Bruce Charlton's Notions

April perchance I shall not see again,
Nor follow green-shod footsteps into May.
Or watch shy blossoms curtsying to rain,
Or thrill once more to Junetime's roundelay.

Yet I'll not mourn the migrant swallow's flight,
For nearer now the cosmic motions weave
New patternings to guide me through the night
Till constant morning breaks, and I believe

There is a further springtide, tranquil, blessed
That breathes upon all winters of the years,
That bears the balm of sorrows dispossessed,
And beams a light on all that life endears.

There shall I venture, marvelling as I go
At the four seasons, now an eternal One,
Pausing to warm my hands on summer snow,
Bending to shield a snowdrop from the sun.


From Wisdom from the Wilderness - a selection of philosophy and poetry, by Charles Ackerman Berry - (2000; Bohemia Publishing: Bristol).

My knowledge of this lovely poem (written from the depth of illness, as the author approached his death) comes via the poet's daughter who wrote me about her father's friendship with William Arkle in Bristol - around 1960.

Interested, I bought this self-published volume, and found several real lyric poems - of the early 20th century 'Georgian' genre (broadly similar in style to Walter de la Mare, WH Davies, Robert Frost - the spirit perhaps more like the older Longfellow) - in other words, CAB was born a generation or more too late, after Modernism has become dominant; consequently his poetry was hardly noticed.

Nonetheless real poetry is rare and real, and always will find those who want it - regardless of whether it was written out of its time. 

I remember being aged about 14 and being mildly mocked and teased for believing that Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was true - the person doing the mocking was the friend who had actually introduced me to the book, and he liked it very much. That was one thing, he said; but I actually believed it.

What I found so cutting - and this is why I remember the event - was that it was correct: I did believe LotR was true; and I was shocked to discover that this friend did not - it seemed like a betrayal, and indeed I did not regard him as a friend after that point.

For me, the main fact about the Lord of the Rings was that it was true. How exactly to explain that - to explain what 'being true' meant in this context - was a further question; but the truth was the main thing. Indeed, I have never come across a satisfying explanation of the way that LotR (for example) is true. I am not satisfied by Tolkien's own explanation with respect to Subcreation in his essay On Fairy Stories and the many other pieces in that tradition; I am not satisfied by the explanations based on Symbolism; nor by Jungian Collective Unconscious type explanations - even less by post-Jungian explanations of myth in the Joseph Campbell/ James Hillman style.

All these sell short the way in which LotR is true. On the one hand it is not literally true in any kind of fact-by-fact basis; but on the other hand it is solidly true in-and-of-itself in a way that is grossly under-sold by the explanations I have seen. These explanations are, indeed, not even the kind of thing that could be a satisfactory explanation - they are abstract schemes based on abstractions; whereas the truth of Tolkien is anything-but abstract - the opposite of abstract! It is something experienced.

In fact, given its role in my life over many decades, this inability to explain the truth of LotR takes on a decisive aspect - it points to a major inadequacy of metaphysics, a failure of the basic structure of thinking which I have assumed and lived-by.

If it was just the Lord of the Rings, that would perhaps be less significant; but the problem is more general. For example, the truth of Father Christmas/ Santa Claus. I really dislike hearing people say that Father Christmas is untrue - it seems like a shocking and shameful admission to advertise oneself as an unbeliever in so obviously and importantly true a phenomenon. Yet I seemingly can't explain how or why Father Christmas is true - any explanation I have known for the way he is true, grossly undersells the matter.

On the flip-side, there are many, indeed most, things in public life which it would be regarded as a mark of insanity to deny the truth of that do not strike me as true - things in science, history, common knowledge... They conspicuously lack that which Lord of the Rings has in such abundance - I know that LotR is true, and with them... I don't.

This is a long-way-round to my recent grasp of Rudolf Steiner's metaphysics (or, 'epistemology' as modern philosophers tend to call it) which I outlined yesterday -

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/my-understanding-of-rudolf-steiners.html 

- and its clear assertion that what is thought is reality: not a 'representation' of reality, but actually the same thing. In thinking we are participating-in the totality of universal truth.

This is metaphysics, so it is not the kind of question we discuss on the basis of 'evidence' - but (among many other attributes and consequences) this seems to me to be the solution to the problem of the truth of the Lord of the Rings. In reading (and thinking about) LotR I was - with great focus, concentration and clarity - thinking some of the truths of the universe; the actual primary stuff of creation was active in my consciousness.

But why specifically LotR? Surely all thoughts and all thinking have that characteristic? Yes, but not all things that we casually assume are thoughts and thinking, actually are thoughts and thinking. For me, clearly (assuming the metaphysical assumptions) there was something about Lord of the Rings that made it so I really, clearly, powerfully thought it and was aware of my thinking.                 

Of course the Lord of the Rings is true! - universally, and really true.    

