Bruce Charlton's Notions

John Fitzgerald provides an introduction to a fascinating but forgotten English literary Titan of the mid-twentieth century - Charles Morgan; a Platonist, whose intense and spiritual perspective on life may be just what is needed by some people at this time.

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/charles-morgan-englands-forgotten.html

William Wildblood speculates on the implications of Smartphone technology, and what may lie ahead. Best to be prepared!

http://meetingthemasters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/technology-and-smartphone.html

I absolutely love the style of close harmony singing called Doo-Wop. Of which this is probably (for me) The Classic Song - "I wonder why" - here done by Dion and the Belmonts singing in a lip-synched 'live' performance - you can find better sound quality of this performance elsewhere on YouTube, but this video is priceless (the sponsor made chewing gum, as you might be able to infer):


My own introduction to Doo-Wop came from the late 70s revival band The Incredible Darts, with some very nice production - and the remarkable vocal (and visual craziness) talents of Den Heggerty as their Bass:


The above track inspired my one one-and-only venture into Doo-Wop which was written and sung by me in a medical review in front of a backing group - a dream fulfilled. There is no record of the performance, but my tune was a pastiche of the 50s style and the lyrics were a medicalised version of a joke I stole from Bill Oddie on the radio series I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again.

As I recall, there was an introductory verse addressed to an imaginary girl describing how I loved her so much that I could only spell it out, then came the chorus:

F is for the Flatulence that keeps me awake at night
E is for your prosthetic Eye, which gave me such a fright
N is for the Nausea that you inspire in me
S is for the Sputum you left floating in my tea
A is for the Agony, when we made love in the sand
S is for the Sweatiness when I hold your hand
H is for your Hernia, which I reduce for you...

Put them all together and it All... Spells...
F.E.N.S.A.S.H...

(Awkward pause, shrugs, and skulks off the stage)

Anyway, another favourite from The Darts - a real beauty, this one!

As someone who got into significant trouble over hate facts (ie non-politically-correct truths) back in 2008 (i.e. social class intelligence differentials) - and considering that the suppression of hate facts is stepping-up, internationally, both in severity and scope - it is useful to ask how valuable hate facts are in The West.

The answer is; not very.

The systematic and official process of suppressing hate facts began in the middle 1960s (focused on intelligence testing). With the internet, it has never been easier or faster for people to access hate facts - and this outcome was anticipated twenty years ago - but they just don't.

The public are worse informed than ever before about the basic realities; and the reason is that they are addicted to the mass media, such that it structures their reality.

It is not merely a question of people 'believing' what the mass media tells them; but that they spend so much time engaged with teh mass (including social) media, and the mass media controls their attention and mode of thinking.

http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk

So facts of any kind have become almost irrelevant.

So why are they being so actively suppressed at the moment (under cover of the Orwellian inversion of 'Fake News')? I would say it is a panicky miscalculation by The Establishment - so, overall, I am very pleased! They are likely to create a situation in which - because facts are more difficult to find, there will be induced a craving for them; as with the Samzdat information sheets of the Eastern Bloc, and the secret seminars, and the word-of-mouth networks... Perfect!

So, while the repression of hate facts is undoubtedly of evil intent - it is an error on the past of The Enemy, and there is a distinct possibility that it will back-fire.

Alt-Right has nowhere to go but fascism, unless it puts spiritual values at the front and heart of the program.

I say spiritual values, because I don't see it as plausible that there can be any fully-Christian mass movement from where we are now - which is a situation in which public discourse does not admit the objective reality of anything at all outside the material realm - everything else is psychological, subjective, labile, and manipulable.

Thus a secular Alt-Right will inevitably be simply a different version of Leftism; a Leftism which has different materialist priorities, and panders to a different set of subjective emotions as a means to that end.

(Indeed, my impression is that most of the Alt-Right are exceptionally materialist, positivist, anti-altruistic and reductionist in their outlook - taking a positive delight in simplification of politics to their own power, security and well-being -- only to be shared, grudgingly, with those who directly assist this agenda.)

But materialism is a feeble, ineffectual motivator for Men. The most powerful motivator is an ideal; followed by fear and hatred - and, lacking any effective motivator and uniter, a secular Alt-Right will be forced to manufacture cohesion by encouraging fear and hatred as an urgent priority to unify-around.

(I am assuming that nationalism was merely a temporary, post-religious phase - and will not work. If nationalism was going to work, it would long since have done so.)

