Bruce Charlton's Notions

Don't ask 'is there a creator god?' - which is absurd, because everyone who has thought deeply about this knows that there must be a creator of some kind, even if an impersonal principle - but instead you need to ask what kind of god created all this?

Life is (in part) a process of discovery about god, and this discovery is something that happens by communication between the self and god; and that entails disovering the self - the real self - as well as discovering god - both of which are within.

(The creator god is not only within us, of course - he is the creator, after all! - but a part of god is within us; like a small but perpetually glowing cinder - this inner presence is what makes certainty possible.)

The only way to know god with that certainty we need, is to know god directly: to feel god (and, of course, to acknowledge the reality and truth of that feeling).

*

How important is all this stuff? Well, you tell me! Do you believe Life is something we cannot know, and god something we cannot evaluate - so, therefore, we should leave this whole thing undecided, don't bother ourselves, and just 'get on with it'. But get on with... What exactly? Get on with what?  

**

NOTE: The answer to 'what kind of creator?' does not come from drawing up some kind of 'balance sheet' of good and bad things, as we crudely and ignorantly suppose them to be. Of course we cannot really know what is good and bad in terms of motives and long-term effects - but even if we could this would be a ludicrous exercise - is that method how we know for certain a mother's love, a wife's, a son or daughter's love? By compiling a ledger of hugs and treats minus sharp words and slaps?

Following my discovery of a treasure trove of recordings on YouTube by the pianist Denis Matthews, I have followed-up by reading his autobiography In Pursuit of Music (1966, 192 pages) - which I have taken quite slowly and which has delighted me.

The style is accomplished, light and engaging (rather like the writing for the humour magazine Punch) - but the depth and riuchness of the musicality is a wonder to behold. I am myself musical enough to know both when another person is less so - and also to appreciate when someone is off the scale above me. And with music, there is range of ability which is as extreme as in any aspect of human endeavor I am aware of; perhaps comparable only to mathematics - with which there is some occult relationship. In short, musicality has objectivity - again like mathematics: an objectivity to the measurement which is unarguable.

A real musician not only plays things, but more importantly hears things far beyond the capicity of ordinary mortals - and this brings objectivity to artistic judgment of music that is seldom matched in literature or the visual arts. So I have come away from Matthews book with a shopping list of composers and their works, and perfomers and their specialism, which will keep me going for a considerable time.

Of course, there is room for sheer taste - so that one may simply be unable to enjoy excellence, even at the very highest level. Matthews knew the conductor Arturo Toscanini, knew his work; and on the basis of deep understanding - the capacity to hear very fully what is happening in the music, what Toscania was doing - and wide comparison and experience with his 'rivals' names him the greatest conductor of his age, perhaps of any age. This kind of thing compels ultimate acceptance - even though I may not myself be able to enjoy what I have heard of Toscanini as much I enjoyed - say - Klemperer.

So, Matthews was a man who lived inside music, in particular the great composers of the classical era, and it is hard to avoid a kind of enviousness at someone participating so fully in the depth and complexity as well as beauty of this unexcelled world of human accomplishment... and yet... like many another great artist the lesson of Matthews life is that even this is not enough.

I found myself recurrently recalling what is revealed in this book, and what I have vaguely but reliably heard, of Matthews tormented and psychologically turbulent life; and his eventual death by suicide which (sadly) seemed to surprise no-one who knew him. 

Even the greatest art does not, cannot, substitute for religion: it is a lower and lesser world. And the greatest musicians - hugely though I admire them - are men and women of qualitatively lesser human  stature and human satisfaction than religious people; even when these may be obscure and unremarkable in worldly terms. I have no doubt which constitutes the most successful life.

1. (In the real, inner, true. eternal self) Men and Women are essentially different (each a complementary 'half' of the complete human whole).

2. Premortal souls differ in terms of spiritual advancement - and their needs for further advancement.

3. General earthly conditions throughout history have changed - the evolution of consciousness. We have been placed in the best for our needs.

4. The micro-specific personal conditions of our births differ - time, place, parents. We have been placed in the best for our needs.

5. Our specific natures differ: personality, intelligence, special abilities, defects, diseases and disorders. We have been placed in the best for our needs.

THEN - we are subject to the primordial agencies (of many types and strengths) of others - of men, angels, demons and the environmental features of animals, plants, minerals... These may make conditions better or worse for our needs.

These are responsive to our own choices and attitudes - there is nothing that 'just happens' to us; and nothing is random.

Our basic situation: We are who and where we are for good reason - so we should not wish for any other.

I have often wondered about this, and never been able to make up my mind until today - the answer is Owen Barfield.

The reason is that I have been reading This Ever Diverse Pair, which is usually (misleadingly) billed as a novel but which is a fictionalized autobiography, mostly describing the relationship between Barfield's real self and his public persona as a drudging solicitor.

The atmosphere of this book is mostly light and comedic, but the sheer horror of the mundane situation of Barfield in legal practice struck home to me by analogy with the (relatively short) times when I was a proper doctor - i.e. a house officer ('intern'), a psychiatrist, and a public health physician; and how utterly alien I found these situations: how strongly at odds with my deepest being.

