Prison back in 2011
http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk
I keep on emphasizing that a mass Christian revival in the West is the essential pre-requisite to fixing any of the major problems which afflict us and which will certainly lead to cultural annihilation (and - sans a Christian revival - good riddance, some would say) - in particular not so much saving the civilization of the West, but saving the souls.
(Including both Western souls, and also those souls under threat from the West by their immigration into the West, and by the projection of Western influence elsewhere in the world.)
Since modern Leftism is pre-immunization against so much of traditional Christianity - the old methods have lost and are losing effectiveness. This doesn't mean we should stop using them, but it is a fact they don't work so well - why not try adding some new tactics?
So - are there any novel ideas out there about how Christianity might get past the antibodies of the secular immune system?
(And be careful what you say and how you say it - don't give away anything which might aid the enemy. Put it 'Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it' - as Robert Frost once said.)
http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk
I keep on emphasizing that a mass Christian revival in the West is the essential pre-requisite to fixing any of the major problems which afflict us and which will certainly lead to cultural annihilation (and - sans a Christian revival - good riddance, some would say) - in particular not so much saving the civilization of the West, but saving the souls.
(Including both Western souls, and also those souls under threat from the West by their immigration into the West, and by the projection of Western influence elsewhere in the world.)
Since modern Leftism is pre-immunization against so much of traditional Christianity - the old methods have lost and are losing effectiveness. This doesn't mean we should stop using them, but it is a fact they don't work so well - why not try adding some new tactics?
So - are there any novel ideas out there about how Christianity might get past the antibodies of the secular immune system?
(And be careful what you say and how you say it - don't give away anything which might aid the enemy. Put it 'Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it' - as Robert Frost once said.)
Monday 5 October 2015
The nature of the creative (poetic) trance
My recent exploration of Owen Barfield's work in relation to the evolution of consciousness, and the idea that Man went through three stages of consciousness (ancient immersive absorption into a living reality, an intermediate alienated phase of the ego/ self cut-off from the world*, then a return to a relationship with the living world but retaining the ego), continues to yield insight and make unexpected links across subjects.
For example, I used to be a deep reader of Robert Graves - and was fascinated by his account of the poetic trance state. Graves was vehement that when he wrote poems or his best novels and essays. For instance, in the state Graves felt himself to be actually present in other times and places - and it was this realism which made his historical novels so vivid and convincing.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/analeptic-trance.html
When Graves was 'inspired', this was not an unconscious state - it was not a matter of 'channelling' the poetry, not a bubbling up of the subconscious, not a matter of 'automatic writing'... All of these he damned and rejected as contrived pseudo-poetry when he seemed to detect them in the work of other modern poets such as WB Yeats, or Dylan Thomas, or surrealists.
By contrast, Graves claimed to remain alert, critical, purposive while in the trance state. In Barfieldian terms Graves achieved Final Participation - in which he accessed 'the gods' and spontaneous sources of intuitive knowledge but while retaining the more 'modern' ego/ self.
And in this respect Graves seems to have been mirroring (from a very different direction of approach) the same demand as expressed by Rudolf Steiner whose 'clairvoyance' was done in clear consciousness and a state of concentration, or CG Jung whose Active Imagination attempted to combine dream imagery and imagination with conscious awareness and purpose.
Despite that all these men were born in the 19th century, this goal has not yet become understood or pursued. Instead we have a mainstream secular culture oscillating between scientific-bureaucratic objectivization of reality (in which the world is regarded as un-alive and lacking in awareness and purpose, and Man is increasingly regarded as ultimately the same) and a Beat/ Hippy/ New Age type of 'regression' to the childlike/ primitive/ spontaneous spiritual state of un-conscious surrender to a reality that is felt to be alive, self-aware and full of gods - this being achieved either via the alternative reality of media and arts, or by killing-off consciousness with alcohol and drugs.
The message of Barfield - and Steiner and perhaps (more confusedly) of Jung - and implicitly of Graves - is that we should not stay where we are - alienated and alone in a dead world; nor should we try, and fail, to go back to an ancient world of immersive animism - but should move forwards to a conscious state which combines the best of both worlds - living as conscious selves in relationships with a world of conscious selves.