Or else the Alt-Right will simply die - lacking any local and immediate reason for staying alive, The leaders will be bought-off or scared-off.

(As seems already to be happening - and there is a strong track record of secular Rightists selling-out at the first opportunity - And after all, why not? Expediency is their bottom-line.)

Nobody can compel a spiritual awakening - especially among ingrained and self-satisfied arch-Skeptics such as abound among the Alt-Right. I can only hope that they will leave-off the mass media addiction, and allow themselves to open-out and incrementally become aware of the wider world of reality beyond the immediacy of nuts and bolts and prideful self-seeking.

The modern Left does not really want to win - because it is in essence oppositional and there is no specific state it can win to. Of course the Left wants, and has got, power; but what the Left does with power is precisely to ensure that there are no-winners; that there is a lose-lose scenario.

The greatest success of the Left is perhaps the Middle East in general, and the Israel-Palestine conflict in particular - no side is allowed to win or made able to win; both sides are alternately supported and demonised, all sides have lost badly over a long time; the situation of mutual immiseration is well established and sustained. The future envisaged is... more of the same.

Much the same is worked for in internal national affairs in The West. For fifty years in The West here has been growing a great polarisation and conflict between sexes, classes, races, natives and immigrants... no side has won, all sides have lost - there has been solidly establishes a mutual mistrust, resentment, simmering hatred.

And such a dire psychological situation is what the effort of Leftism is all about - because ultimately Leftism is anti-salvation; its goal is to induce people to reject Good and damn themelves by choice.

Unending conflict is no accident - this is precisely the Left's aim and purpose: no winners, a lose-lose scenario.  

We all know the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan - and we probably suppose we know what it means - what is its moral.

But we are probably wrong, because the parable is normally misinterpreted as preaching undiscriminating and universal love, by God's second great commandment; on the basis that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, and everybody is our 'neighbour'.

In a nutshell, it is usual to assume that Jesus is teaching that everybody ought to model themselves on The Good Samaritan.  

What Jesus's parable actually does is to answer a lawyer who - following on from the commandment to 'love thy neighbour' asked Jesus who was his neighbour? And Jesus's answer, via the parable, was anybody that helps you when you have need is your neighbour, and that is whom you are commanded to love.

But the priest and Levite, who passed by on the other side and showed no mercy to the man fallen among thieves, were not his neighbours; and Jesus indicates that we are not commanded to love those who do not show us mercy. Anybody who fails to help us when we are in need (even if they are a priest or Levite) is not included in the commandment to love our neighbour.

So, the parable of the Good Samaritan preaches discrimination over who is your neighbour; and its meaning is very different from - and in a sense almost opposite to - the usual pulpit interpretation. Jesus's teaching is that we must love those who show mercy upon us - and therefore the parable is not telling us to all behave like The Good Samaritan.

I wonder if this correct interpretation surprised you as much as it did me?

NOTE: I got this interpretation from: http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/11/16/the-samaritan-groom/

*

Luke. Chapter 10: 25 ¶And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? 30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, 34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? 37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

Much of what is distinctive about modern evil is - ultimately - the work of demons: I mean the global conspiracy (the 'Illuminati') and their mass of minions and henchmen that constitute the secular New Left which dominates the West.

These are the strategists of evil - taking a long view - their plan being to subvert and damage The Good en route to their plan to invert Good and evil and achieve the self-chosen damnation of mankind...

(...The ugliness of Modern Art being asserted as beautiful, the beauties of traditional art mocked as patriarchal or Kitsch - truth being labelled as hate speech - politically correct lies as a deeper kind of 'truth'; chastity, marriage, family being denigrated as oppression - and the ever expanding, subsidised and officially endorsed license, transgression and manipulations of the sexual revolution as admirable and courageous liberations.)

But not all modern evil is demonic: some is merely monstrous.

As usual Tolkien can help clarify things. In Lord of the Rings, demonic, strategic evil is represented by Sauron and his enslaved Ringwraiths, and hollowed-out and possessed servants such as The Mouth of Sauron (and behind Sauron, excluded from The World itself - the actual Satan of Morgoth).

But evil monsters are also encountered - and these are 'tactically evil' in the sense of utterly selfish and seeking of their own immediate gratification. Old Man Willow is a monster of selfish greed, resentment of hobbits, and desire to dominate and presumably eat them. The Barrow Wight is some kind of wicked ghost, hoarding treasure and striving to perform human sacrifices. The Watcher in the Water seems to be a malign predator merely.