I couldn't really recommend this book, especially as it ends so badly (I think Barfield has a serious, recurrent problem with the difficult art (rarely achieved) of ending books well: he is bad at it) - but it was memorable to me for the above reason and for the powerful personal identification it yielded with Barfield: more powerful than I have ever felt for any other of the Inklings.

Having made this identification it suddenly seems quite obvious - in that I am a non-fiction writer, and indeed an essayist, at heart (like it or not, that is what I am) and secondarily a lecturer... which is pretty much exactly what Barfield was (like it or not).

It is a question asked by reactionaries, and is intended to get people to move beyond analysis and to 'organize' - but, for a Christian, it is a version of the Marxian claim to have moved beyond interpreting the world to changing it (as if these were the only alternatives).

Marx was, of course, a materialist, a positivist - a denier of the reality of any reality except the sense-perceptual. For such a person there is nothing but what can be perceived with the senses (including the senses amplified by technologies) - and there isn't any point in talking about what is perceived except to change it. That which is perceived is regarded as independent of the person doing the 'interpreting', and the act of interpreting of itself does nothing - unless it is communicated, and has an effect on many other people.

From this perspective Christianity is a delusion and prayer is talking to yourself; any church is just a bureaucracy, and Christianity a has-been political party on the way-out.

But if you personally believe that it is true that there is more to reality than that which is perceived by the senses, understood by science and manipulated by technology; more than the utilitarian calculus of pleasure versus suffering - then you implicitly believe in an unseen, not-directly perceptible, but real and true aspect of the world - and if you are Christian you believe that we may (and indeed inevitably do) participate in this supersensible world.

(I must acknowledge that quite a lot of self-identified Christians seem to think this way too - they are much, much more avid about the positivist/ material/ reductionist/ worldly side of Christianity than about the... um... Christian bit.)

This supersensible world is denied by, unknown by, ignored by the overwhelmingly-dominant mainstream secular Leftist public discourse of the West - and this ideology is engaged in seeking-out and eliminating all dissent, while on the other hand continually changing to create new dissenters: this is the vast activity of perceptual communication of the mass media, official communications, governments and NGOs, education, law, science, the prestigious arts...

So what should we do, as Christians? Should we, like Marxists, organize (organize, that is, all handful-of-percent of us! - and this micro-minority of real Christians riven by theological and other disagreements and mutual accusations of heresy!) to roll-back the vast edifice of secular Leftism by... well, I can't honestly imagine how this might even conceivably be done; unless it is assumed that the mass of people, and especially powerful people are 'really' wanting a Christian revival - but are convincingly hiding the fact (even from themselves).

Or should we be working in that domain we claim to believe is real - that imperceptible, supersensible 'unseen' realm of reality that is mocked, rejected, and ignored by the mainstream. If that world is, indeed, real - then we have it 'all to ourselves'.

So yes, we can 'change the world' - but change aspects of the world the reality of which is denied, using communications the reality of which is denied, to work towards goals the reality of which is denied.

And in this activity we have a free hand; and indeed no force on earth can stop us doing it - except our own decision not to do it.

Diagnosing the problems of modern Western life is not so difficult - the alienating mental prison of deadness, purposelessness, meaninglessness that we inhabit; knowing what ought to be done to improve the situation is much more difficult but still reasonably widespread; but actually escaping from that prison to inhabit a better place is extremely rare.

The reason is that habits of thinking which have become ingrained through our childhood and development, and which are sustained because they are the basis of public life and discourse - so that innumerable hourly interactions keep us in the bad-old-ways of thinking.

The way out from prison therefore involves more than just knowing we are in prison, and more than knowing where we want to escape-to - because the escape destination is intrinsically our-own-selves, we actually need to create our own destination by transforming our-own-selves, in the face of opposition from our current selves backed-up by almost all the forces of culture.

Since we live-in our own thinking, the new destination can be conceptualised as a new way of thinking - that is a thinking based on a new set of metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of the world (its origin, purpose, meaning etc).

So, each of us needs to practice thinking; specifically to practice thinking based on the desired metaphysics.

Meditation is the general name given to the activity of practicing thinking - so meditation is the first and major activity which is needed.

Thinking-practice = a type of meditation.

This is where people begin to differ - because the nature of meditation must have the proper aim - must be aiming at the desired destination; this effects the actual nature of the meditation (and the nature of meditation - i.e. the type of thinking that is being practised - is extremely varied); and having chosen a possible method of meditation, then comes the absolutely vital 'subjective' element - that topic or content of meditation which must be practised.    

But how best, how effectively to 'practice' the desired thinking is not immediately obvious - and is indeed a matter of some dispute. But one aspect I would like to highlight is that personally effective meditation cannot be a matter of forcing ourselves through routine practice.

Effective thought practice means practicing the kind of thinking which we want to become habitual - and that kind of thinking must be alive, engaged; a thinking deriving from the new metaphysics; a thinking which is about purpose appreciated in the world as well as itself purposive; a thinking which is filled with hope, as well as hopeful in its intention.

In sum, when meditation is understood as thinking-practice, we recognize that meditating itself must be an activity of the desired kind: self-aware, alert, purposive, positive, hope-full, energizing - we must meditate-about the kind of things we have as our ideal.