What is the relation between total reality and the ideas of the human mind? Steiner asserts (and I think proves, given his assumptions) that the ideas of the human mind are the same thing as total reality (albeit a tiny and biased sample from that total reality).

By 'same thing' - he means identical with.

The modern positivist/ relativist skeptic asks why (on earth!) this should be?

Steiner's answer is that the creator deity made things so.

(This I infer based on assumptions that are not given clearly and explicitly in PoF - and this makes it harder to understand this book, and Steiner's whole system, than it was 100 plus years ago).

*

Total relativity is sampled by thoughts as they occur in the process of thinking. This reality is generated, as it were, automatically: it is what thinking does.

Steiner regards thinking as not just automatic but necessarily valid. This arises from the fact that the units of 'thoughts' are identical with the units of total reality (insofar as any 'unit' detached from an inter-related-whole, can be valid).

More specifically, reality comes to us cloven in twain - split between percepts (coming through the senses - external and internal) and concepts which we derive from the totality of reality.

Thinking matches the percept to its complementary concept - that is what thinking does - and then weaves these thoughts into understanding.

And this understanding is a microcosm of total reality.

(All this is given us - by the basic set-up of creation.)  

*

But Men are variably conscious of this thinking - because consciousness has different strength and different focus.

Hunter-gatherers and youngish children unconsciously accept the validity of thinking.

Modern Man (older children and adolescents) became aware of the separate (and radically incomplete) realities of percepts and concepts; and becomes aware of the metaphysical assumptions of deity, creation, Man's make-up and thus doubts the validity of thought - notices that these assumptions are not compelled (and therefore denies them).

Future Man (mature adults, of whom there are apparently very few) will become conscious of thinking as valid - as reality itself.

*

So thinking actually is in itself a microcosm of reality. But what of the incompleteness and bias of thinking? How can each person discover these inaccuracies, and correct and improve their thinking - to make a more complete and representative sample of reality? And why should Man do this?

Further assumptions - that Man is made by God to-do-this, because Man's destiny is to become more divine. God has knowledge of the totality of reality: Man's destiny is to approach ever closer to this condition.

So Man is set-up with innate and spontaneous impulses to seek knowledge; to correct, make more consistent and complete knowledge. Furthermore, deity purposively assists this process, by many and various means.

*

The message of Philosophy of Freedom is therefore to restore confidence in the truth of thinking. Thoughts are real and true, they are indeed identical with ultimate reality. We should not waste time on doubting thoughts and thinking - but we should strive to be aware of them.

We should instead consciously seek to increase experience by exposure to the most helpful percepts. Don't waste time on doubting deity - accept that you dwell in a created universe, you were put into that creation and the whole fits together - communicated directly and reliably. Work towards the fullness of knowledge and increase of deity.

(If a Man was - after vast aeons of experience perhaps - to attain total knowledge: what then? Would he merge with deity? If so, then what would be the point of the whole protracted exercise? The answer is that Man would become a different deity - different on the basis of having a unique set-up, and different in the linearity of experience.)

The common distinctions between subjective and objective, spiritual and material, imagination and common sense are collapsed - all these are obliterated in thinking: if some-thing can be thought (really thought) then it is real and true.

*

But consciousness is what enables us to be aware of thinking, and consciousness may abstract from thinking, may create abstractions from thoughts, may create models from these abstractions.

Modern consciousness has fallen into many bad habits of abstraction; bad habits of abstracting artificial concepts from thoughts, and manufacturing abstract model systems from these abstractions.

These are not real - most of what is in modern consciousness is not real. Our automatic, unthinking consciousness, automatically misreads thinking.

To repeat: Modern Man automatically and habitually fails to observe thinking and instead focuses on abstracted, detached, modelled (hence unreal) phenomena. What consciousness is telling us are our thoughts and thinking, are not our thoughts and thinking but instead abstractions and models.

*

The test of un-reality is that we cannot think it!

Contrariwise - anything and everything we can and do think is real - including anything we can imagine and think.

So - The problem for modern Man is not Thinking but Consciousness.

What Modern Man needs to do (must do, if he is to fulfil his destiny) is to redirect consciousness away from percepts and concepts and onto thinking. To do this we need to be aware of what we are doing wrong with consciousness.

We think in truths: our task is to stop ignoring the fact. 

*
In 1894 Rudolf Steiner published a book Die Philosophie der Freiheit variously Englished as The Philosophy of Freedom (PoP), The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.
The book can be read online at:
http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004
Or listened to at:
http://www.rudolfsteineraudio.com/POSA/posa.html

Unreflective, naive realism is the past: religious traditionalism - it accepts what is given and relies on not-thinking about it. And then those who reflect and think deeply and become wise are led to a conscious recognition that what is given is true, real and therefore necessary.

