Bruce Charlton's Notions

The situation in the UK is no different from anywhere else in the Western world. It is not normal to be a Christian in today’s UK, let alone to belong to the tiny minority here that is composed of Orthodox Christians.

The State ignores Christians and Christianity. We are totally irrelevant to it and its anti-Christian agenda. As far as they are concerned, we are an anachronism and we should die out and disappear as soon as possible.

Having said that, there is no active persecution as such, just indifference and underlying hostility, disguised by the hypocritical politeness typical of the British Establishment...

In the UK today, there are only really two forms of Christianity that are alive, both immigrant: Eastern European and Black African. The rest is fundamentally on its death-bed: it is far worse than ‘serious decline’...

Quite simply, Western people have lost their faith. Since Western civilization was founded on faith, this means that Western civilization is also on its death-bed. Western civilization is today just a series of historical monuments for tourists to visit: the soul has gone out of it.

http://katehon.com/article/fr-andrew-phillips-problems-pan-orthodox-council
I would also recommend perusing Fr Andrew's books - some of which are available online:
http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/trust.htm#books

It was 1986 and I was trying to decide my future. As usual, I knew that I did not want to continue on the line I was pursuing, but not what I did want to do.

The previous year, I had (briefly) arranged to study philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge - with some notion of following in Wittgenstein's footsteps (why would anyone want to do that? - indeed...); but had veered away and turned-down the place, due to the cost of college fees, plus an inarticulate aversion that it was not the right thing. But I lacked any alternative plan.

Then, on the same evening of the same day, I heard that two good friends had got 'cool' jobs - one as a musical director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the other as a producer for BBC Radio Three (the classical music channel). I was of course very pleased for them, but I also realised that no conceivable success in my mapped-out future could give me anything like the satisfactions which they would get from these jobs.

I steeled myself, therefore, to make a break - and things went well and easily when I arranged to do an English Literature Masters Degree by research at University College, Durham.

The experience was, on the whole, very good; and I ended up doing a lot of philosophy, and it launched a parallel to my academic career - in journalism, and humanities work - but I can also see that I did not do then (in that one year in Durham) what I was supposed to have done, and for which I received many synchronicitous hints and nudges: I did not become a real Christian (nothing like).

But I only became a very relativistic, postmodern, 'cultural' kind of 'Christian'/ agnostic - such that I would more often look at church architecture, sporadically attend choral evensong, later got married in a church, etc; but not any kind of Christian, not with a faith, not such that it made any significant difference to my real life. And as late as the late 1990s I spoke in a public debate about how Christianity was unnecessary (made obsolete by Darwin etc).

Indeed, this dire spiritual state continued for another TWO DECADES!

So, friends getting cool jobs changed my life - but did not change it in the way it was meant to change it, nor in any deep or essential fashion.   

Conspiracy theorists are correct in that there is an evil global cabal - but incorrect concerning the motivation of this cabal.

We live in a state of spiritual warfare - and to my mind it is intensifying palpably. I find it increasingly strange to see so many people going-about-their-business and apparently unaware of the momentous changes that are afoot, and indeed obvious.

(e.g. There has never in my lifespan been a time in which the elites behind the Western Powers seem so eager to trigger and escalate a major physical war; and with the flimsiest and least convincing of excuses.)

Of course, modern Western populations are only semi-human in their mass perceptions and responses - since they lack the stable centre of religion, and are metaphysically incoherent; they live inside an artificial and distorted world; and their minds are continually filled-with and distracted-by lying nonsense - all of this in an unprecedented fashion and degree.

So, the true agenda of evil is not just beyond their belief, but beyond their comprehension - lacking God, they cannot recognise nor understand the nature of evil (and are, indeed, inclined to deny its truth and rationality).

So, the conspiracy theorists are correct to recognise a malign will behind the main events of the world - and this enables them to function in a more realistic way despite the official illusions, as compared with the mainstream of duped and deluded people (including especially, it must be said, the liberal intellectuals - whose disconnect from reality is probably the most extreme ever by any group in the whole of human history); but they are wrong abut what the conspiracy are aiming-at.

Secular people regard evil in terms of human suffering on one side, motivated by pleasure (and its proxies of sex, power, wealth etc) on the other hand - and they assume that that is what the conspiracy are aiming-at - i.e. misery for us, pleasure for them...