The failure of this perspective has, I believe, been related to its becoming detached from Christianity; and from Christianity's rejection of any need for it - or from a Christian rejection of its validity as a spiritual path. Many Christians have denied the need for regarding the world as alive - so that human existence becomes a matter of nothing more than the isolated ego in a relationship with God - and everything else in the universe (except other egos, barely glimpsed) perceived as dead and either unimportant or actively evil
What I would like to see - and am working to attain in my own life - is to take the spiritual insights, perspective and aims of Barfield et al - but pursued within the Christian framework.
*Note - This is the phase that Barfield called the consciousness soul
http://davidlavery.net/barfield/Encyclopedia_Barfieldiana/Lexicon/Consciousness_Soul.html
The chronology of when this occurred seems to be complex, and to differ somewhat between authors - or else I may have misunderstood. My impression is that the Consciousness Soul was made possible by the Ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and the divine intention was that this phase shuld come to an end after the birth, death and resurrection of Christ - but that this did not happen (at least, not in the West) but instead the CS intensified right up until the Romantic movement when it began to be challenged. However, this challenge was usually in the nature of a return to Original Participation rather than an advance to Final Participation. In other words, and with some usually temporary exceptions here and there, humanity has so far chosen to refuse - or was unable to take - the step to Final Participation.
Note added: As a further illustration of what these three stages entail, consider that in pre-Christian, pagan religions it was usual for the adept (or at least the shaman or priest figure) to seek unification with the god - to seek to become possessed by the god, taken-over by the god, a channel for the god. The self was never very distinct in such cultures - and the line between the self and the god was blurred, and easily crossed.
But when the ancient Hebrews (also, in parallel, and very differently conceptualized, the Ancient Greeks) developed a new concept of God. He was utterly different from Man - there was a gulf between and no possibility of unification nor even possession. This 'alienated' attitude later (but mistakenly) was then carried over and became almost mainstream in many types of Christianity; such that the desire to become divine was often regarded as sinful - or at least extremely hazardous. The danger was of possession - but since possession could not be by God, nor even the gods/ angels; therefore possession was intrinsically demonic.
However, some of the greatest individual Christians (and also some of the Old Testament Prophets) achieved the goal of Final Participation in terms of themselves becoming purified and holy persons, and accepting the offer of a close, loving, wholly harmonious personal relationship with God - and especially with Jesus Christ; whose work could be interpreted as having made this possible.
So now, since Christ, Christians have the possibility of again moving beyond alienation and into participating with the living world in the closest and most fundamental way - but not by absorption, fusing or possession by a god - instead, in terms of becoming more like God, more divinized in our nature; and developing with God the Father, Jesus Christ and/ or the Holy Ghost a direct and loving relationship with the divine person.
For example, I used to be a deep reader of Robert Graves - and was fascinated by his account of the poetic trance state. Graves was vehement that when he wrote poems or his best novels and essays. For instance, in the state Graves felt himself to be actually present in other times and places - and it was this realism which made his historical novels so vivid and convincing.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/analeptic-trance.html
When Graves was 'inspired', this was not an unconscious state - it was not a matter of 'channelling' the poetry, not a bubbling up of the subconscious, not a matter of 'automatic writing'... All of these he damned and rejected as contrived pseudo-poetry when he seemed to detect them in the work of other modern poets such as WB Yeats, or Dylan Thomas, or surrealists.
By contrast, Graves claimed to remain alert, critical, purposive while in the trance state. In Barfieldian terms Graves achieved Final Participation - in which he accessed 'the gods' and spontaneous sources of intuitive knowledge but while retaining the more 'modern' ego/ self.
And in this respect Graves seems to have been mirroring (from a very different direction of approach) the same demand as expressed by Rudolf Steiner whose 'clairvoyance' was done in clear consciousness and a state of concentration, or CG Jung whose Active Imagination attempted to combine dream imagery and imagination with conscious awareness and purpose.