The worst of monsters is, of course, Shelob - the giant spider (descendent of Ungoliant) whose evil is an insatiable hunger for the life and energies of everything else that exists; without foresight or goal - to eat until there is nothing else left alive - when she would die of starvation...

The link between demons and monsters is that the demons will use the monsters for strategic ends; rather as the demonic Illuminati (of politics, royalty, Vatican, media, law enforcement etc) used the monster Jimmy Savile - but the pattern is replicated in many places and at many levels.

This is some of my theological speculation from a Mormon perspective, at the Junior Ganymede group blog:

http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/12/05/the-problem-of-unrequited-love/

It would obviously be a great advantage if a biological entity (e.g. an organism) could purposively evolve to exploit and environmental niche that already existed ready to receive it.

This overcomes the 'chicken or the egg?' difficulty that a new type of biological entity may not be viable until a suitable environment is provided; and a suitable environmental opportunity has no function if there is not an organism ready to exploit it.

An example is the scenario for positive-feedback, 'runaway' sexual selection imagined for the peacock's tail - which requires both the evolution of peacocks with large ornate tails, and also the evolution of a peahen preference for large ornate tails.

Conventionally, this is supposed to be a coincidence of (at least) two undirected genetic mutations - but clearly it would be a great advantage if such things were linked - if the large peacock tail evolved into an environment where peahens already had a preference for large tails.

This is merely one of innumerable situations in which natural selection becomes an extremely improbable explanation for adaptations; due to the extreme rarity of beneficial mutations and the multiplying improbabilities when multiple sequential mutations must be posited -- especially given that at any point in the proceedings the complex, cumulative process of adaptation could be destroyed by the occurrence of a much-more-highly-probable damaging mutation.

However, from the perspective of mainstream, materialistic biology; there are serious problems about any such complementarity of evolution, for example:

1. It requires teleology, or purposiveness - planning for the future (raising the question of what - or who - does the planning).

2. Teleology requires foresight - planning for the future requires valid prediction of the future -- not perfect prediction, but at least to a reasonable estimate. (raising the implication of some kind of cognitive activity; i.e. some kind of ... intelligence at word. You begin to see where this is pointing and why biologists don't want to go there?).

3. Complementarity needs some kind of mechanism of implementation - which would work on both the individual organism and the environment (something with such properties is hard to imagine, no such thing is currently known).

4. To be anything of interest to biologists, the idea of complementarity needs to be 'operationalised' so the biologists could detect it - and preferably make some use of it to enhance understanding and prediction - maybe intervention.

Complementarity in evolution would also need to solve something perceived to be a problem, for which current solutions are acknowledged to be unsatisfactory. Are there such problems?

I have argued that there are indeed several major unsolved problems in biology - of a kind for which complementarity (if it was real) would provide a solution: these problems include explaining the origins of biological life, the major transitions of evolutionary history and the origins of sexual reproduction.

https://thewinnower.com/papers/3497-reconceptualizing-the-metaphysical-basis-of-biology-a-new-definition-based-on-deistic-teleology-and-an-hierarchy-of-organizing-entities

In sum, complementarity implies that it originates in some kind of external and cognitive cause; and this cause would not necessarily be detectable or measurable - indeed presumably it would not be at least by current technological possibilities, or else it would probably already be known.

On the face of it, this sounds like a fatal objection - but that is not the case if the effect of the external cause can be hypothesised with sufficient specificity to make and test predictions. For example, gravity ('gravity waves') is not detectable (or, perhaps, not until the past few years), but its effects were early on hypothesised with enough precision to test.

So we could hypothesise that if there was some kind of organising principle that caused complementary evolution; then detecting certain changes in either one of the organism or the environment should be predictive of certain changes in the other. This would require observations extended over time to examine that the presumed cause precedes its presumed effect.

For example, if we could detect a novel differentiation of an organism - e.g an imaginary peacock that developed a square orange tail; then this should be preceded a peahen preference for square orange tails: the tail trait following the preference.

Or, if we can detect the emergence of a new preference among peahens for males with square orange tails - then this should be predictive of the emergence of a new kind of peacocks with such tails: the preference preceding the trait.

And in general - for complementary evolution to be happening, it should be possible to show that the environment was pre-adapted for the organism; that the organism adapted in response to an already-existing niche.