Christians should know better that purposive evil ultimately aims at the damnation of souls for eternity, not the torment of people on earth (although of course demons like that too).

So Christians need to accept the basic stance, the basic assumptions concerning evil elites and their motivations, from the conspiracy theorists; but go beyond this to full recognition of the aims of spiritual warfare.

But if you do this, if you adopt this correct Christian interpretative stance - you will very likely find yourself pretty much on your own - you won't find much in the way of media such as books, web sites or even social groups to help explain and support you in this stance.

You will need to work things out for yourself... So be it. 

I once visited the studio of Ed Williams (1921-2013), who was a classical composer of modern music - a memorable and enjoyable experience.

He had just done the background score for David Attenborough's mega-hit documentary Life on Earth (which spawned a hundred imitators) and showed us how he had recorded orchestral musicians on a series of linked reel-to-reel tapes, and mixed the sounds in strange combinations.


I remember him as a genial, welcoming and fricndly character; apparently very absorbed in his work and keen to describe it. And his studio was an enviable work environment - just the kind of place I imagined I would have enjoyed spending creative days - full of exotic electronic and accoustic equipment, notebooks - and a corner with a kettle and some snacks.

The reason why this brief visit stuck in my memory was that deep down I yearned to be involved in some creative activity, rather than the practice of medicine for which I was being trained.

From later knowledge, I over-estimated the satisfactions of this kind of life; nonetheless it is not all that far from my current mode of thinking and writing (and teaching) - which does indeed suit me better than being a doctor. 

The global conspiracy is piling-on contrived crises, apparently pushing for full-scale proxy war in the Middle East and creating divisive social chaos at home. The use of false flag operations, remote/ deniable assassins, saboteurs and thugs, and subversion by fifth columnists is becoming more blatant. The media propaganda has taken its gloves off, and moved from subtle soft- to in-your-face hard-sell.

It certainly looks like the Establishment are in a hurry to provoke a collapse of international order by whatever means necessary - presumably so that they will then be 'asked' (or allowed) to intervene by ramping-up the system of totalitarian tyranny and mind-control.

But the sheer urgency of their current activities, suggest that the conditions are probably not yet fully conducive to their success; they seem to be working faster than planned, preparing to unleash their intended knock-out blow before all their preparations have been made - before all the pieces are in place.

The increasing rate of destructive change seems just too rapid to go un-noticed and unopposed, it is indeed provoking perceptible (albeit as yet feeble) backlash for the first time in many years  - which may well imply that the Establishment are afraid of delay.

Their urgency is our opportunity. If the Establishment strike too early - before the masses of The West are fully docile to their plans, they are much less likely to succeed.

We must not therefore fear the crisis. It will come, and it should come; because the social trends are so powerfully adverse to Good and must be reversed; if crisis comes sooner then we will be better able to resist and defeat it than if it comes later.

Bring it on! Fear not. 

So - let us assume that there will be a significant backlash against the secular Liberal agenda, and as individuals we need to be psychologically and spiritually ready for it.

Because any backlash will only be Good if it is well-motivated (overall); which for a Christian means motivated by Love, backed by a spirit of creativity and courage.

If, on the other hand, the backlash is motivated by fear, hatred and resentment; then it will certainly fail to be Good; it will merely loop-back into the demonic secular Left agenda -  it will simply mean a change of personnel, and not induce the necessary reversal of direction.

For Christians (as usual, as always) it is motivation, motivation, motivation that matters. And in the end motivation cannot be imposed but only inspired, cannot be from-without but only from-within.

(Who better to monitor and correct our own motivations than our-selves? Only then may we have the discernment to do the same for others.) 

What can be helpful to other people, crucially so, is to clarify the issues and choices - and maybe that is where we can each make a significant contribution.


Also cross-posted, with an introduction, at:
http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/the-evil-establishment-are-creating.html

Today, a small incident re-awoke that old emotion:

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/living-in-bree.html

Here and now - is something considerably less than Christianity, but open to further developments in that direction:

http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/10/10/what-is-the-thing-most-needful/

I have recently re-read a collection of essays by the English composer Michael Tippett that was a big influence on me during student years; which led to today's posting at Albion Awakening:

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/michael-tippett-1905-1998.html

As the world is being panicked, stampeded and manipulated on a daily basis by the ultra-elite Establishment in politics, corporations and the media; funnelling us into a pre-prepared corrall; what should we - personally - do?