Despite that all these men were born in the 19th century, this goal has not yet become understood or pursued. Instead we have a mainstream secular culture oscillating between scientific-bureaucratic objectivization of reality (in which the world is regarded as un-alive and lacking in awareness and purpose, and Man is increasingly regarded as ultimately the same) and a Beat/ Hippy/ New Age type of 'regression' to the childlike/ primitive/ spontaneous spiritual state of un-conscious surrender to a reality that is felt to be alive, self-aware and full of gods - this being achieved either via the alternative reality of media and arts, or by killing-off consciousness with alcohol and drugs.
The message of Barfield - and Steiner and perhaps (more confusedly) of Jung - and implicitly of Graves - is that we should not stay where we are - alienated and alone in a dead world; nor should we try, and fail, to go back to an ancient world of immersive animism - but should move forwards to a conscious state which combines the best of both worlds - living as conscious selves in relationships with a world of conscious selves.
The failure of this perspective has, I believe, been related to its becoming detached from Christianity; and from Christianity's rejection of any need for it - or from a Christian rejection of its validity as a spiritual path. Many Christians have denied the need for regarding the world as alive - so that human existence becomes a matter of nothing more than the isolated ego in a relationship with God - and everything else in the universe (except other egos, barely glimpsed) perceived as dead and either unimportant or actively evil
What I would like to see - and am working to attain in my own life - is to take the spiritual insights, perspective and aims of Barfield et al - but pursued within the Christian framework.
*Note - This is the phase that Barfield called the consciousness soul
http://davidlavery.net/barfield/Encyclopedia_Barfieldiana/Lexicon/Consciousness_Soul.html
The chronology of when this occurred seems to be complex, and to differ somewhat between authors - or else I may have misunderstood. My impression is that the Consciousness Soul was made possible by the Ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and the divine intention was that this phase shuld come to an end after the birth, death and resurrection of Christ - but that this did not happen (at least, not in the West) but instead the CS intensified right up until the Romantic movement when it began to be challenged. However, this challenge was usually in the nature of a return to Original Participation rather than an advance to Final Participation. In other words, and with some usually temporary exceptions here and there, humanity has so far chosen to refuse - or was unable to take - the step to Final Participation.
Note added: As a further illustration of what these three stages entail, consider that in pre-Christian, pagan religions it was usual for the adept (or at least the shaman or priest figure) to seek unification with the god - to seek to become possessed by the god, taken-over by the god, a channel for the god. The self was never very distinct in such cultures - and the line between the self and the god was blurred, and easily crossed.
But when the ancient Hebrews (also, in parallel, and very differently conceptualized, the Ancient Greeks) developed a new concept of God. He was utterly different from Man - there was a gulf between and no possibility of unification nor even possession. This 'alienated' attitude later (but mistakenly) was then carried over and became almost mainstream in many types of Christianity; such that the desire to become divine was often regarded as sinful - or at least extremely hazardous. The danger was of possession - but since possession could not be by God, nor even the gods/ angels; therefore possession was intrinsically demonic.
However, some of the greatest individual Christians (and also some of the Old Testament Prophets) achieved the goal of Final Participation in terms of themselves becoming purified and holy persons, and accepting the offer of a close, loving, wholly harmonious personal relationship with God - and especially with Jesus Christ; whose work could be interpreted as having made this possible.
So now, since Christ, Christians have the possibility of again moving beyond alienation and into participating with the living world in the closest and most fundamental way - but not by absorption, fusing or possession by a god - instead, in terms of becoming more like God, more divinized in our nature; and developing with God the Father, Jesus Christ and/ or the Holy Ghost a direct and loving relationship with the divine person.
Sunday 4 October 2015
Saturday 3 October 2015
Escaping from the modern hellhole (of alienation, nihilism and despair)
I am assuming, here, that modernity is indeed a hellhole - although mostly a tepid and padded hellhole. The extent to which moderns strive-continually, desperately, to lose themselves in distraction and intoxication and/or stimulate themselves - up to and including cultivated degradation and deliberate self-mutilation - makes this obvious to me (although I accept that the typically successful, exemplary and admired, modern life may strike other people as just 'fun').