Therefore each person will need, by trial and error and taking into account his own disposition and preferences, to devise some themes of meditation and methods for maintaining his own stream of thinking along the lines of such themes.

It is a question of 'what works for you' as a means to that end - for me, it is mainly a practice of thinking by writing... note-taking to hold my thinking onto the purpose, record that thinking, responding to my notes. In general, the act of writing is used to control my thinking, to keep it on-topic, to keep it along the right lines.

(The actual notes are merely a means to that end, and need never be looked at again.)

But I discovered this type of meditation for myself, by trial and error, and I am sure it would not suit everybody. So if you have not yet discovered what works for you - that that should be your first goal.

The second goal is, for each session of meditation, to choose a topic which is something both desirable as a themes for practise, and also effective for you personally; some thing which involves thinking in the way you want to become habitual (thinkig that is assuming a living, conscious, purposive universe of meaning, love and inter-relationship...); and also is a theme that is positive and enjoyable to yourself.

(For instance, today my theme - one which delighted and spontaneously engaged me - was reading and making notes on parts of a particular lecture by Owen Barfield.) 

Then you can start practicing-thinking.

I have come across the term 'inaccurate knowledge' - and explanations of it - in the work of Owen Barfield; and it has been a great excitement to see something which I had felt, and even written about, so clearly set-out.

e.g. http://www.owenbarfield.org/why-reincarnation

Barfield makes the point that before the modern era (before approx the 17th century) it was implicitly understood that knowledge could be inaccurate and still be knowledge; but that since then, and increasingly, knowledge has been equated with accuracy to the extent that:

1. That which is accurate is assumed to be knowledge, and

2. What is not accurate is assumed not to be knowledge at all.

This combination of assumptions is a thing I have struggled against for some twenty years in addressing the use of statistics in medicine (i.e. epidemiology, medical research, 'evidence-based' medicine and so forth).

Barfield locates this phenomenon in historical terms as something that was a more-or-less-inevitable transitional phase in the development of human consciousness - but a phase that ought to have been (but so far has not been) transitional.

Before modernity, legitimate knowledge included 'inaccurate knowledge' - that is knowledge which was true, but imprecise - and, as a consequence, included knowledge of that which was 'supersensible' - the 'invisible world' of things that are non-material, imperceptible to the senses.

The defect of the kind of accurate knowledge that has been associated with mainstream science and research is therefore that it is (by assumption) positivistic: that is, confined to the material world, to that which can be perceived by the senses (included by the technologically assisted senses).

Consequently, we get the modern situation variously termed positivism/ materialism/ reductionism - of the human consciousness alienated, solipsistic, utterly cut-off-from the rest of reality. On the one hand we have accurate knowledge of the material world, on the other hand we deny any possibility of knowledge of the supersensible world, and indeed deny (by assumption, that is by metaphysical assumption) the reality of the supersensible world. 

And the thing that this modern positivism should-have transitioned into is an accurate form of 'supersensible' knowledge - that is to say, knowledge which is potentially accurate and also includes the supersensible. In a nutshell, the idea is that the supersensible, non-material world is perceptible to the 'imagination' - which turns out to be potentially a kind of sensory organ for detecting the supersensible.

However, the ability to use the imagination potentially-accurately to perceive the immaterial does not come naturally or spontaneously to modern Man - presumably because of the antipathetic social milieu.

The missing link which prevents this transition is that we have so deeply internalized the metaphysics of modernity (the assumptions which deny the reality of the supersensible) that we have become unable to think and behave in the supersensible world - we have become blocked from progression by our ingrained metaphysical habits.

So, after understanding in a theoretical fashion that there is more to the world than the material and that the imagination is potentially the mechanism by which we might appreciate the supersensible world in a way that is clear, alert, purposive hence potentially accurate - then we can recognize that this is a mental ability which is rare, and difficult of attainment.

It is one thing to know what we ought to do, and it is another thing to do it. But actually doing it, in thought and behaviour, is what we ought to do.

And that is our task.

Most days I have a walk around the leafy suburb of Jesmond where I live - and there is one mile-long loop I must have done thousands of times. There are certain features I particularly like.


St Mary's chapel was built in the 1100s and was a major national site of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages, probably due to an apparition of Mary and the baby Jesus - giving the place the name Jesus's-Mound - Jesmond.

All that now remains is a crumbling picturesque ruin. However, during the past 20 year, and without any official intervention, the chapel has become again a site of spontaneous 'folk' piety - with people leaving small icons, statues, prayer cards and photos of loved-ones. I am pleased to report that these are left in-situ by other visitors - and some items have been there for many years.




The great Victorian industrialist Lord Armstrong built a residence and banqueting hall nearby, for a royal visit, and that makes another attractive semi-ruin.


Back in the 1970s and 80s probably the biggest selling, most beloved English popular 'women's' novelist was Catherine Cookson - certainly both my Mother and Granny Charlton were avid readers - and CC spent her last years in this somewhat secluded house around the corner.