Modern people who do not consciously think are therefore on 'the Right'; and so are those who follow-through their thoughts to their conclusions.*

But the mass majority of modern intellectuals, however, think a little bit but never through to conclusions. They reflect a little, but never about their own assumptions. They are - in a word - sophomores: that is, wise fools - or, actual-fools who superficially appear, and believe themselves to be, wise.

They can see what is wrong with the status quo but not what is wrong with their proposed solution; they know the obstacles in the path of achieving their goals but not the reason for those obstacles or that their goals may be incoherent or evil; they can see what makes some people miserable in the short term, but not what leads to a fulfilled life for most people in the long term.

The Left make much of the egalitarian economics of redistribution - of taking from the minority and handing it to the mass majority; but never do the sums to find out how much more this would give to the minority. Socialism as an international movement growing through the 19th century was built upon the desire to alleviate the poverty which the elites had noticed for the first time after the industrial revolution (after the industrial revolution had objectively alleviated that poverty - but had also brought the poorest into concentrated groups in towns) - but socialism relied on the sophomoric mindset that believed redistribution would solve poverty; but nobody did the sums which showed this was grossly impossible, and that egalitarian socialism would certainly and mathematically lead not to universal plenty but universal poverty.

Nowadays the Left focus on the supposed plight of 'victim' groups who have for the past fifty years been systematically and explicitly granted preferences and privileges by multiple laws, regulations and openly in bureaucratic and private discourse. This is in order to address some specific inequalities  (maybe personal, maybe statistical) which are usually the consequence of common sense justice - justice therefore needs to be redefined. The answer to be imposed is 'equality of outcome' as defined by group membership - i.e. quotas - regardless of individual differences. The consequences of equalising outcome by quotas on group membership can be seen with the eyes, as well as reasoned - but the sophomoric Left will neither acknowledge the obvious nor will they think through the implications of what they advocate.

The Left (whose ultimate motivations are evil, and whose ruling elite are deliberately engaged in a - highly successful - strategy of long term subversion, destruction and inversion of all that is Good) have heir pitch exactly calculated. Unreflective people are portrayed as dumb, but anyone who actually thinks rigorously through to conclusions is engaged in 'meaningless metaphysics' and is an ideological apologist for fascism.

The sophomore is thus equally impatient with the naive and with the learned - he is happy with his partial, superficial and distorted little bit of knowledge; his little bit of knowledge makes him feel superior to the masses, but he despises the truly wise because feels no need for any more knowledge because his little bit gets him what he wants (here and now, in the short term, according to his superficial and corrupt desires).

The sophomore regards himself as a kind of perfection of balance - enough knowledge to be superior to the masses, but not so much as to lead to hard work and dealing with troublesome consequences: he feels himself to be both prestigious and pragmatic; with enough learning to justify his authority, but not enough to risk being expelled outside the pale.

We live in a world where sophomores rule - they rule government, the mass media, the mainstream churches, law, the military and police, education, science and everything else.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing; and that word 'dangerous' to a sophomore, sounds cool! He likes to think of himself, and be though-of by others, as 'dangerous' - although he actually is a timid, conformist, unprincipled coward in all serious situations (just being pragmatic, you know; saving himself for the really important conflicts...).

Every wise man must pass through the phase of being a sophomore - but unless he recognises it as a phase, he may get stuck there; as have the entirety of the Western ruling class.

Any sophomore is bad enough... But a whole class of smug, self-satisfied sophomores in charge of everything is lethal.


*Note added: This is common knowledge - Uneducated people, unexposed to mass media or mass education, are naturally conservative; and so are experts when it comes to the area of their expertise. Radicals are drawn from those whose knowledge and skills lie in-between ignorance and expertise. 

"A great number of educated readers today will immediately reject unread any literary or scientific book that appears with a claim to being philosophical. There has hardly ever been a time when philosophy has enjoyed less favour than now… 
 
"Questions of the most general interest, and which therefore have been widely read, one does not go too far in saying that philosophical works are read today only by people in the profession. Nobody bothers except them. An educated person not in the profession has the vague feeling: This literature contains nothing that meets my spiritual needs; the things dealt with there do not concern me; they are not connected in any way with what is necessary for the satisfaction of my spirit... 
 
"In contrast to this lack of interest, there stands an ever-growing need for a satisfying view of the world and of life. What for a long time was a substitute for so many people, i.e., religious dogma, is losing more and more of its power to convince. The urge is increasing all the time to achieve by the work of thinking what was once owed to faith in revelation: satisfaction of spirit.
 
"The involvement of educated people could therefore not fail to exist if the sphere of philosophy about which we are speaking really went hand in hand with the whole development of culture, if its representatives took a stand on the big questions that move humanity.
 
"One must always keep one's eye on the fact that it can never be a question of first creating artificially a spiritual need, but only of seeking out the need that exists and satisfying it.  
 