Alienation - Needs to be changed to relationship; but not only nor primarily human relationships; but an experienced relationship with the world. Relationship being in both directions - our attitude to the world, the world's attitude to us.
And this relationship needing to be (or become) one of love. Because everything is alive, and in relationship - love (not gravity nor electromagnetism nor any unified field!) is the primary force of reality.
Nihilism - Needs to be changed to meaning, which depends on purpose - and this purpose must be personal, for ourselves and ourselves uniquely.
In the end, this entails a personal God with whom we have a personal relationship; everything is alive - and personal. God (a person/s) has a role or task or destiny for us individually; and we can choose (and it must be a choice - it is not compelled) to accept this, and participate with and modify it - or not.
Despair - Must, of course, be reversed to hope.
And Hope entails that this mortal earthly life be framed by (at least) an eternal after-life; such that mortal life is significant (the vital aspects must be remembered forever, not merely blown-away by the winds of time) yet mortality be known as not-everything in-and-of-itself.
Thus the experience of mortality is eternally significant because it is (in part) part of a progression achievable in no other way.
Significance comes from un-repeatability and permanence combined.
Alienation - Needs to be changed to relationship; but not only nor primarily human relationships; but an experienced relationship with the world. Relationship being in both directions - our attitude to the world, the world's attitude to us.
And this relationship needing to be (or become) one of love. Because everything is alive, and in relationship - love (not gravity nor electromagnetism nor any unified field!) is the primary force of reality.
Nihilism - Needs to be changed to meaning, which depends on purpose - and this purpose must be personal, for ourselves and ourselves uniquely.
In the end, this entails a personal God with whom we have a personal relationship; everything is alive - and personal. God (a person/s) has a role or task or destiny for us individually; and we can choose (and it must be a choice - it is not compelled) to accept this, and participate with and modify it - or not.
Despair - Must, of course, be reversed to hope.
And Hope entails that this mortal earthly life be framed by (at least) an eternal after-life; such that mortal life is significant (the vital aspects must be remembered forever, not merely blown-away by the winds of time) yet mortality be known as not-everything in-and-of-itself.
Thus the experience of mortality is eternally significant because it is (in part) part of a progression achievable in no other way.
Significance comes from un-repeatability and permanence combined.
Friday 2 October 2015
Mass migration: the secular debate inevitably channels attitudes into the choice between self-hatred versus other-hatred
In few matters has the impossibility of a viable secular culture been shown so clearly as the current debate on what to do about the existential and imminent threat of mass migration.
The secular debate offers two alternatives: either embrace mass migration and open borders, and accept cultural annihilation; or else develop a counter-revolutionary ethic of hatred towards mass migration.
This dichotomy is being forced upon people by the secular framing of the debate in purely material terms: in terms of life being reduced (by the secular frame) to economics and crime; of spirituality and national character being reduced to mere traditions and habits; of ultimates being reduced to the utilitarian hedonic calculus of emotional states of happiness or misery, fulfilment or suffering.
The hatred is being forced upon people by the need for motivation and the fact that (as more than two centuries of experience with secular cultures shows us) hatred is the only kind of powerful, sustainable, manipulable mass motivation available to the secular perspective.
Actively to embrace unlimited mass migration requires that the host culture must develop powerful self-hatred and Despair; such that people feel it is just and right and necessary that that they destroy themselves.
To resist, repel, and reverse mass migration (from where we are now) would require a tidal change in cultural attitudes - a reversal of many decades of the consensus of mass media propaganda, laws and regulations and training - which could only imaginably be achieved in practice by the power of organized other-hatred and the deliberate inducing of pride (I mean sinful Pride, well-understood by Christianity).
Of course people can (and should), in the privacy of their own minds, adopt a non-hating attitude - but public discourse will be channelled into one form of hatred or the other - because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Only if we are able to see the problem of mass migration in a religious frame could we potentially be able to adopt a public, national attitude which is (as it should be, and as it must be if it is to be Good) both 1. non-hating and 2. very powerfully motivated.
