Bruce Charlton's Notions

I have seen a convergence of several strands of my interest in 'intuition' and metaphysics.

The surest, indeed the only sure, knowledge we have comes from our direct apprehension of a situation of absolute simplicity and clarity: nothing can be surer than this; and it can retrospectively validate a system of metaphysics which is that such direct knowing is fundamental.

It seems that - for instance - Wittgenstein's method (all through his work, including both early and late) was to strive (by multiple attacks on a problem) to attain exactly this situation. In his early Tractatus he called it 'showing' as contrasted with saying - he meant that knowledge should be based on that which is so simple and clear that it can be comprehended and known wholly and instantly. His last work - On Certainty - is the most comprehensive and sustained example of the 'method' - trying again and again to attain exactly the right question, the right example - so that 'certainty' can be understood all-at-once.

Goethe's concept of observation and experiment was identical at root: he strove in his science to attain a clear and simple view of the phenomenon so that it could be grasped whole. An ideal experiment was aiming at exactly the same - purposively creating a situation of clarity and simplicity when observation did not yield it. 

(The usual idea of an experiment is to contrive a controlled observation to test an hypothesis. But this merely evades the idea of where true hypotheses come-from - Goethe's deeper insight in that true hypotheses come from this intuitive clear-simple apprehension.) 

Socrates questioning can be seen in the same light - not as 'dialectic' (whatever that might be supposed to mean, I have never been able to understand it) - the attempt to frame the problem so lucidly that the answer becomes obvious (or else to show that the usual way of framing it, the usual form of questions, do not yield such a situation, but only contradictions and complexities).

Rudolf Steiner (much influenced by Goethe) likewise regards 'pure' thinking as aiming at just this: his intuition refers to a simple view; his use of the term clairvoyance has the literal meaning of clear-seeing.

This 'method' is absolutely general. It can and should be applied to all forms of knowing - whether logic, science, ethics, metaphysics, religion or whatever.

This isn't a straightforward matter - indeed it can take a lot of sustained effort.

If the metaphysical context is wrong then the answers will be false. For example, if the contextual metaphysical assumptions exclude purpose and meaning; then any answer to a specific question will be pointless and futile. 

If the specific questions being asked are wrongly framed (including the wrong assumptions) then any answer to them is bound to be wrong - partial, distorted or inverted.

The right question will be one that leads to an answer so clear, simple and obvious; that it is directly understandable.

But how do you get to ask the right questions in the right metaphysical context? Mostly by being motivated - driven - internally to keep-seeking, keep-trying; keep brooding and testing putative answers; mobilise the whole self and being in the search.

And of course this must be an honest quest for understanding; and not a covert grab at power, status or whatever.

In other words; to get true answers you need to be that rare thing - a real philosopher.

A powerful and motivating piece by William Wildblood at the Albion Awakening blog.

Here is an excerpt:


Read the rest at:

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/the-overturning-of-natural-order.html

You can hear the story from the Anglican Unscripted guys: First Kevin and Gavin describe what happened at Synod from the English perspective:


Then Kevin and George look at the international implications:


Of course this has seemed inevitable for a long time - it is more than thirty years since the tide turned decisively.

(See Crockford's file: Gareth Bennett and the death of the Anglican mind by William Oddie, 1989.)

But there has to be a moment when the line is crossed, and it has now actually happened: it's official.

To use a favourite phrase of CS Lewis - things are coming to a point. Matters are becoming crystal clear. The sheep and the goats are now in separate flocks.

In Ray Monk's biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, there is a striking account of the weekly discussions on the foundations of mathematics between Wittgenstein and Alan Turing. I found myself in agreement with W. and it seemed to me that Turing had been unable to grasp his own error, because he could not free himself from the mathematical thought-world and its assumptions. Turing  could not see, or even acknowledge the reality of, a bigger picture than mathematics.