"The task of philosophy is not to pose questions, but rather to consider questions carefully when they are raised by human nature and by the particular level of culture, and then to answer them.
 
"Our modern philosophers set themselves tasks that are in no way a natural outgrowth of the level of culture at which we stand; therefore no one is asking for their findings. But this philosophy passes over the questions that our culture must pose by virtue of the vantage point to which our classical writers have raised it. We therefore have a philosophy that no one is seeing, and a philosophical need that is not being satisfied by anyone."
 
From The theory of knowledge implicit in Goethe's world view by Rudolf Steiner - published in 1886. 
 
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA002/English/AP1985/GA002_c01.html
 
Note: This passage (from 130 years ago! - yet more than ever applicable) struck home - specifically the passage I have rendered in bold.

Substituting a spiritual Christianity for 'philosophy' (into which I have retranslated Wissenschaft, which the original translator had - I think misleadingly - rendered as 'science': it means c. systematic knowledge) - it is tempting to try and create the need for which Christianity is the answer.

Tempting... but this is futile and will be resisted. The starting point must be to consider the questions that are raised by human nature, and to answer them.

The main 'questions' are - I think - related to feelings of alienation, meaninglessness, futility and despair - how to solve these deep and demoralizing problems.

These all lead to a consideration of Christianity if pursued honestly and rigorously (and we can do no more than induce people to a serious consideration) - the (difficult) task is therefore to encourage people to be honest and rigorous about their spontaneous spiritual needs.

The primary form of communication is having the idea (a true, real idea - let's assume), clarifying it in the mind; the secondary form is writing it in my personal notebook - by the time it gets published (as a blog post or in some other form) this is the tertiary level.

But wait! (I hear you cry...) surely the internet is the first, not third, level of communication - since the preceding levels have been private, and there was not even an attempt to 'communicate'?

Well, it is easy to fall into that way of thinking because it is normal and habitual in our materialist public discourse - but my metaphysical assumptions are that there are super-sensory means of communication which are primary; such that I cannot have a real idea except that this came from the totality of all real-and-possible ideas accessible to all humans - the source of all true ideas.

And by grasping and clarifying this idea it is strengthened and made more available to all, by supersensory and unknown paths. These may be entirely imperceptible, or may be more consciously known by roundabout pathways that appear as synchronicities (that is, purposefully managed by deity, but appearing as if these were coincidences).

At any rate, I believe that the proper attitude for a person such as myself - whose main trade is in ideas - is so far as possible to be relaxed about the matter of dissemination: just concentrate on thinking and then 'put the ideas out there' in some way, shape or form... They will find their own level, and (whether directly, or by chains of influence) will sooner or later reach any people who want or need them.

Not forgetting that a man thinking, or - even more so - jotting notes in a journal, is itself a dissemination of ideas so long as those ideas are True, Real and Good.

And if the ideas aren't T R & G, then much better that they were not disseminated.

If I take the past few weeks as a time-slice - the main things I am reading have been mostly reflected on this blog:

1. Major theme: I am exploring the Romantic Metaphysics tradition (I just made-up that name) of Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle - by various combinations of slow intensive reading, listening to bits read aloud (this applies mainly to the Steiner, which is available in this form - but my Kindle will read aloud any book, albeit in a robotic and badly-emphasised fashion) and almost random dippings-in by impulse. A bit of Traherne.

2. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - yes... I'm afraid I am listening again to this as an audiobook - from the beginning. And loving it.

3. Tolkien - dipping mainly, but I re-read The Notion Club Papers (nth time), and looking through bits of the History of Middle Earth, and favourite parts of Lord of the Rings; listening (in the car) to Smith of Wootton Major. I tried to listen to The Children of Hurin read by Christopher Lee, but did not like the work or the reading of it.

4. Again in the car, I listened to the funny stories and verse of a Northumbrian farmer - about farming life - called Henry Brewis - who issued three CDs in the 1990s.

5. I have watched a couple of Shakespeare plays on DVD and read in Sam Johnson's and Coleridge's Shakespearian crit.

6. Read various poems from Palgrave's Golden Treasury.

7. Tried to read A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, but gave up 1/3 of the way through from lack of interest.

8. Bedtime reading aloud (to my wife) - Finished one Miss Read 'Fairacre' novel by Miss Read, and started another - in between got more than halfway through RL Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey (a re-read, maybe fourth time including talking books?) but it didn't work terribly well read aloud and unedited.

9. Family listening in the car - Terry Pratchett - finished Small Gods, am most way through Soul Music.

10. Ground to a halt in listening to an audiobook of the Emerson biography by Robert D Richardson - a book I used to love to the point of obsession, but I now find Emerson too annoying with his multiple proto-progressive views (supported strongly by the biographer).

11. Not much scripture - mainly the Gospel of John.

12. Continuing my rather slow progression through Terryl Givens's Wrestling the Angel account of Mormon theology.
*

Probably more - the large number of works is mainly a reflection of my rather desultory current habits, as I drift from one thing to another...