The choice is stark: between the sin of Despair on one hand, or the sin of Pride on the other hand... or a powerfully-motivating revival of Christianity such that the public discourse on mass migration can be re-framed, and the problems addressed, in ultimate and spiritual terms.
Since I do not see the prospect of such a Christian revival on the horizon among the nations of The West - I am a pessimist, either way.
But a Christian revival is not excluded from possibility, not at all; so I continue to hope.
The secular debate offers two alternatives: either embrace mass migration and open borders, and accept cultural annihilation; or else develop a counter-revolutionary ethic of hatred towards mass migration.
This dichotomy is being forced upon people by the secular framing of the debate in purely material terms: in terms of life being reduced (by the secular frame) to economics and crime; of spirituality and national character being reduced to mere traditions and habits; of ultimates being reduced to the utilitarian hedonic calculus of emotional states of happiness or misery, fulfilment or suffering.
The hatred is being forced upon people by the need for motivation and the fact that (as more than two centuries of experience with secular cultures shows us) hatred is the only kind of powerful, sustainable, manipulable mass motivation available to the secular perspective.
Actively to embrace unlimited mass migration requires that the host culture must develop powerful self-hatred and Despair; such that people feel it is just and right and necessary that that they destroy themselves.
To resist, repel, and reverse mass migration (from where we are now) would require a tidal change in cultural attitudes - a reversal of many decades of the consensus of mass media propaganda, laws and regulations and training - which could only imaginably be achieved in practice by the power of organized other-hatred and the deliberate inducing of pride (I mean sinful Pride, well-understood by Christianity).
Of course people can (and should), in the privacy of their own minds, adopt a non-hating attitude - but public discourse will be channelled into one form of hatred or the other - because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Only if we are able to see the problem of mass migration in a religious frame could we potentially be able to adopt a public, national attitude which is (as it should be, and as it must be if it is to be Good) both 1. non-hating and 2. very powerfully motivated.
The choice is stark: between the sin of Despair on one hand, or the sin of Pride on the other hand... or a powerfully-motivating revival of Christianity such that the public discourse on mass migration can be re-framed, and the problems addressed, in ultimate and spiritual terms.
Since I do not see the prospect of such a Christian revival on the horizon among the nations of The West - I am a pessimist, either way.
But a Christian revival is not excluded from possibility, not at all; so I continue to hope.
Thursday 1 October 2015
Seven questions about angels
It is pretty much mandatory for Christians to believe in angels, since they are mentioned so frequently in the Bible. But the angels in which people believe are rather various.
I would be interested to know some details about what those who believe in angels believe about them.
If any of the following questions seem relevant to your experience and knowledge, please comment.
Comments will, as always, be moderated - but even if I do not print your comment I will still reply to it.
(BTW I am asking here about the good-angels, the un-fallen angels, those angels engaged in doing the work of God - not demons. )
Ref: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=angels
I would be interested to know some details about what those who believe in angels believe about them.
If any of the following questions seem relevant to your experience and knowledge, please comment.
Comments will, as always, be moderated - but even if I do not print your comment I will still reply to it.
(BTW I am asking here about the good-angels, the un-fallen angels, those angels engaged in doing the work of God - not demons. )
- Are angels all of the same origin - or are there various ways of becoming an angel?
- Is each angel an unique personality (in the way that Men are)?
- Can angels make spiritual progress - or do they stay at the level they are created? Can an angel be corrupted into evil intentions?
- Can an angel learn? Can an angel make mistakes?
- Do angels have autonomy (in the way that Men do): are they free agents in their work? (Or, are they always working on the basis of very detailed instructions, implementing God's will directly?)
- Could an angel not know he was an angel - but instead think he was a Man, and be performing some role as such? Related - were any famous people of history actually angels?
- So far as you know, have you encountered an angel in actual life? Do you believe such nowadays encounters are universal, common, normal, rare or extremely-rare?
Ref: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=angels
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