There is a temptation to rush from place to place, fighting the fires of false information and interpretation - which is exactly what they would most like us to do; because it is much easier to start than to extinguish fires, and because we are bound to fail with so corrupted a population as exists in The West.

The root of the problem is that Western people have no centres, no core, no ballast - we are 'the hollow men': and to a greater extent than any body ever before. The mass of the people (essentially from their own fault, by their own choices) have no principles, no strong or stable convictions, no hope and no belief in meaning or purpose.

Such people cannot be argued-with or persuaded towards a good they deny: as things stand, they cannot be helped to save their souls and become real Men because they do not want to be helped: they merely want to be distracted, entertained, reassured, intoxicated... Their aims are merely psychological, and the enemy have all the psychological weapons and medicines.

Where do we start, what could we advise?

If you agree that the root of the distinctive modern problem is the pervasive 24/7 propaganda, arriving via official channels, the workplace and (mainly) the mass and social media; then the answer is simple: it is withdrawal.

If people retreat from the indoctrination and socialisation, automatic spiritual processes will come into play; people will (because god is within them, as well as outside) begin to correct-themselves. Counter-propaganda, while useful in theory, is not strictly necessary.

'Normal' in our world is grossly and increasingly unnatural - therefore there is a spontaneous power of self-correction, which will begin to happen if allowed to happen.

The world is very confusing and most things we think we know are manipulative lies - the answer is some version of that Patient Brooding which I believe underlies true creativity of all kinds - whatever most concerns us, that we ought patient to brood on.

That is what is most necessary, and will be sufficient, to begin to reverse the evil spell that rests upon our souls. Take the first step back from the precipice, and further steps will become possible - then easier.

https://thewinnower.com/papers/5506-deep-science-creative-science-patient-brooding-versus-evidence-reason-based-techniques

A really wonderful new essay by John Fitzgerald, inspired by his love of the East-West train journey between Newcastle upon Tyne and Liverpool, through Durham and York, and across 'the backbone of England':

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/voyage-to-west.html

I wonder, most days, whether people really are fooled by the stuff in the public domain - the media, the official channels, the bureaucraies, the outputs of powerful corporations...

For example, are they fooled by 'tough talk' about Brexit into supposing that anything has actually happened - or do they notice that nothing whatsoever has happened? Do they imagine that the Conservative party is going to lead Britain out for the European Union in any real, meaningful and hopeful sense?

Of course, the Brexit vote itself is evidence that people are not entirely fooled - that they see-through some if it; but in almost all other respects English people (and those in all other Western and developed nations) behave exactly as if they are fooled.

And, if people aren't fooled, why don't they actually do something about it - in what they say and in their own lives? Why is it undetectable?

My best guess is that - at present - people en masse are held captive by their decision to cling to the sexual revolution; by which I mean that their lives are - deep down - organised around sexual fantasies made possible by, socially supported by, the sexual revolution of the past 50 years.

This is not a rational thing, but a gut-level thing - mostly inexplicit and denied. But fundamentally, peoples' hopes are pinned to some kind of sexual Nirvana. They are fantasies of overwhelming and consciousness-obliterating pleasure; freedom, growth, power, status...

These fantasies are very various between people, often in opposition between people and in one person; which is why the coalition of the Left is so large.

But for people to deny these fantasies - in the modern context of secular materialism - is to fall into demotivation and despair; they cannot even entertain the prospect.

Which is why people are fooled and trapped. Ultimately, they are existentially desperate - and desperately want to be fooled and trapped. People build and maintain their own prison in order to retain the privileges of a prisoner.

Since nothing is deeper than sex except religion; this situation will continue unless or until there is a spiritual revival.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/deep-science-more-on-patient-brooding.html

The Angry Young Men was a largely nonsensical media coinage for what was supposed to be the new generation of post WWII writers - the term was launched in 1956 by the play Look Back in Anger by John Osborne and The Outsider by Colin Wilson.

I became aware of the Angries only after discovering The Outsider in the summer of 1978, having read Kingsley Amis's novel Lucky Jim a year before (which, although from 1953 is usually regarded as an 'Angry' book; it is one of the funniest books I have ever read). For some reason I became very interested in the general idea of the 1950s at this point; and took to listening to Trad Jazz and wearing a corduroy jacket with leather patches - with or without trademark polo neck sweater.