When I arrived at Newcastle Medical School, the building below was the Vice Chancellor's Lodge (the VC being equivalent to a US college President) and had recently been inhabited by Dr Henry Miller who had died the previous year had been Professor of Neurology, Dean of Medicine and then VC at Newcastle University - and was probably the man who had had the greatest psychological impact on the university and city of anyone in its history. He was larger-than-life, a great wit and bon viveur whose doings were often repeated; also a much-loved national figure such that when he died the British Medical Association took the unusual step of issuing a book of memoirs and writings ("Remembering Henry").


I have recently posted about the Professor of Music and concert pianist Denis Matthews - and I think the house below was where he was living when I visited him as part of a carol singing group - but the houses in this part of the road have been heavily modified (at was a large but semi-detached residence thirty five years ago) - and the specific house may have been another adjascent.


ST George's church is a very unusual architectural gem - being built around 1900 in an Italianate style outside, and with Art Nouveau decorations including Burne Jones style figures and Byzantine mosaics (of course, I don't often look inside the church on my daily walks - and sadly it is nowadays a mainstream - i.e. extremely Liberal - Anglican institution)



So, those are some of the highlights and associations that typically come to mind in my local perambulations...

Thinkers I respect such as Owen Barfield and Jeremy Naydler have stated that Rudolf Steiner is essential to our time. But given the truly vast volume of his work, its range, as the problematic nature of his legacy this leaves open the question of just what it is about Steiner that is essential? (In contrast with what is of perhaps important but lesser status: as well as what may better be neglected or ignored.)

Steiner himself gave a clue in the importance he attached to his earliest books, especially those about Goethe's science, his doctoral thesis published as Truth and Knowledge and (in particular) The Philosophy of Freedom. In other words, these were works of a metaphysical nature rather than being concerned with Steiner's specific or detailed 'findings'.

Steiner's modern legacy, by contrast (as far as I can determine) is focused around these specific findings - for example in relation to education, medicine and agriculture. There is also a considerable and commendable publishing and dissemination activity with respect to the vast number of works and the scholarship of summarising, systematising and analysing these works. Beyond this, there is the activity of teaching and supervising a specific technique of meditation.

My feeling is that none of this captures the essence and none is 'essential'.

(In one paragraph) What seems to me essential is what Steiner called monism and modern people might call holism - in particular, the bringing of imagination into the realm of one, single mode of thinking that can be called true 'science'; so that the perceptual ('objective', external) world of the natural sciences is united (again) with the conceptual ('subjective', inner) world of imagination; and this in a way that both heals our personal alienation and also creates a realm of public and shared discourse - a realm which is variously referred to by Steiner as Spiritual or Occult or Esoteric Science. 

This making of a science of the imagination, and the possibility that each of us participate in it; requires, first, a proper understanding of the nature of science. This comes from the Goethe books - but has, I think, been lost underneath a focus on the Steiner-described and recommended technique of meditation as if this was the science.

As I argue in my book Not Even Trying

http://corruption-of-science.blogspot.co.uk

real science cannot be defined by technique but only by aim and ideals - science is, descriptively, nothing more specific than a truthful sustained examination of some rather specific class of phenomena, done in such a way that it is a social activity - which entails group production of some kind of public, communicable, evaluable content.

Thus, spiritual science cannot be captured by any particular technique of meditation, but only by the aim of some (perhaps small) group of investigators studying the imagination (presumably mostly by introspection, but in principle by any helpful method); honestly and in a sustained manner, and inter-communicating and critically evaluating their findings.

If this description of Steiner's essence is correct, then we can see that his essence is a mid-level activity, as appropriate to any science - it is not an ultimate activity like a religion.

This is confirmed by Steiner's biography - he was himself a Christian (albeit of a very unusual type) but did not require of his followers that they be Christian. But, and this is important, Steiner's philosophy presupposes religion of a certain type - it only makes sense within the metaphysical context of a religion that enables his work to have meaning.

Steiner's work does not make sense in a secular, atheistic context - with the nihilistic metaphysics that entails - because in such a context it is no more than a large number of bare assertions.

In sum, a true follower of Steiner must be religious (within a restricted range of deistic religions) - if he is not to be engaged in a self-refuting and ultimately incoherent activity; but he need not necessarily be Christian as Steiner himself was.

What makes Steiner essential (or, at least, nearly so) is that he uniquely offers the possibility of a Science (which modern Man seems to require) of the Imagination (which Modern Man to desperately lacks); and as an active, fundamentally-engaged participant (not merely as a passive observer, consumer or obedient follower).

In this sense, therefore, the essence of Steiner is as necessary for modern Christians and other religious people as it is for the secular majority.

It is a fact that for many people the world seems 'dead' - this is the sense of alienation.

The fact that people do not find this strange, and seek to defend the idea - and indeed to propagate it actively by all possible means - is what invites explanation. There seems to be a very strong desire among some people that they themselves must regard the world as dead, and that they want to ensure that everybody else also regards the world as dead.

If asked, probably they would say they want this because it is just true; but the same people show no apparent interest in other and much solider truths - so such an answer is irrelevant.

There is a real edge to the propagation of the idea that the world is dead - those who propagate the idea (and who scorn, mock or vilify those who perceive and feel the world as alive) seem to be driven by something strong, insistent, demanding.