The reason for so much 'audio' reading is that I listen to books - or cricket - while doing cooking and other kitchen chores.

(When I say 'cooking' I should really write 'food preparation' - of which I do a lot which is necessary and also something I am happy to do for the family; although I very seldom really cook anything. I don't hate it, and I like mealtimes and getting drinks and snacks etc for the family members - but cooking does not give me any intrinsic satisfaction. I have never made a meal I was 'proud of'.)

When we visited Stratford we saw a shop (now closed down) which called itself Much Ado About Toys - which, in a town chock-full of Shakespearian references, struck us as the lamest of the lot.

But when we tried to do better we found it impossible. - i.e. When we tried to make a name for a Toyshop that was a pun on a sufficiently well-known Shakespearian phase that was actually better than the lamentable name of Much Ado About Toys... we utterly failed.

Embarrassing, eh?...

Any suggestions?

(The prize is brief and obscure mention of your name/ pseudonym on this blog. The judge's decision is final.)

Added June 8:
The ceremony: 
And the winners are - second runner-up is Toybalt by JB; runner-up is All is but Toys by Nathaniel - And the winner is... Play's the thing from Crosbie.


Here is your Prize...


Thank you ladies and gentlemen - and goodnight!

It seems hard to live up to, a morning like this one! Cool, but clear and crisp and filled with new leaves and birdsong. My emotions are mostly gratitude and unfocused excitement.

Yet there is also a kind of angst, a superstitious, grinding worry inside my chest that Life is trying to get me to drop my guard so that it can slip in a knockout blow.

How wrong that attitude is, how demonic - that we poison our own bliss by a concern that implies that God would make that kind of world for his children.

(It makes a powerful artistic trope, perhaps, but art is less than God.)

In seeking to free myself from this species of corrosive despair I find my thought most healed by thinking about the clear and luminous insights of William Arkle - In just a few years his direct and intuitive understanding of the divine and human condition has become central to my convictions and aspirations.

From Arkle's essay A Cup of Day.

http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/late-prose.html

Arkle's text is very slightly edited - his words are in italics; my comments and summaries are in non-italics:

This early morning feeling is that 'My cup runneth over'. But we must not try to catch and hold-onto all the overflowing drops of experience. We cannot 'waste' life; so long as we attend to it - so long as we are here, now, and listening to the divine communications.

All that is really valuable will come back to you when it is needed. It really will!

This is part of the game of life which requires forgetting and letting-go with good grace and a sense of the unimportance of one's self.

Be one with the big fearless love which smiles on everything from its sense of the everlastingness and completeness which lies behind all living reality.

We think we can lose but we can't! There are safety nets around everything, since all comes from perfect love.

If we trust in the love of the creator, our divine parents, then that is the proper basis for living. (Not by terror, not by superstition, not by grasping and gripping - not in despair.) God, surely (and we can discover this for ourselves, if we seek it from divine communications) wants us to be things like hope-full, positive, active, alive, loving, creative, intelligent, aware - whenever possible.

We will, indeed, fail and fall - but by Christ's gift of repentance we will always be caught by those safety nets!

And when joy is not possible, we can endure faithfully in absolute confidence of our Heavenly Father's love - so we can know (with certainty) that, in the end, all hurts will be healed; and our lives become greater than we can curently imagine - except in glimpses.

A secular society is one such as all Western societies, where public discourse is not framed by a religious perspective and priorities.

In such a society mass immigration is a win-win strategy for the demonic powers because in itself it will (by various means, both direct and indirect) tend to subvert residual Christianity - but perhaps most powerfully by being both symbolic of the underlying despair of secularism, and in its effects encouraging an enactment of the 'death wish' for cultural suicide and individual self-annihilation.

The win-win aspect is because in public discourse secular opposition for mass immigration in this context can only be based upon material and psychological selfishness (since that is the only possible bottom line basis of all secular morality which denies the 'transcendental realm) - in other words, opposition to immigration is based upon the wish to preserve (or enhance) personal wealth and this-worldly happiness. Therefore it will attain political motivation and power by encouraging variants of greed and hatred.

And - a neglected aspect - mass immigration to The West is a win-win for Satan (in the large majority of instances) because it is economically and psychologically motivated and leads to the corruption of the immigrating population by secularism (eg. the evil effects of a pervasive mass media, the destructive effects of economic dependence, and a victim mentality which is deliberately inculcated by The Left in host nations).  

In sum, mass migration into the West destroys both Western Christianity and the Christianity of the migrants.

However, a distinct category is the other factor in world population movements, which concerns what might be termed religious migrants, who remain observant or even intensify religious observance in The West; and who seek to expand their religion into The West.