I sampled a wide range of the literary output of the fifties - but aside from Colin Wilson I must admit I did not find very much to enjoy. Among those mentioned in this book I did not take to John Wain, Stuart Holroyd, JP Donleavy, Samuel Beckett, Arnold Wesker, Alan Sillitoe - and I never read John Braine or Kenneth Tynan.

I wasted a lot of time reading Amis, without finding anything else anything like as good as Lucky Jim - although his second and third novels (That Uncertain Feeling and I Like It Here) both had good stuff in them. Look Back In Anger was certainly original and had a kind of energy - but watching it was a torment; and Osborne's other works were entirely without interest.

I don't like it nowadays, but Iris Murdoch's first novel - Under The Net - was a favourite re-read for several years. And of course that miserable so-and-so Phillip Larkin (who is sometimes, absurdly, regarded as an Angry) was our last really worthwhile English poet.

Despite this long term interest, I have only just read Colin Wilson's account of the era. Especially considering the book was written in his mid-seventies - there is a lot of detail and energy in it - and I found it well-organised. Although I should warn that this book is certainly depressing in its sordid litany of lives ruined by drink, drugs, dissipation, sexual promiscuity and marital infidelities - Wilson is actually pursuing a thesis throughout: he clearly had a philosophical, almost spiritual reason for writing the book about his contemporaries and their successes and failures.

Indeed, as he approached the end of his life, Wilson seemed to be returning to the same focus as his second philosophical book: Religion and the Rebel - the necessity of a spiritual awakening, that Man needed a religion in order to live well. At times Wilson seems to argue himself right up to the very edge of theism, especially when analysing the demotivation and despair which overwhelmed so many of his friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

But to return to the theme of sex - and there is a lot about it; my conviction was again reinforced that sex has always been the nemesis of the recurrent romanticism revivals since 1800 - and that is what the Angry Young Men were. They were the British equivalent of the US Beat Generation, or the French Existentialists; and therefore in origin an 'attempted' or embryonic spiritual revival.

Whatever high ideals and ambitions were harboured by the best of these writers was wrecked on the writers unrepentant embrace and celebration of the sexual revolution. This took away much of the energy, created an atmosphere of exploitation and dishonesty, and blocked-off the only answer they could ever have found: Christianity. Consequently, they largely wasted their time and lives, running round in circles, showing off, and making excuses.

7th October 2016: Review version online at:

https://thewinnower.com/papers/5506-deep-science-creative-science-patient-brooding-versus-evidence-reason-based-techniques

Text:

Deep science, creative science: Patient brooding versus evidence-reason based techniques

*

Abstract It may seem odd to assert that patient brooding and waiting for imaginative validation is the proper way of doing science; after all, most professional scientists and philosophers believe that the essence of science is ‘evidence’ derived from observations and experiments, synthesized by some kind of logical and rational method. But personal experience, history and theoretical considerations all suggest that a prolonged state of ‘patient brooding’ is the hallmark and prerequisite of ‘deep science’; a practical necessity for the most creative and significant breakthroughs.

*

Looking back over the thirty years since I published my first papers; it is clear that there are a few publications that I regard as deep science (that is significant, creative and valid science) – and these were the product of what I would term ‘patient brooding’ and an intuitive-imaginative validation. These writings continue to please me, seem to be valuable, and are a source of personal satisfaction.

However, on the other hand, there are publications that – while honest, in a negative sense of not being dishonest - seem to have been ‘manufactured’ (or ‘squeezed-out’) by the mere application of technique (‘scientific method’). These include things like summaries of data that I had collected and didn’t want to ‘waste’ – and which I vaguely hoped ‘might be useful’ to someone-or-other, sooner-or-later; ideas that I regarded as potentially ‘stimulating’; favours to colleagues; and theories that had been assembled (like a mosaic) from cited bits and pieces of other people’s evidence and ideas…

These publications I am retrospectively not so pleased with. At best I regard them as part of a learning process, stepping stones to something valid that came later; but sometimes they were merely careerist place-holders or tokens. It may seem odd to assert that patient brooding and waiting for imaginative validation is the proper way of doing science – or at least deep science; after all, most professional scientists and philosophers believe that the essence of science is ‘evidence’ derived from observations and experiments; synthesized by some kind of logical and rational process.