I think there is real fear behind the insistence that the world is dead - visceral fear. Fear of what? Fear that the world is not dead, presumably; and therefore what we do to the world is being done to a living entity.

But why should this evoke fear? Is it merely a primitive and superstitious and unrealistic fear - or is the fear based on something else? And, anyway - assuming they really exists - where did those primitive (or as moderns say 'medieval') superstitions come from?

The visceral nature of these emotions suggests some kind of personal involvement in the issue, and I suspect this derives from our memories (often implicit) of being children for whom the world was indeed alive. At some point almost everybody drops this belief, and changes to deny that the world is alive.

In some sense this change must come from a combination of maturity and experience, but the role of maturity seems to be to sensitise us to some experience (because the change to reject the aliveness of the world does not happen in all individuals societies, or is a temporary phase).

So if alienation and a permanent and ineradicable sense of being cut-off from life is the natural consequence of regarding the world as dead - then what is the compensatory advantage? Probably, the sense that the world is there to be used for our personal benefit - to make us feel better here and now and whenever we want.

Modern science is the apotheosis of this view - in that the world of science is set-apart-from religion, theology and philosophy (on the basis of certain, then-forgotten, metaphysical assumptions: this is the founding of 'science' as a distinct discipline) - and indeed as science evolves, one science is set apart from another; not just temporarily for the expedient attainment of certain types of understanding, but permanently and as a matter of principle.

The world is cut up into by-definition-dead chunks and examined - then used - on that basis. And the rationale for doing this is accepted as intrinsic assumption-free reality.

The invisibility of assumptions - first the creation of science by working within a set of metaphysical assumptions, then the denial of the reality or relevance of metaphysics, the denial that there any assumptions are being made... that thing again!

Maybe it is the root of what is going on with the dead world. At some point in our life we assumed the world was dead and explained everything on-that-basis. Then, after a while, we found ourselves regarding our picture of 'the world as seen through dead-world-spectacles' as evidence that the world really-is dead!

We made an assumption, lived by that assumption - and then the assumption became its own evidence, hence invisible!

If it is all a matter of assumptions - and it is - then why the vehemence!

Perhaps we sense that Modern Man is addicted to his dead world, because of the short term and selfish benefits this perspective brings (comfort, convenience, distractions etc - taken as of right). We perhaps sense that all this will have to stop if or when we regard the world as alive... that the whole edifice of 'entertainment', fashion, time-filling - of life as something we use or consume - all this will have to go.

And, because we are addicts, the thought is intolerable... 

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-inklings-group-theology-implicit-in.html

I came across William Wildblood through his enjoyable and useful comments on this blog, which led me to his web pages

http://meetingthemasters.blogspot.co.uk

And thence to his book Meeting the Masters: a spiritual apprenticeship. This is a autobiography of a young Englishman (slightly older than myself) who was of a nature that had powerful spiritual aspirations from childhood (and a strong sense of alienation from the modern world), and who needed to discover and experience things for himself.

The focus of the book is his experience of a relationship with The Masters (as he terms them: benign 'supernatural' beings, that a Christian would assume were angelic) who communicated with him over many years via an older friend and companion called Michael, by using the process sometimes described as channelling - in this instance, Michael would go into a trance and speak with a different tone and vocabulary as the voice of The Masters; and afterwards would not remember what had been said through him.

By such means, Wildblood (and Michael) learned what they needed to know, and what they ought to be doing. This book presents some of the communications from the Masters (transcribed from memory shortly after they occurred); but mostly reflection on the process and resultant knowledge - and expansions and consideration of the implications.

William Wildblood is a professional writer, and the book is easy to read and very well constructed - although running at nearly 400 pages, there is no sense of padding - it can be opened anywhere and the reader will find some substantive discussion or description. The general style is thoughtful, calm, considered; firm but unassertive.

Is this strange tale to be believed? Well, I believed it. If we are to judge by 'the fruits', the apparent result of Wildblood's education by The Masters is a validation - in terms of its general tone and tendency. Of course it isn't exactly the same as my own Christianity, and I interpret some of the phenomena and information differently; but I can certainly perceive how both of us might be viewing the same basic truth from different personalities, experiences, situations and traditions.

What I got from this book is that a serious spiritual enquirer may be met half-way by God, and provided with necessary teaching in the form he personally needs and is able to assimilate. This is what seems to have happened to William and Michael - the result was not anything especially startling, radical or spiritually impressive, and it is not claimed to be. It was simply that the necessary knowledge was provided in a way that was fitted to William and Michael and their situation - in other words, by direct 'angelic' communication.

I also got a renewed sense of the strangeness of modern 'Western' life, behind the official and privileged discourse of the public (including media) world with its nihilistic materialism - and that it is still possible for individuals to live (and live well) by a very direct contact with 'the supernatural'. 

This is a very encouraging thing - because it demonstrates that there are many routes to salvation, and that God is very keen that each of us takes one or another of these routes, and will do everything he possibly can to tailor things to each of our own limitations - so long as our spiritual seeking is sincere.

(Which is a major qualifier for many people - but Wildblood comes across as unusually humble and diligent 'spiritual seeker', over many years).

Which is all much as we would confidently hope-for, from our wise and loving Father in Heaven.