It is interesting to speculate, from a Christian perspective, why God has allowed this to happen - and the most obvious answer is that (to God) any religion is preferable to no religion; any religion has more potential for human salvation (we are not primarily talking about human health, wealth or happiness) than the currently dominant Left-secularism of The West.

So, given the mass apostasy and anti-Christianity of The West - and its subversion of even Pagan common sense and natural decency - the best available option is some other religion rather than the utter despair and inversion of The Good which is characteristic of all secularism on average and in the long run.

None of this is inevitable. If the West chooses to embrace Christianity again, then (and only then) the Western Peoples would find the loving motivation to deal with the phenomenon of mass immigration in the only non-Satanic way it can be dealt-with - by working not for human mortal comfort and convenience, but from the eternal and divine perspective.

Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).

Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.

The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).

Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.

There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.

 Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.

Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!

Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...

Song of the Sea (2014) is a really lovely animated movie; lovely in its visuals, music, voice-acting and the story. It is made with a sureness of touch that scarcely puts a foot wrong. There is beauty, sadness, peril and joy. And it has an inspiring and resonant ending.

There is a double aspect to the movie, which has a dominant mythic and fairytale element - and also a modern, psychological parallel plot which I must admit pretty-much passed me by until after I had finished watching and my son pointed it out. I think I was so swept-up by the main story that I had no attention left over.

BTW: I would advise you NOT to watch the 'trailer' - which gives-away about 3/4 of the plot.

It is striking that my blog posts with a political theme usually get more views and comments than those on other themes. And the internet is full of (mostly Leftist) political comment. In general, political discourse seems to be the realm in which 'serious' people most avidly interact.

I have always found this strange; and it seems to apply to many nations. I remember being told by a local that those weatherbeaten old men sitting outside Greek cafe's wit their worry beads were talking about politics; and that multigenerational French extended families having four hour meals together outdoors would be talking about politics... How very disappointing! It all seems a terrible example of misplaced attention and effort, of futility.

Why on earth do so many people expend so much energy on such an unfruitful and unenjoyable topic? Because it is very seldom I have come away from any political discussion in any kind of positive, meaning-enhanced frame of mind - the filed seems like an exercise in frustration, anger and despair.

It seems clear to me that a trick is being successfully played on many people - it would be better to discuss almost anything other than politics, yet that is what gets discussed.

Of course I am not saying that politics is trivial - I would regard the mainstream, dominant secular  Leftist politics (shared as an assumption by all major political groups including those non-religious groups who are labelled, advertise or suppose themselves to be 'Right') to be the main source of malaise, insanity, despair and practical evil in modern society. But political discussion does nothing to cure that problem.

Indeed, conversation in groups generally seems to achieve very little in a positive, curative, inspiring direction except under rather exceptional circumstances. When it is ot political, middle class conversation in Britain is typically merely mechanical variations on safe subjects; or - in order to be more lively - unrelentingly facetious. Why do we waste everybody's time this way?

All too often conversation merely blocks any possibility of thinking and contemplation in a similar fashion to the mass media; so that between the demands of work, the media, social chit-chat and general busyness - people are trapped, encaged... life for the majority is like a third-degree torture of perpetual harassment... and relief from this 24/7 torture with solitude, quiet, and unstructured time is perceived as boring, lonely, miserable - something to be escaped as soon as possible! Stockholm Syndrome is the norm - and the people side with those who have kidnapped their time and attention.

The prison, like most large and inclusive prisons, is self-built and locked from the inside. The key is in your back pocket.

The audiobook begins at 5 hours, then when you get to the end you need to return to the start of the recording!

The philosophy is an excellent analysis and delineation of our modern malaise - it doesn't go all the way (that requires Jesus Christ) but someone already a Christian should find it complementary, in the sense of completing the necessary metaphysics.

This recording is excellent (I have it on audiotapes).

Note: The narrator is Michael Kramer, who also does the Brandon Sanderson novels.

Following on from: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/was-john-evangelist-resurrected-lazarus.html

I have seen various views taken as to whether Lazarus was truly resurrected (as is implied, to my mind, by the preceding conversations between Jesus and Martha - see below) or whether he was merely brought-back-to-life (on the basis that Jesus must have been the first to be resurrected).

If Lazarus truly was resurrected rather than merely 'raised' then this would potentially be further indirect evidence that John the Evangelist was Lazarus - if, like me, you regard the disciple John as the most wholly good and holy man ever to have lived.

(Of course this cannot be proved by 'evidence' but I am not the only person to think so.)

If John was indeed Lazarus resurrected, hence a man perfected in body and spirit; then complete goodness and holiness would be exactly what one would expect, as also would be his immortality.

Relevant passage from the Gospel of John:

Chapter 11: 18 Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: 19 and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. 20 Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. 21 Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 22 But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. 23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? 27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. 28 And when she had so said, she went her way

So much discussion is rendered futile by the primacy of intent - and that this fact is not recognised, or else rendered an insoluble mystery and ruled-out. This applies also in Christian life.