Such studies would be difficult (but then all useful new science is difficult in some way, or else it would already have been done) - but not impossible.

Mortal incarnate life on earth is when sexual desire emerges (our pre-mortal life has the sexes but, I assume, not sexual desire).

That is why sex is so important to us - it is new, it hits our immortal souls like a ton of bricks! It is a major difference from everything we have experienced in our pre-existent eternity.

Sex is the essential middle term between marriage and family; and as such part of our primary sub-creative experience.

No wonder sex is so important to us!

I have published four books since I became a Christian, all available in paper copy (and some in Kindle) from University of Buckingham Press. These were published on the basis of an agreement (suggested by me) that - by foregoing any money - I would be able to retain copyright and publish free, online, e-text versions of the books.

My intention was that this would increase the availability and impact of the books - beyond what would have been possible (or plausible) for a small publisher.

2011 - Thought Prison -  the fundamental nature of political correctness
http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk
- 47,000 Pageviews

2012 - Not even trying - the corruption of real science
http://corruption-of-science.blogspot.co.uk
- 18,000 Pageviews

2014 - Addicted to Distraction - psychological consequences of the mass media
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
- 26,000 Pageviews

2016 - The Genius Famine - why we need geniuses, why they're dying off and why we must rescue them. (co-authored with Ed Dutton)
http://geniusfamine.blogspot.co.uk
- 5,500 Pageviews

If Pageviews were book sales then this would be pretty impressive! - but, probably they are not equivalent. It costs nothing and takes almost no time to click onto a book link; but if someone buys a paper copy of a book, they have invested more into it and are therefore more likely actually to read it.

Indeed, to read this kind of e-book pretty-much requires that the individual reader copies, pastes, edits and prints-out a copy; otherwise - if they try to read it on-screen - they are likely to be getting only a skimmed and superficial experience of the text.

In addition to the above; I have co-authored two other books - The making of a doctor: medical education in theory and practice, with RS Downie, 1992; and The Modernization Imperative, with Peter Andras, 2003. Both of these now seem, from my Christian perspective, to be essentially wrong.

The other book was Psychiatry and the Human Condition (2000) https://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/psychhuman.html - which I would still regard as a very good piece of scientific work (!); despite that its view of the 'human condition' is secular, materialist and hedonic. 

In general, I have always realised that my books are inferior to my essays, in terms of creative achievement. I naturally write at essay length (which is why I can blog daily quite spontaneously) - and therefore have to 'assemble' and 'manufacture' my books like a mosaic from small autonomous units; even though the books are only short.

This isn't uncommon, in my experience - it seems to me that the best non-fiction prose usually falls into essay length rather than book length. For example, GK Chesterton was a better essayist than book length author - and this especially applies to writers (such as myself) who adopt an aphoristic style. An extreme would be Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose work naturally falls into aphoristic sentences or paragraphs - and who found even the essay to be something requiring artificial construction.

Books of aphorisms are indeed more-or-less un-readable qua books - Pascal's Pensees, Traherne's Centuries of Meditations, Nietzsche's works after the monograph Birth of Tragedy...

Thus non-fiction prose is much like poetry - at its best (and beyond a certain minimum length), its intensity is inverse to its effective length. Long narrative poems are either discursive and - line by line - inferior to short lyrics; or else are lyrics embedded-in longer sections of less-poetic narrative -- and much the same, mutatis mutandis, applies to non-fiction prose that aspires to artistic effectiveness.

Which of my books is best from an 'artistic' perspective - in terms of quality of writing - is something I am not likely to judge well - but at the time of writing it seemed to be 'Not even trying' - the least popular of all my books. I felt N.E.T. was as good a piece of extended writing that I could manage, with only one significant structural fault (a clunky transition of subject matter).

But, for non-fiction prose, the subject matter and views are extremely important to enjoyability: we must be interested by the subject matter, and have some kind of sympathy with the author's views to be able to appreciate it; probably because it is a polemical form, intended to persuade - and the reader must have some basic and broad-brush willingness-to-be-persuaded, if such a book is to be a positive experience.  

The modern condition is one of intense self-awareness to the point of doubting the value (and even the reality) of anything else - and then this doubt turning-back to attack the self - so that the solipsist moves from regarding everything as a product of his own thinking, to the dread that he himself is a transient delusion.

We are, it seems, meant to reach this point - although we are not meant to get stuck in it - but move through to the other side.