That's today's aphorism - an encouragement to think of, to formulate, Christianity as something common-sensical in its mechanisms and causality, yet incredible in its claims.

Incredibility - It is an error to try and 'normalize' Christianity, to claim that it is obvious and no big deal - that being Christian is merely the product of reason and logic and solid history and that one would have to be uninformed, dishonest or crazy not to believe it.

Actually, Christianity is incredible, stretching of credibility - hard to believe because its claims are so extreme and astonishing; and incredible too in the scope and power of its truth when that truth is understood.

And if 'reasonableness' is one extreme to be avoided, so is paradox. Paradox, beloved of a certain type of intellectual (Charles Williams?) is not sophisticated but a failure to understand. Paradox stuns - it fails to bridge the worldly and heavenly, this life and the next - sooner or later paradox leads to despair; therefore it must be shunned.

When we try to explain Christianity to modern people we should be prepared that it will probably sound to them both as simple as a child's fairy tale and as unbelievable as a child's fairy tale.

It is a mistake to soften this impact, or to dress it up with philosophical imprecision and paradox masquerading as complexity, or to try and diffuse the impact of the strangeness and apparent absurdity of Christianity in a world where nothing is finally believed except that nothing is really real.

Because the bottom line is that Christianity is a story - essentially, the story told by the gospels; extended to including our own personal place in the story - which makes it real - and as a story Christianity  resists explanation in terms of 'meaning' (or philosophy) - just as a children's fairy tale becomes alien and unrecognisable when its supposed meaning is explained by an anthropologist, folklorist, or psychologist.

As so often, Tolkien got to the nub of it: Christianity is a Fairy Story that is true - it is the true Fairy Story. The implication, which Tolkien himself didn't follow up - but which CS Lewis did - is that Christianity ought to be explained as a Fairy Story, without compromising in the direction of modern notions of plausibility.

The story is told - and then we must each, as individuals, seriously ask God concerning its truth - ask God within us by meditation, ask God the Father in prayer... whatever - but that is how we can and indeed must evaluate the truth of a story.

(And once we know the story is true, then we can - if we need or wish to - spend the rest of its life in understanding just how it is true.)

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/reviews-of-unancestral-voice-and-night.html

I think you should realize this for a fact - especially younger readers who have known nothing different, and who do not read old books to discover the fact.

It has become very difficult, apparently impossible, for people to become aware of the very extreme strangeness of what is taken for granted here and now. This awareness was actually sharp and strong even as recently as forty of fifty years ago - especially in relation to Man's relationship to nature - but (for all the official and media yammering about 'the environment') current culture shows little awareness even of this obvious fact.

Contemporary Man does not even know what he wants or needs - to the point that great efforts are expended on mocking, subverting or destroying those remaining few activities and things which provide reality and goodness and connection.

Already in the mid twentieth century there was the strangeness of so many people spending so much free time reading newspapers and magazines, listening to radio or watching the TV - now this type of activity has expanded to fill almost every waking moment... and it seems a line has been crossed at which the strangeness is no longer apparent.

Indeed, the perception of strangeness appears in those brief periods when not plugged into the media when the mobile phones must be put aside for a few minutes or hours: weird is normal, and normal is aversive.

And humans are social and sexual; and our social and (especially) sexual lives are now almost wholly artificial, saturated in artificiality - to the point where normality is seen as bizarre, and indeed evil.

The casual assumption , possible because of such gross ignorance and disdain for the past and other societies, is that we, here, now have got things right and at last understand what it is to be human (neither a man nor a woman, for starters!)  - while everybody at every other time and place were being crudely hoodwinked.

I type this, sitting at a computer screen, linked to the world via the Internet, engaged with it in some kind of subjective fashion - expecting some kind of feedback... how very bizarre. What a weird, doped, detached life we lead - even our antidotes to this disaffection or alienation are themselves modern, technical and artificial - mass distractions and entertainments, mass music, pharmacology, intoxicants, travel, going to big buildings, participation in mass online conversations, mixing with crowds of strangers and the rest of it.

It is not too much to call this world insane, in a fairly-strict sense of psychotic - i.e. living from subjectivity, cut-off from reality, and with no insight.  But when everybody is psychotic - then who makes the diagnosis?

This truly is the Most. Bizarre. World. Ever.

And we should not lose sight of the fact.

http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/

Henry was a valued penfriend and semi-colleague over the past several years - and I was extremely pleased to be asked to contribute a blurb to his 2009 book The 10,000 Year Explosion, co-authored with Greg Cochran - since I regard this as one of the most significant volumes of evolutionary biology of the past generation.

He was also an important figure in developing the Life History approach to studying human behaviour.

Furthermore, Henry seemed to me a person of unusual decency and human warmth; in the face of even more than the usual share of political correctness witch-hunting experienced by honest researchers into in human evolution, he exhibited strength but without any detectable bitterness.

**
NOTE: I was last in contact with Henry in the autumn of last year, when he told me that he had suffered significant and permanent brain damage from an insidious and undetected brain bleed as a consequence of taking the new anticoagulant Xarelto/ Rivaroxaban.

This is a known side effect of this agent that has been all-but concealed from physicians and users (presumably for the usual marketing reasons).