Discussion nearly always focuses on explicit, observable things like policy statements, laws, and people's actions. Yet these are only understandable in terms of the intentions behind them - the same behaviour can have opposite interpretations depending on the framework of intentions (or motivations) that it is embedded-in.

For example, when I was reading the Letters of Fr Seraphim Rose a few years ago - there were parts when he was at the same time resisting theological 'liberals' and 'ultra-correct' conservatives. The liberals were those who were changing, diluting, and dropping items of faith on the basis that the heart was what mattered. This was what I expected to see. But he was also resisting the 'ultra-correct', who were highly specific and rigid concerning permissible rituals, practises etc - and neglected the intentions and emotions behind them. And indeed I have seen Seraphim Rose criticised both for being a rigid traditionalist and liberalising radical.

At the end of the liberalising path, Christianity dies by being absorbed into mainstream secularism; at the end of the ultra-correct path, Christianity dies by being absorbed by legalistic bureaucracy. Either way, Christianity dies when the intention is other than Christian.

In the end, it was clear that even in Eastern Orthodoxy, which superficially seems a straightforward adherence to 'tradition', there are serious and insoluble difficulties about judging on the basis of actions and ignoring intentions.

In the blog 'reactosphere' - especially among the likes of Roman Catholics and Calvinists - the same debate is repeatedly played-out. And the real debate is - it seems to me - about the underlying intent: this is what needs to be discussed and decided.

For example, if the real, genuine, operative intent of a Christian liberaliser is to change the rules in order to promote his own career, or so as to permit engagement his favourite sexual activity - then whatever policy he promotes will not be what it seems, but merely a stalking-horse for the next stage in his self-gratification.

(This can be seen in the Church of England; where women who personally regard the priesthood as a job which they want to do, and then they want to be promoted to Bishop, will argue - sometimes using 'Christian' reasons - why this is necessary and beneficial; or priests who personally want to have sex outside of the context of a traditional marriage (i.e. between an adult man and women) will make theological arguments about the Christian duty of 'inclusion' to allow or encourage this.)

On the conservative and traditional side, can be seen a rigid legalism of attitude; for example Protestant pastors who reflexively and unrestrainedly (that is, without regard either for the Christian virtue of honesty or the Christian vice of bearing false witness) vilified the Harry Potter series because they contained magic. (This example may seem trivial, but I regard it as perhaps the single most significant lost opposrtunity for Christian evangelism of Western young people over the past couple of decades.) Or the ignorant, aggressive and (I infer) hate-fuelled way that serious, conservative Christians of different denominations talk about each other.

Again it is the intention which is controlling the situation; and conservative Christians are often driven by a desire to gain status by excoriating other people for their failure strictly to follow the rules, practises, and other observable and measurable outcomes. They are like the performance managers of corporations whose entire focus is on errors and complaints, and who use this to gain personal control (and personal gratification) by keeping the spotlight relentlessly on the failures of other people.

My point is that Seraphim Rose was 100 percent correct that neither rule-following nor rule-breaking are of the essence. The essence lies in what is behind this - in intentions, motivations and the like. In the heart.

Now, of course, intentions are not visible - people do not have transparent heads in which we can read their true intentions. And people lie and decieve - including lying to themselves and deceiving themselves - a pre-requisite for effective manipulation of others.

And to make matters worse there are radicals and reactionaries and misguided Christians who are always harping-on about not judging other people - by which they mean that because we cannot be sure of what is going on in the intentions of another, we are forbidden to make an inference on the topic - and must therefore either always assume the best intentions, or the worst.

This is dangerous, deadly nonsense! - even if it is sincerely and compassionately motivated - for the simple reason that intentions are the most important factor - and so they cannot be ignored.

So we should be upfront in talking about and thinking about the intentions of others. For example, in public life, in leadership, in politics and the like... we should be talking less about what people say and their policies, and more about what kind of a person they are. Furthermore, we cannot read-off what kind of person they are from what they have done - because until we know their intentions we cannot interpret what they have done.

So we must be wary about asking for 'evidence' of the intentions of others, and we must be wary of having an assumption of either good or bad intentions - because in practice such assumptions cannot often be overturned by 'evidence'. We need to aim at intuiting intentions - which is how the most socially-adept people behave in real life.

But how do we know the intentions of others? The answer is by paying careful attention to them, over period of time - in personal contact, in a number of situations, and with time to think about it and take notice of our hearts - the discernment of the heart as a Seraphim Rose called it - more than listening exclusively to our heads/ intellect or to our gut feelings/ immediate urges (both of which are easily fooled).

With public figures this process is more difficult and may be impossible. So be it - it is one reason why our mass society functions so badly. Nonetheless we must make such decisions and be open about the fact. (And, of course, our decisions must be open to revision - when our genuine intuitions change.) 