Even those ‘Popperians’ (followers of philosopher Karl Popper: 1902-1994) who regard science as driven by hypotheses, tend to emphasise that the crucial aspect is the ‘testing’ of hypotheses; with this process being conceptualised as a matter of stating clear predictions and performing rigorous evaluations; with prior criteria (preferably quantitatively defined) set-out for passing or failing each test. Some regard this as the ‘scientific method’ – and infer that if the method is not followed, then the activity is not really science…

Nonetheless, from personal experience I have concluded something very different, and almost the opposite; which is that in practice - and inevitably - evidence is so slippery and contextual a phenomenon as to be at best controversial and at worst almost worthless when taken in isolation; and much the same applies to what are regarded as the ‘proper’ processes of logic or reason. In sum; evidence and logic are not ‘objective’; and when regarded as such they become profoundly misleading. More is needed.

The problem, if it is really a problem, is that science does not and cannot itself validate science. Science is inevitably based-on a restricted, partial and biased set of assumptions – that is its strength, but it is also an unavoidable constraint. Science is therefore embedded in a larger world; and the validity of science depends utterly on relating science to that larger world.

So any assertion about how science ought to be conducted must be taken from outside of science – and such assertions are ‘metaphysical’ in nature. That science is based on metaphysical assumptions has been denied by theory since the days of the ‘logical positivists’ about a century ago (who regarded metaphysics as strictly non-sense), and is denied in practice by many or most practising scientists, who typically refuse to acknowledge any non-scientific assumptions, or fundamental constraints to the validity and applicability of science (and who regard metaphysics as sheer nonsense).

I don’t propose to go into the specifics of the wide-ranging metaphysical assumptions of science; indeed, I do not think these assumptions are well understood, neither are they easy to summarise, and certainly they are not widely agreed-upon. But rather I want to suggest that in the practical life of a scientist they have their impact in the activity I have dubbed ‘patient brooding’. In particular, I propose that patient brooding is the hallmark and necessity of pretty much all significant creative science.

I will analyse the phenomenon of ‘patient brooding’. Firstly ‘patient’. This word is intended to convey that the pace of insight cannot be forced. The scientist must wait for imaginative validation of his work and ideas; and he must be prepared to wait for as long as it takes. This is necessary, because it is only in the imagination that ‘the whole person’ is brought to bear on the matter in hand. I regard the imagination as the most complete form of cognition; since imagination includes the emotional and the implicit, as well as the rational and factual.

The imagination of a scientist (after – it goes without saying - sufficient and appropriate education and experience) contains not just the evidence which he knows he knows; but imagination (over time, and with attention) brings forward especially that evidence that he most needs and values; discarding that which is irrelevant and unreliable (this happening, to the extent of his personal scientific ability and judgment).

This ‘trained-imagination’ of a scientist is not just logical and rational, but includes all kinds and types of thinking – such as emotions of euphoria or well-being, angst or despondency; gut-feelings; the discernment of the heart and so on – these being the kind of ‘sensations’ that creative people report experiencing as evaluations of their own performance. In sum, patient imagination, over time, will bring to bear the total scientist upon his subject. What then of ‘brooding’?

What do I mean by that? By ‘brooding’ I intend to convey that creative science is about reflecting on relatively broad themes – and not about answering very specific and pre-defined questions. This breadth is necessary because a highly specific question will nearly-always pre-judge the answer too narrowly to include the valid answer. The brooding means that the creative scientist is seeking the correct question, at the same time as he is seeking the correct answer – and the valid question and the valid answer both come at the same time.

What happens while patiently brooding? This is surely unpredictable, and must vary case-by-case, person-by-person. But as the most extreme example of my experience, I spent some 15-20 years brooding on the twin questions: What is the cause of melancholia (or endogenous depression)? And why are antidepressants effective? During that long time (during which I worked at many other things) the pieces of the jigsaw making-up what eventually became the answer came gradually, a piece at a time. (This was published as The malaise theory of depression in Medical Hypotheses, 2000; 54: 126-130.)

For instance, I learned of the depressant effect of glandular fever from my own experience as a student; about the pain relieving effects of antidepressant from my medical training; I met patients with disseminated cancer and autoimmune disease who had depressive symptoms while a junior physician; I encountered depressed patients who complained of ‘feeling ill’ while I was a trainee psychiatrist; I read of the immune abnormalities in depression during my doctoral studies; I read the idea that recovering from depression was similar to recovering from influenza in a book I found in a second-hand shop on holiday; while studying evolutionary psychology I encountered the theories of Antonio Damasio concerning the nature of emotion; and so forth…

Because I was alert and interested, these and other clues were noticed and remembered, until they crystallised in a particular ‘eureka moment’ in 1999 – after which I spent some further brooding time checking the predictions and implications, and my own state of conviction; before proceeding to publication.