For some this is a once-for-all confrontation with 'the void' after which they re-engage with external life; but my experience has been one of reaching this point recurrently, and pretty frequently, throughout adult life.

Others have experienced the same (according to honest autobiographical accounts) - which may mean that the lesson has not yet been learnt and needs repeating - or, more constructively, that more and more can be learnt each time - leading to a greater depth and strength in the end.

The two temptations are falling back to an earlier position - which means that the problem has not been overcome; or to get stuck in the paradox. The difficulty is that - of course - that when in the still-point of doubt, there is no coherent reason for overcoming that doubt.

Help must come from outside the system of doubts, and doubts of doubts - which is, I guess, the value of the experience; yet that help must voluntarily be accepted: because our free will or agency can reject this help.

Furthermore, what seems to be help may be of harmful intent - may be preying-upon our doubts rather than overcoming them constructively.

Altogether there is need for discernment and wise choosing; and these can only be validated by assumptions that we feel sure are true, but without any 'evidence' that they are true (evidence being the very thing that we doubt).

The only possibility of genuine escape is if our assumptions include that we are made and destined for such times, such situations; such choices; and that providence will (if we let it) conspire to get us each through the problem.

This assumption seems to me both necessary, and validated - although it is, strictly, indefensible.

From William Wildblood: 

The main reason I wanted to draw attention to St Godric is because of three songs he is supposed to have received in visions.

The first, Sainte Marie viergene, was given him by the Virgin Mary who appeared to him in the chapel of his hermitage accompanied by Mary Magdalene. Then a second song was given him by his recently deceased sister Burgwen, for whose soul he had been praying. She visited him with two angels who added the Kyrie Eleison refrains to her song, Crist and Sainte Marie.

The third song may have been given him by Saint Nicholas as Reginald writes that the saint  (who was eventually to be transformed into Santa Claus/Father Christmas) visited him one night and they sang loudly together. Apart from being very beautiful, and they are, these songs are of special interest in that they are the earliest English songs with surviving music.

More at:

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/st-godric.html

If polarity is to be the basic, fundamental, metaphysical principle of reality (as Coleridge and Barfield have convinced me) - then we need to understand how polarity works; understand this abstractly and also with an illustrative example.

The benefit of a metaphysics of polarity is that it explains both dynamic creativity and novelty - leading to an 'evolutionary' understanding of reality; and also it explains permanent order and the stability of itself.

For creativity there must be dynamism.

For dynamism there must be opposition in the system, opposition of two qualitatively-different forces.

Because they are qualitatively-different - the forces cannot be made one. 

For opposition to be perpetual, neither force must ever prevail.

If neither force ever prevails, this implies that the two opposed forces must be linked - such that strengthening one force also strengthens the other.

If the opposed forces are linked, they may be regarded as one force.

But the one force of a polarity is a two (dyad) that are one in a way that cannot, in principle, ever be unified into a single entity (because that would not be dynamic); nor can the two parts of the dyad ever be separated (because then the two would not be one).


A 'double star' consisting of two qualitatively different spheres - e.g. one iron, one copper - which orbit one another, at different velocities - and in orbiting they generate vortices that themselves become autonomous and generate dyadic-dissimilar star systems...

But the double star system has the property that it cannot be broken or combined; such that if the two  stars were to be forced together (to try and make them one) they would merely make a hybrid, an alloy; and if one of the stars was pulled away from its dyadic orbit, then it would be either iron or copper, but not the iron copper dyad.

So the double star can exist perpetually as a dynamic dyad, creatively giving rise to further dyads - and that dyad cannot be unified, nor can it be broken.



Men and women are qualitatively different; they form a dyad in (ideal, celestial) marriage; this dyad is the whole-human and is creative - that is, generative of new and qualitatively different offspring who are always either male or female.

A man and a woman cannot be combined - if they were 'forced' together the result is a hybrid, or defective (hence uncreative), or neither one nor the other.

If men and women are forcibly separated, the result is not a full human being - but a partial (maimed) deficient entity; kept apart there can be no creative generation of further men and women.

With a man and a woman as an un-unifiable and unbreakable dyad; humankind can be perpetual. 

First I need to clarify that I am talking about the threat to our souls - or, the threat to our salvation; and that I am talking here about material means to the end of spiritual corruption.

And the main answer to this question is (in three words) The Transhumanist Agenda. In other words, the agenda working (by steps) towards a centralised system of complete technological observation, monitoring and control.