I mention this so that others may profit from Henry's appalling experience, and learn to be much more distrustful of the claims for new and still patent-protected pharmaceutical agents. 

It is a striking and intriguing aspect of modern intellectual life that metaphysics is invisible to almost everyone - despite that it was the very first type of philosophy and formed the basis of the subject (off and on) from the Ancient Greeks onwards.

Metaphysics refers to the fundamental assumptions - and therefore it is by definition not susceptible to proof or disproof nor does it depend on evidence. Even this by-definition fact is beyond modern Man.

This may be evidence of a decline in both average and peak intelligence, since it was only ever the most abstract thinkers who could engage with metaphysics.

Or, it may be due to a loss of introspective ability - although superficially modern people are far more introspective than people of the past; alternatively it may not be the loss of introspective ability so much as the belief that introspection is insignificant, merely 'subjective'.

The mainstream metaphysical beliefs of modern Man (because of course he has them, even if he does not know that he has, and denies the fact) are therefore utterly invisible.

(The most obvious example of invisible metaphysics is the theory of evolution by natural selection; another would be the assumption in physics of fundamental randomness - and therefore non-causality; another (related to the preceding) would be that a human life has no objective purpose or meaning.)

Modern man can only observe the consequences of his own metaphysics; but without even the slightest comprehension that these are necessary and predictable consequences of his own assumptions!

1. Continuation of the current type of mass immigration into Western nations will certainly and rapidly destroy Western civilization.

2. This is so clear and so obvious that we must assume that everybody knows it for a solid fact. To quibble, debate, or ask for 'evidence' is merely acquiescence to distraction from reality.

3. Mass immigration is the consequence of spiritual despair and self-hatred among Western populations and especially their elite leadership.

4. Given the nihilistic nature of mainstream modern secular ideology, spiritual despair and self-hatred is a rational response - indeed, it is the only rational response.

5. Therefore, The West cannot and will not be prevented from destroying itelf - whether by mass immigration, sub-fertility or by some other means - while it holds to the modern secular ideology.

6. Therefore, the West will destroy itself, because (at a profound spiritual level) The West believes it ought to be destroyed; unless (before this happens) the West experiences a mass spiritual awakening of sufficient power and suitable nature to cure its deadly despair.

The authors GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc are usually bracketed together - indeed, their friend and sparring partner George Bernard Shaw called them 'the Chesterbelloc' and described an imaginary beast of that name.

(There was, for several years, a kind of road-show travelling around England in which Belloc would Chair no-holds-barred but always good-natured (no-offence-taken) debates between GBS and GKC.)

But while GKC and HB were great friends and allies, and their Roman Catholicism and political views were almost identical, each man has a very different flavour: indeed each could be used to characterize a typical type of modern intellectual Roman Catholic.

To me Chesterton comes across as warm-hearted, sunny, positive - he seems like one of the most likeable men in the history of English literature, and the spirit of his writings breathes generosity. His writing pours-out like a volcano - unpremeditated, unrevised, of amazing evenness and high quality; tackling every subject, yet always the same in essence.

Belloc, on the other hand, has a hardness and a darkness about him. His writing (although also extremely abundant) often gives the impression of being worked-over and contrived. His best work is probably the light verse, especially the Cautionary Tales for Children, which are unsurpassed in their surreal fluidity, the brilliant humour and perfect technique... simply brilliant - but which are deliberately 'nasty'. Belloc's essays and best books like The Path to Rome and The Four Men are very fine - but strike me as unspontaneous, and hard edged - like a wood-cut, or perhaps a steel engraving.

Put simply, Chesterton represents a Merry England style of Roman Catholicism which brings to mind an idealized version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - or William Morris's News from Nowhere plus vulgarity and religion. For Chesterton, God is primarily about Love and Beauty.

That is, Chesterton dreamt of a colourful, semi-chaotic, lusty and noisy life of vivid and flawed characters engaged in all manner of activities - a society of people who often get carried away into extremes by their love of each other, and of beauty, science, medicine, learning and other positive things. But also a society in which there will be phases of reflection, repentance and renewal and unification of the apparent-chaos. However, Chesterton loves 'life' so much that he would not want unity at the cost of vigour, or love.

This Chestertonian vision is, indeed - for me, by far the most appealing vision of what Roman Catholicism could perhaps be.

And it is the basic vision to which adhere all whom I judge the best Roman Catholics that I 'know' (mostly as penfriends, authors, bloggers).

But the Bellocian type of Roman Catholic is also common among intellectuals, maybe commoner. It is a Roman Catholicism which is strong, hard, strict - and not so much warm as either hot or cold: it is the Roman Catholicism of Southern Europe of the past few centuries - harsh sun and black shadows; periods of routine and inertia interrupted by extreme violence.

Bellocism is, for me, that Catholicism of a man who is not naturally 'a good man', and who was not really motivated by love. Belloc held-onto to Roman Catholicism with a grip of iron and was valiant in the defence of Christendom; but I don't think he was motivated by love - rather (usually) by anger, irritability, and a strong streak of harsh authoritarianism enjoyed for its own sake.