Another term I have used above is ‘intuition’. This simply means introspection, looking-within – and taking it seriously. A creative scientist who (after patience) is rewarded by an insight, then needs to develop the ability to look within himself, and to become aware of the content of his own imagination. To become aware of this imagination in an explicit form is one step, the next is to take what is perceived and make it into a linguistic form which can be communicated to other people.
Communication may be in such forms as a conversation, seminar, lecture, letter, paper, monograph, a textbook...

Patient brooding cannot be faked, forced or contrived; although deliberate it is a spontaneous consequence of strong and sustained inner motivation. In sum, it is the antithesis of expediency and careerism – and the apotheosis of dedication to truth and knowledge. It is a personal vocation from within; not just ‘a job’, to which you are allocated.

But – having said that evidence and logic are inadequate - why should patient brooding be regarded as a valid method of seeking truth in science, or indeed in any other domain of human activity?

In answering this, firstly it must be made clear there is absolutely no guarantee that patient brooding will yield deep science. It is not a ‘truth-machine’ – and its value depends on the individual scientist’s capability, circumstances, efforts and luck. Secondly, patient brooding ought to include science and logical, rational thinking – they certainly are a part of the ‘recipe’ for valid science.

Following on; thirdly, the special quality of patient brooding is that it recognises that creative science does not know exactly where it is going, nor how. We do not know in advance what evidence is important, nor what evidence is false, misleading or fake; we do not know how to set-about formulating an answer nor what kind of an answer needs formulating.

And fourthly, the idea of patient brooding places the individual scientist at the heart of science. One reason that creative science cannot be captured in an algorithm is that it is done by people, not computers. Computers may be patient, but they cannot ‘brood’.

From surveying the history of human achievement, it looks as if every significant breakthrough in knowledge about which details are known – whether in science or any other difficult human activity – seems to have been preceded by a prolonged search, and this search is relatively wide-ranging with respect to subject and methods.

In a sense patient brooding is the opposite of a ‘method’ – but if there is any consistent psychological strategy to deep science, then it is probably patient brooding.

William Wildblood in a polemical mood, at Albion Awakening:

https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/patriotism.html

Modern man is convinced that evidence and logic are not only the best, but the only valid sources of truth; and that imagination or direct-knowing (accessed by intuition) is subjective, make-believe, open to infinite error; yet evidence and logic are always inadequate.

Evidence is useless - and indeed is not evidence - without a metaphysical system that defines what is evidence and how to interpret it.

The invalidity of logic is simply that it is a model - a grossly simplified version of reality. This is what makes it potentially useful, and also what makes it wrong.

The problems with logic are (at least) two-fold - first that the correctness of logic is unsure. The history of philosophical logic is one in which there are discoveries and refutations - for example, in relatively recent times by Frege and Godel; so that at any particular time and place we cannot be sure that there is not some error in our understanding of logic.

Plus: The potential for error is multiplied (exponentially) by each step in logical reasoning - so complexity of argument is less sure than simplicity.

Secondly - logic is an abstraction which must be applied, must be 'mapped-onto' real life - and this is where things most commonly go wrong.

The problem can best be illustrated by mathematics, which according to some theorists is ultimately identical with logic. To apply mathematics to Life, we need to assign numbers to the entities and process of life - and it is in assigning abstract numbers to real things that things go wrong. Much the same applies to logical categories.

One of the recurrent problems of Christianity (and many other religions) - which goes back a very long way - is the technical, mechanical use of evidence and logic to manufacture specific desired conclusions, to 'settle' questions. And then to rely on these evidence-logic-manufactured 'answers' to the exclusion of the discernment of the heart. 

Something similar happens in science. Really creative science is a matter primarily of imagination - but imagination will not come when called, and will not do what it is asked when it is asked - so scientists are tempted to grind-out conclusions with evidence and logic, despite the lack of imaginative validation.

I have done this myself, many times, leading to contrived interpretations and conclusions that never stand-up to sustained reflection; and always regretted my impatience.