I am talking about the embrace and celebration of that vast and interconnected network of personal electronic communication devices from mobile/ especially smart phones, navigation devices, tablets, e-books, credit cards, smart TVs, ear pieces, the Internet of Things... the whole lot. Moving onto smart spectacles, and more-or-less implanted electronic and computational devices. And adding in the bio-manipulations - psychoactive drugs, potntially genetic engineering, modification of human bodies and brains etc...

This is not generally understood to be the worst problem or threat to Mankind; in fact this is (to a large extent) exactly what many people most want - which is exactly why it is the worst problem (as a problem it is invisible, denied, ridiculed).

The reason people want these things is because they are regarded as tools that are 'enhancements'. The danger is that the can be, and are being, used not as tools or enhancements but as personal-monitoring, reality-filtering, and ideological propaganda.

People already live (mostly) inside the mass media, which edits and structures their reality - and they seem to like it, to prefer this to real life. But even if they don't like it, even if it makes them feel bad - they are anyway addicted to it, and increasingly unaware of reality outside of the mass media/ officially approved persepctive.

http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk

And this is the real and present danger.

There is, in our culture, a deep and visceral desire for magic; and this desire is a good and valuable compensation and yearning - however it is often perverted to a desire for 'super powers' that can be used the better to 'get what you want' - and this is probably why The Establishmet allows and indeed supports an infrastructure of Fantasy in TV, movies and fiction - and why so much of this is channelled through 'cool' Special Effects.

These inculcate passive, literalistic, wish-fulfillment fantasies that are connected (implicitly and explicitly) with the technological advances of the Transhumanist agenda. 'You too' can (first in imagination, later in actuality?) become an X-Man by genetic engineering; or get Bat/ Spiderman enhancements by novel technologies; or experience the spectacular other-worlds of Star Wars/ Trek...

At the minimum - the promise is of a 'virtual' reality in which these things will seem completely-real; which amounts to handing-over the entirely of our perceived reality to... whoever controls the virtual reality media; and serving whatever agenda they choose to implement.

Do people trust the mass media, big business and bureaucracy? At one level they don't; but they have been induced to ignore their legitimate mistrust by their greed for gratification here and now; by the hope or promise of a personalised virtual reality that can and will provide full control over their own perceptual world; and even (via drugs and genetic manipulations) control over their own emotional responses (unlimited and unconfined sex, adventure, power).

To agree to live in virtual reality would be a one way ticket to a world in which Men would be very-completely manipulated. Men would still be 'free' in their souls - but they may live a life when they were almost never aware of the soul's existence; and where they may be induced to doubt the reality of their true selves.

Hence the Tower of Babel comparison.

If it gets to the point where the virtual world is an incipient reality; then that would (I guess) be the point at which God would intervene to destroy any society which was on the verge of implementing it. Because God would surely not sustain (for Satan's benefit) a world in which the probability of chosen self-damnation for so many people (especially those brought up in it from childhood) was so very high.

In sum; my belief is that if we do not voluntarily reject the promise of a virtual world of total perceptual control; then we will - for our own good - have even the possibility eliminated. At the cost of vast destruction, I presume.

And, so pervasive and embedded in modernity are the trends towards Transhumanism; that to reject the virtual world entails a radical re-conceptualisation of the human condition: a spiritual awakening as I term it

Non-negotiably so.

Well, no, obviously not - they were very disappointed.

Much like everybody else is disappointed who initially supported Obama; except for those who personally benefited from the enhanced within-US racial hatred, which has been his primary (and likely to be most lasting) legacy.

On the basis that BHO was (from the Establishment perspective) a docile dupe and 'front man' (rather than an active-insider-member like HRC was intended-to-be); it was hoped either to 'turn' Obama into an insider or make him a proactive implementer... but it didn't really happen.

Obama could have caused much more destruction of The Good than he did; so why didn't he?

I think the powers that be underestimated the man's self-satisfaction and laziness.

BHO was content to bask in the unearned adulation of being the first (half-) Black President. But this was only the latest example of a lifelong pattern. First he basked in the national acclaim of being the first (Half-) Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Breaking all precedent, Obama was too lazy to use his position to publish his legal opinions (if he had any); after which he must have been the only faculty member of the University of Chicago since 1900 never to publish anything at all; including that he failed himself to write and deliver a draft of his (unearned and lavishly paid for) autobiography - and had to use a ghost writer.