The single most important thing we can know about someone is his intentions (or, as GK Chesterton put it - his 'philosophy'; by which I would understand his metaphysical assumptions and his motivations in life).

This knowledge cannot be had for the asking, nor given by the telling -  the knowledge is not explicit nor quantifiable; in the end it comes from no specific technique or technology but from loving attention to communications (including those that are too subtle to recognise and beyond the sense to detect) and to our own most profound responses.

Passing on a tip about a substance called Shoe Goo.

I always wear double-thick cushioned-sole running shoes (various styles) made by Hoka Hoka, due to suffering osteoarthritis of the knees. These trainers are designed for serious road runners, and uniquely provide a really remarkable degree of shock-absorption, that allows me to walk long distance on the city streets (and country trails) without provoking symptoms. For which I am very grateful!

Hoka Hoka have three main disadvantages: the first is that they very expensive (and only sold in about a dozen places in the UK - I get mine from George Fisher in Keswick); the second that they are large and garish and look absurd when worn by the likes of me rather than serious athletes (I imagine that the manufacturers would pay me not to wear them); the third is that they wear away rather quickly being made of very soft and gripping rubber (and because I wear them nearly all the time).

I happened to be chatting with a proper runner who had discovered that Shoe Goo...

which is a clear rubbery kind of glue - could be used to prolong the life of these and other running shoes - or indeed rubber-soled shoes of any type.

As the soles begin to wear, you clean the surface and apply a layer of the glue, and this then becomes the surface in contact with the ground. It usually lasts a few weeks before the glue itself wears away and another layer needs to be applied.

The Shoe Goo itself seems to be very grippy, so this is not a problem.

I have also used it to 'invisibly' repair a small hole in my son's shoes where the leather met the sole, and to prolong the life of my daughter's school shoes.

Now, I wouldn't be without this in the house. It isn't expensive, and two tubes have lasted me about a year and a half so far. The only problem is that it has a really terrible 'organic solvent' type of smell, which tends to give me a headache unless I do the goo-ing outdoors. 

I came across this idea in the writings of Rudolf Steiner, whose Christian speculations usually strike me as convoluted, unnecessary and untrue. But this idea - that the disciple and evangelist John was actually renamed from Lazarus after he had been raised from the dead; and this is why just as the name of Lazarus disappears from the record, the name of John the disciple appears - stuck in my mind, and began to make sense...

The main evidence against the idea is that John's gospel does not explicitly mention this happening, and that no oral tradition of such a thing has come down from the early church.

In favour of the idea is that it makes sense of several aspects of John's gospel.

The strongest factor, for me, is the emphasis John gives to the fact that he calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved; but that this phrase is never mentioned until after the Lazarus raising.

But before this, there has already been a similar emphasis that Jesus loved Lazarus (and also loved Lazarus's sisters, Martha and Mary of Bethany - the Mary who anointed Christ and wiped his feet with her hair, and who I believe to be the same person as Mary Magdalen). The Evangelist goes to considerable length to emphasise both of these loves - for Lazarus and John, and no other man is so described.

If (two assumptions joined here...) John had been Lazarus, and Mary Magdalen was the same person as Mary of Bethany - this would explain why they were both together at the crucifixion. 

The other thing this helps to explain is the idea that John the disciple would never die, but would tarry until the second coming of Christ. This is discussed between Jesus and Peter, and apparently comes out of the blue; but if John was Lazarus and therefore had been resurrected then it would make sense, would be a reasonable inference, that John was not going to die as other men die.

As I said, it all fits together except that the Lazarus-John change of name isn't mentioned in the way that the Simon-Peter change is mentioned. This does not rule it out - the fact may have been so well known at the time the gospel was written that it could be taken for granted (after all, John's gospel was written in a way that does seem to take a lot of prior knowledge for granted).

Here are the relevant Biblical passages:





Ch 21 ²⁰ Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? ²¹ Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? ²² Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. ²³ Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? ²⁴ This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.

From "The Devil" in Meditations on the Tarot by Valentin Tomberg (published anonymously in 1980):

"One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than keeping a certain distance and a certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralysing the creative elan, and a still greater risk - that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. Now, one cannot love evil. Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology."

This striking and wise passage contains two important assertions:

1. Profound knowledge requires love. I think this is correct. Of course most knowledge, almost all of it, is superficial - but where there is profound knowledge it seems always to have required a sustained attention to the phenomenon. And sustained attention is motivated by love.

2. Deep understanding of evil would therefore require you to love evil, to give it sustained attention. This is ultimately impossible, but the attempt to do it will harm you and aid the work of evil.

These insights negate one of the primary pseudo-assumptions of modern media and arts, and the news; that we 'need to understand' evil before we can effectively deal with it. This is not only false, but deeply morally hazardous... which is, of course, exactly why so many people in charge keep saying it.