What is required is patient brooding, waiting upon the right answer to come in its own time and with its validating, certainty of evaluation of the heart.

I shall have more to say on this theme.

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/according-to-hg-wells-1934-modern.html

Since reality is the product of a God who is not only creator, but also our good and loving Father; as a generalisation we (his children) are eventually given what we most profoundly want.

(Noting that agency is real, each of us is a separate centre of uncaused action; and we really do have control over what we most want - we really can choose.)

We can choose a destiny in eternal families, in a world of loving and creative relationships - including (but not restricted to) a personal relationship with The Father and The Son ...

https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/why-become-christian-answer-is-not.html

Or (like the ascetic monastic tradition) if we want to be absorbed into the Godhead (and you understand God the Father as impersonal) - so that the self is extinguished In Love: then we will be granted that.

Or if (like a Buddhist) we regard life as suffering and seek relief from suffering above all; then freedom-from-suffering will be granted by a loving God (after all, as a life-goal, this is not really very difficult to achieve - general anaesthetics manage it).

Or if we want utter freedom from God, and escape from the constraints of human Love; then we will be given that... presumably by being enabled to live inside our own fantasies (not reality, of course - because that would harm others; but in a stable and long-term, self-controlled delusional state): such a person becomes his own God, creates his own 'reality'. This is 'damnation' (see below).

And if a self-gratifying delusional system is what a person most profoundly wants; then presumably that is what God will give - again, it is not, in principle, difficult, but something temporarily approximated by psychotic illnesses such as mania.

(Of course, in a self-controlled delusion, there will always be a tiny residue of awareness that it is a delusion, since self-gratificiation must be imposed by some part of the self which retains control over the fantasy. This is why delusion can never be a 100-percent-convincing simulation of reality. And this is the 'hellishness' of living in a solitary delusion.) 

(You can see from the above that there is a certain irreversibility about damnation, because once you are inside a stable delusional system, it is hard to imagine how you ever get out? Something similar applies to the extinction of self. My hunch is that a loving Father would, from time to time, awaken the individual in these states and ask again: How is this working-out; is this what you really want.)

Over at Albion Awakening, John Fitzgerald blogs on the nature of Monarchy and the possibilities of its restoration, musing on the mythic hopes for a The Sleeping King:

https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/the-sleeping-king.html

And a correspondent notices that the best time for a spiritual awakening may be coming in about 12 weeks...

https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/christmas-is-coming.html

I have never been happy with, nor convinced by, the usual way of trying to persuade people to become Christians - which is either to terrorise them with fear of Hell Or Else; or bribe them with promises of paradisal happiness.

Except for the eternal dimension, to respond to such emotional incentives is hardly a moral act at all - it is not much different from obeying laws to avoid the lash or hanging; or to adhere to social norms in order to be rewarded with money and status.

My fundamental understanding of the choice (and avoiding prejudging the situation with loaded terms) is between 'family and freedom'; between first joining ('salvation') then becoming a fully adult member ('theosis') of the Heavenly Family; or not.

I do not want to present this as a choice between reason and insanity - but to understand why people might (even though mistakenly, by my judgment) rationally choose to reject salvation, and to do so without referring to the hedonic consequences in terms of the balance between pleasure and pain.

(Minimally) the Christian choice is between:
1. Remaining-within the Heavenly family into which we were born as children of God; and

2. Leaving the family to set-up on our own, as individuals - which could be described as 'freedom' (in the sense of 'freedom-from' reciprocity, ties, duties, responsibilities etc.).  

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An analogy might be someone who is born into a loving, stable and expanding extended family-network of relationships: parents, children, spouses and all the degrees of relatives.

Suppose that (at adolescence) he had to make a decision whether to remain as a part of that family - participating fully in the network of loving relationships, but also the constraints of acknowledged family authority, seniority, responsibilities and reciprocities...

Or else he was able to cut himself off from the family, and live free as an individual; doing what he wanted; only having regard to his own preferences, pleasures and desires; believing whatever he most wants to believe - but in a situation where everybody else is also doing the same...

The family situation approximates to heaven, the individual state to hell.

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By this analogy, we can see that the typical modern life approximates to hell - a situation when many teenagers and young adults reject and leave the family, migrate to the Big City, and participate in work, sex and leisure entirely autonomously; having regard only to their own hedonic state; and living among others doing the same.