If it was hoped to spiritually 'possess' Obama with demonic evil; that too seems to have failed - BHO is probably much too pleased with being who he already is, to invite or allow a soul-takeover from some external entity.  

This kind of self-entitled laziness is characterological and not something which can be overturned merely by being made POTUS; and this was the mistake of the powers that placed Obama in that position. He could have done so much evil - yet he preferred to play golf or basketball...

And for this, Christians ought to be very grateful indeed! He delayed the agenda of evil by several years. This is not to Obama's personal credit; but is an example of the way that evil sometimes trips itself through its own narrow pride, blindness and impatience. 

Hence the decision to place a wholly-corrupted insider in the White House in 2016. But full-on spiritual corruption is hard for a human body to maintain, decade after decade, and HRC is now a mere shell of a person, barely animated by the wickedness that possesses her.

Things could have been much worse than they are; which may turn out to be helpful.... but only if enough people now wake-up sufficiently from their hypnotised deception to recognise what has been happening; and if they become able to reignite the sources of love and courage which will be necessary before any positive and good new direction can reverse and roll-back decades of wickedness triumphant...

So let us be somewhat grateful at how things turned-out, but not complacent - it gives a slight opening, no more - and it is up to us to expolit that opening; first to reform ourselves, and (only) then press for social reform.

1. I have been getting very few publishable comments lately, yet...

2. In terms of page views (and posts) the blog has been thriving as never before - November 2016 had the highest ever number of views (nearly 80,000) and posts (67) with each new post typically getting between 500-1000 views; more than double a year ago (and some of the most viewed posts have no comments, or just a couple).

3. Therefore, the comments are apparently not contributing significantly to the popularity and value of the blog - for me, or for readers.

4. Nonetheless, because there were comments, I needed to moderate and check these several times a day - which was a bit of a tyranny on my time and effort.

5. Therefore I have stopped comments altogether. I am happy to get feedback by e-mail instead, and could in principle post this as a footnote to a blog post. If there are previous comments of yours that you value but are now invisible, you could write and ask me for a copy and I may be able to oblige.

It seems distinctly possible that there can be no viable priesthood, including Christian priesthood, that is not understood to be magic-using: that is, understood to be magic-using both by the laity and the priests themselves.

(When I speak of magic here, I use the word in the loose fashion employed by modern secular people- and typically a belief in which is imputed to others (rather than the speaker himself) - which would include 'belief in' things such as healings, foresight and divination, revelations, answered prayer, angelic and demonic beings, ghosts, talismans or other objects with special power... anything which is associated with the world beyond the material. To the modern mind everything of this type is equally 'magic'; and all real religion is therefore magic.)

Magic is probably essential for priesthood authority - and for this authority to be legitimate the magic must be real - at least to the extent that there is some real magic being done by some of the priesthood.

*

I make this inference based on history, especially that of the longest-lived societies. Pre-Christ Egypt - with its magician priesthood ruled by a supreme god-priest - sets the benchmark; since then the Byzantine empire is the longest enduring polity, and it was a society saturated with magic, and the spiritual leadership was based-upon miracle-working monastics and hermits (who, by this analysis, were the true 'priests' even though mostly not-ordained).

The Roman Catholic church likewise seems to have been strongest when most associated with magical occurrences and a society which expected these - of course The Mass is (by this definition) a magical event which can only be done by a priest.

Among Protestants of strong faith, there is much magic - faith healings, revelations, explicit divine guidance via prayer, direct instruction from scripture, speaking in tongues and so forth; however, for Protestants these are not associated with priests but available throughout all faithful church members: priests have no specially magical authority or powers qua priests (but only perhaps as charismatic individuals), consequently they are not regarded as priests - and indeed the word is seldom used.

Among Mormons, all members have direct revelations from the divine concerning their own lives and other topics; all men in good standing are priests, and have special access to magical powers such as blessing and healing. Designated priests (Patriarchs) have a special clairvoyant power of foresight and wise advice; church general authorities - and especially the Prophet - uniquely have such powers concerning matters to do with the whole church.

*

Modern culture - and much of the best of it, that which seems to oppose the demonic hedonic materialism - has an explicit focus on broadly, or indeed specifically, magical themes. Magic is everywhere - yet many Christians affect to oppose this magic, while yet (as I describe above) devout Christian's lives are permeated with  (what seems to secular people) magic.

This weakens Christianity; maims it, sets it at war with itself and its potential allies.