The Belloc type of Roman Catholic is also common online - they get the greatest satisfaction, seem to take, indeed, a bitter delight, in excoriating other ('heretical') Christian denominations. These Bellocians seem attracted to Roman Catholicism primarily by its clarity: the authority structure, the uniquely comprehensive and logical theology, the apparent ability to provide a clear answer to any question.

Their general stance of Bellocians is what I term 'legalistic': their ideal is that God is primarily about power and truth in unity. The church understand this, and tells us exactly what it is essential to do (and not to do) in any circumstance, and therefore obedience is by far the most important Christian virtue. Their primary role in the Christian life is allying themselves with legitimate authority and against disobedience.

Now, of course, this characterization of legalism as 'Bellocian' is an unfair exaggeration; and Belloc the man in his later life practised a simple, humble faith which struck all who saw it as sincere. He also joined in with the Chestertonian hurly-burly lifestyle with vigour - albeit, there always sounds like an element of aggression in Belloc's 'noisyiness' - an element of attention-seeking and self-assertion which was absent from Chesterton (who, by contrast, seems innocent, schoolboyish, even when describing drunken revellings and hi-jinks).

But in his prime as a public figure, Belloc did indeed create the general impression I describe - and the, harsh, hard-eyed, cold-hearted legalistic style and emphasis is one which is all too common among those who describe themselves as traditionalist Roman Catholics.

I keep doing it myself and I wish I wouldn´t - critique on the basis of observations and assumptions shared by the mainstream world - trying to persuade leaders to reconsider and reform...

The place we want to be, the thins that need doing, include the recognition of the unseen world, adoption of a different metaphysical basis for life, and of course repentance -- any wise policies and good results lie on the other side of repentance.

Where to start? What to aim at?

An opening of the eyes to see the world afresh - that is what is wanted, and that can happen, has happened to plenty of people. But is this a going back? I have thought so, now I think not. It isn´t that we cannot go back, so much as that we do not really want to - not really... at any rate we do not want it enough for it to happen.

We must repent and go forward, then - and into unknown territory.

The thing it, we don´t know much about things at the large scale, we don´t even seem to know the basics - therefore we must proceed in ways that cannot be derived from or argued for using existing secular public discourse. The forces at work are essentially imperceptible, insofar as our normal perceptions are concerned.

Culturally, we are self-zombified. We see, touch, hear, taste, smell - but are dead inside.

And the leaders are the worst. Have you ever looked into the eyes of the elite leadership class? Or people in the mass media? There is nothing behind them. It is not that they are shielded, but that they open onto nothing.

There is something terribly wrong. Are they even human? At any rate there is no point in trying to change them, argue with them, reform them, bring them to a new life and repentance... We will simply be sucked into that void behind their eyes...

We need to be awakeners; and awakening does not proceed by normal means. Indeed, we have no idea how to do it, or how to measure whether it has been done - at least not by publicly agreed and verifiable means.

Therefore, what we need to do is not impossible, nor is it easy - rather, the chances of success are incalculable. We just need to do it.

Do what? Are you asking for general advice, asking for a plan? That would be a mistake. Even if you were given a plan you would not follow it and neither would anybody else.

The proper question needs to be about yourself and what you personally need to do, and I can´t tell you that - nor can anybody else, because it is significantly unique.

Yesterday´s post was about how the starting point for metaphysics - once the subject has been raised - must be intuition. This is the only path to subjective certainty.

But people typically become distracted by trying to answer other questions at the same time. For example, they want to be not just intuitively certain, but for there to be no possibility of any error - they want to eliminate the possibility of being wrong. It is a case of 100 percent accuracy and completeness of undistorted knowledge forever... or nothing. Not surprisingly, adding this requirement destroys any possibility of anything, indeed adding such conditions eliminates every form of knowledge ever known (at least in this mortal life).

Another error is to notice that my intuition differs from the intuitions of others. But this is, of course, a feature not a bug, otherwise there would be no need for intuition and each person could be fed the same knowledge - or, more likely, have it built-in. It is precisely because each person needs to know for himself, from the depths of his primary thinking; that intuition is required. ´Other people´s knowledge´ is not enough, and in a sense not relevant (or, not necessarily relevant, anyway).

The point is that intuition is the starting point - a necessary start but only the start - of a virtuous cycle of knowledge. Once we have intuited the validity of some source, then we can begin to learn - but at each important step we need to test knowledge by intuition, again and again - and this potentially modifies pre-existing knowledge in many ways.

It seems clear this is how Christianity is supposed to work, and that the imposition of official knowledge by coercion is an historical error and corruption. Christians are meant to be learning and evaluating - not just blotting-up stuff because other people say so. For example, the validity of authority needs to be known intuitively.

(Of course the institutions of Christianity are legitimately allowed to insist on knowledge and behaviours for membership, but the individual ought also to be evaluating them by intuition - e.g. by personal revelation - because otherwise the individual does not really know.)

The same process must be applied to our own motivations, these require intuitive evaluation - and very often this will reveal that the true self is not at work, but instead some other partial and externally-manufactured self.

Intuition is therefore part of various cycles of trial and error, and evolutionary progress or corruption, in practice.

But this ought not to distract from the fact that a starting point is necessary, and the primary thinking of the true self - which I am terming intuition - is the proper starting point.