This analogy helps us to understand why some people might choose hell - even when they know what heaven offers; because so many of us have been in exactly the situation of ourselves choosing (either briefly, or for long periods - perhaps even a lifetime) the 'freedom' (and costs) of individual autonomy; and rejecting that complex web of inherited loving relationships and responsibilities that constitute the family (even the ideal family).


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Note: This was also posted at the Junior Ganymede blog, where I added the following:
The above way of understanding the Christian choice was, I think, first made possible by the Restoration of the Gospel message achieved by [the Mormon prophet] Joseph Smith. Until then it was not clear, or not sufficiently clear, what was at stake with salvation; and it was difficult for Christians to go beyond – or deeper than – rather crudely ‘hedonic’ threats and promises. By reframing eternal resurrected Heavenly life in terms of familial relationships (growing in numbers, richness, height, depth and strength – for eternity…), it became possible to understand what Christian Love meant, aside from its merely being equated with happiness; or what sin meant, aside from being merely equated with suffering.

I get the feeling that the Global Conspiracy's plan for World War three is being accelerated - almost to the point of absurdity - after the successful destablisation of Iraq, Egypt, Libya and now Syria.

The escalating of rhetoric and demonisation of Russia over Syria is increasingly bizzare, very obviously dishonest, and lacks any common sense motivation.

Luckily for the Conspiracy, we have (as a society) become almost unable to join the dots and see a picture; due to lacking any stable religious centre in ourselves and to the endemic distractions and distortions of the mass media - our minds are passive, constantly filled (to overflowing) with no time or energy to think.

Nonetheless, it could not be said that mass Western public opinion is even remotely persuaded of the wisdom, need for, or benefits from an international nuclear conflict - which the West is currently trying to rationalise. In terms of common sense of national interest, this seems sheer insanity - but that would be an error: there is a plan, there are reasons...

This is purposive evil with the gloves off! It does make sense in terms of a strategic plan to create a general, destructive war - and then (as with the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars) use this as an excuse for imposing totalitarian Global government via Western, secular, Leftist multi-national agencies (League of Nations/ United Nations (WHO), NATO, European Union, the trade agreements and elite clubs &c. ) - and it does not make any other kind of sense.

All this will create a harsh conflict for Western Christians, who will be faced with a choice between national patriotism for an anti-Christian, secular Left regime; and an enemy who is explicitly Christian.

Indeed, the scenario being engineered over the long-term, looks like a contrived war between anti-Religious Inversion of The Good on one side; and the two major monotheisms - who are also (in one country after another, the The West, South Asia, Africa, the Middle east) being situated to fight each other.

(That - plus the hope of demoralization and corruption by Western doles, media, lifestyle and sexual revolution - seems likely to be the reason for systematically and ever-more-obviously (as with the planned, coordinated and funded 'refugee crisis') importing Middle Eastern conflicts into the Western nations.)

It turns out that (yet again!) over the past couple of decades the 'paranoid' conspiracy theorists (honourable mention to David Icke!) have been much more correct than the rational, sensible, educated intellectuals of The West - although the CTs have missed that the most obvious consequence of Middle Eastern conflict in the past couple of decades has been the unremarked, unmourned near-obliteration of what was previously many millions of (minority) Christians in the region. I don't know what exactly has happened to them - but apparently (and I had this from a direct source) they have gone.

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Note: My above analysis is naturally very conjectural - given my lack of direct knowledge. It is based on the chronic feeling engendered by the public mass media announcements (and recurrent military aggressions) of the dominant elites; in particular the astonishing sight of leading Western politicians and officials (who are the hosts, servants and puppets of the personages of purposive evil) making repeated, relentless, wild and lying accusations against Russia ('Putin') and China; subverting and threatening them in ever cruder fashion (both being countries that are undergoing massive and sustained Christian revivals). As I said; Western Christians are potentially going to find themselves fighting to destroy nascent Christianity on behalf of moral inversion and (increasingly explicitly) in a crusade further to advance the sexual revolution to include the whole world.

On The Positive Side (being hopeful, not succumbing to despair) - Western capability across the board is declining so very fast (due to many factors discussed passim on this blog and my books) that it will be increasigly difficult for the Global Conspiracy to achieve its goals, the more time elapses. This may be one reason for the frantic, reckless urgency of their current behaviour. Delay is our friend, at least in this limited sense; and worth working-for.