The point about magic is motivation. The modern people who describe themselves as 'magicians' (witches, wiccans, warlocks, druids, wizards etc) and make a big thing about magic-described-as-such are (whatever they may claim) mostly intending to use magic as a form of power used to get what they personally want (which is often of a sexual nature - as generally happens outwith religion; sex being the second most powerful motivator, on average).

What is wrong with modern magicians is not their magic but their motivation - which is either personal or if not, then secular Leftist; hence (to put it bluntly!) evil. 

*

On the one hand we ought not to regard magic as anything other than a natural part of real life. Societies that deny the reality of magic destroy themselves - first spiritually, then materially.

But there is something necessarily new and different about the modern attitude to magic - due to the change in consciousness which has come over us as cultures and as individuals. As Owen Barfield described so well; our modern minds work in a different way from minds of the past - we are so self-conscious that we can even distinguish our selves from our thoughts (such, during introspection, even that our own thoughts may seem alien).

Magic may be natural, but we moderns cannot naturally be magic in the same way as a Medieval European, a Byzantine or an Ancient Egyptian was magic - we can only attain such unselfconscious immersion in magic via altered states of consciousness, by some kind of intoxication (deliberate self-impairment of thinking, especially in terms of clarity and purposiveness - a stripping-away or suppression of the self); including the group-frenzy of crowds focused on a charismatic magician/ priest,

But this is on the one hand a temporary and encapsulated magic, inadequate to our purposes; on the other hand it is misleading in terms of what is most needed and wanted.

Of course we need to acknowledge and live-by magic - but in a way that gives full authority to the self-aware modern mind; the magic we regard as real and effectual requires to be integrated fully into ordinary everyday, practical, social consciousness - not just for extended-moments of solitude or recreation.

In conclusion; we want and need magic in our lives; if we are to have priests they must be a group acknowledged to be especially 'expert' - knowledgeable and skillful - in the use of magic; but modern magic must not be (merely) a revival of the magic of the past - accessible only to children or those in altered states of consciousness: the magic of now and the future must be everyday and supersensory, spontaneous and purposive; powerful, but only in the service of divine destiny.

The bigger the lie, the more they will believe it - as was said by a notorious German Socialist whose name was Adolf Hitler. And - backed by an estimated tax/ bribe of 1500,000,000,000 dollars a year (certainly an underestimate), and the entirety of the government, 'scientific', political, business, legal, military, educational, health care and media Establishment - there has never in human history been a bigger lie than Anthropogenic Global Warming caused-by Carbon Dioxide - and preventable and controllable by carbon monitoring and regulation.

The situation is described with common sense and humour in this latest podcast by the redoubtable David Icke; who makes clear that at the root of the Climate Change lie is the United Nations; and the cover motivation is to provide yet another set of excuses (these ones crafted to appeal to a particular class of Green/ Environmentalist progressives) that create a 'need' and 'moral' justification for totalitarian, all-seeing, all-controlling World Government.

Five months after Brexit and, of substance, there has been nothing at all; Trump elected with a perception that he was intending to reverse decades of sliding into Leftist lunacy and self-loathing, and his decisions and appointments are merely 'business as usual' for a mainstream Republican President...

Well, what did you expect? If it was simply a matter of a majority vote overturning two generations of domination by the Global Establishment, then we would not be in the trouble we are.

If deep structural distortions, warped aspirations, psychotic perceptions and inverted morality could be undone from within The System, by unrepentant System-Insiders - then there would not be anything to worry about in the first place.

But none of this is true. The situation is so dire, the intentions of the ruling elites now so urgently destructive of Good; that positive change must be seismic - and must come from a change of heart among the mass of Western people as well as the replacement of key leadership personnel.

That nothing has yet happened is just as expected, because Brexit and Trump are only significant if they herald the first steps in a process which can only be effectual outside the established channels of power and influence; and they are only productive of Good if there is a widespread spiritual and religious awakening such that enough people recover their understanding what is Good, and the courage to pursue it.

Of this, there is as yet no overt sign. Probably there will first need to be a recognition that - after all - nothing has changed and there is no intention (from within) of any real change; but the most interesting step would be to see how a renewed spirit of Good might operate, what new channels it might flood into, how it would lead to results...

IF there is a spiritual revival and a spirit of common sense and determination, I have no idea what might happen, but hope I will soon get to observe this for myself.

I expect the unexpected.