Wittgenstein was stating that understanding was a simple direct intuitive grasp - when we know that we know; whereas Turing was arguing that we know we understand when the results 'work' - we know mathematics is right because a bridge made using calculations does not fall down - and errors in mathematics will lead to bridges falling down.  

The argument is a version of one in which I have participated many times - on both sides at different points. For Wittgenstein, understanding was the most important thing in the world - his whole life was driven by his need to understand. He therefore saw that there was no relationship between understanding and practical results (as we presume we know them) - that science, mathematics, engineering have nothing to do with understanding.

Turing, in a sense, was saying that understanding doesn't matter; what matters is whether we can predict and manipulate the world to achieve our desires. Thus a computer does not understand what it does - but this doesn't matter if it can do things we find useful.

Wittgenstein would realise that the usefulness of computers is beside the point - it just is not relevant to the question of understanding.

To put it another way, Turing regarded 'models' as the furthest we can go in understanding. Each model is a deliberately simplified (hence ultimately false) description of total-reality; but that doesn't matter because (for Turing) all thinking is some kind of model.

Whereas Wittgenstein regarded understanding as the basis of everything; for Turing understanding would just have been a transient psychological state - ultimately a kind of delusion.

Turing's 'proof' that understanding is models only is to point at the (apparent) achievements of modern life - look at that bridge, that computer; look at modern man's capability... That is the result of models, useful models - and there is no truth beyond usefulness, but no further truth is needed...

Whereas Wittgenstein would say that Turing did not understand him; and Turing did not understand his own lack of understanding. Turing displayed a kind of impatience, an inability or unwillingness to see things how Wittgenstein saw them.

Wittgenstein knew what Turing meant, because Wittgenstein had believed the same himself; but further thinking had led to a simple, direct understanding that revealed that Turing's view was false. Wittgenstein had thought the way Turing did, then moved beyond it into a situation so clear it needed no further justification.

The exchange between Wittgenstein and Turing seems to me a microcosm of many arguments and discussions that go on - or rather that fail to happen because one of the parties simply has not thought long, hard, deeply enough to know that they are wrong; and when that party has 'more important things to do' than achieve the clarity and simplicity to which such thinking will eventually lead.

Thus many clever people (and there are few cleverer than Turing!) are wrong about fundamental matters; not least because they are impatient to get on with their main line of work, research, creative endeavour... Yet they do not escape their wrongness; and the wrongness of Turing is not invalidated by the success of and ubiquity of computers - rather, Turing's error is built-into the modern world: baked into it indeed, since our tests of whether something works have themselves become pragmatic.

So now we have, in effect, the situation of non-understanding computers evaluating the truth (i.e. true understanding) of non-understanding computers - because the matter of real (simple direct, intuitive) understanding has become regarded as merely subjective, psychological, contingent. Modern man therefore demands that the need for understanding be eliminated - and he sets-up procedural systems to evaluate the 'truth' (or 'quality') of science, mathematics, engineering and everything else; without any need for (and indeed deliberately excluding) human understanding.

These systems are supposed to be indifferent to whether or not a person has thought deeply and long, whether they understand or merely manipulate. Indeed there is now a suspicion of, hostility to, anything which is not obvious to 'anybody' - including 'anybody' who has never thought about it and never achieved a state of understanding.

A typical modern bureaucrat (and most modern people are bureaucrats, whether professionally or in their private lives) would be saying to Wittgenstein, over and again: That's just your opinion.

(And anyway, do you want us to live in the stone age, or what?)

Wittgenstein would know that he was right, and he would know this for absolute certain - but probably would not be able to convince anybody else. If he couldn't convince Turing that there was more to understanding than models - what chance would have Wittgenstein have with the average modern middle manager, or academic-careerist, or official, or media propagandist?

If, as I assume, all persons are either men or women; and this goes back to our primordial origins in the eternity of pre-mortal life and forward to the eternity of post-mortal life; then the consequences are vast - and largely unexplored.

There is no generic human - all individuals are part of a person and unity and wholeness come from the loving dyad of a man and woman.

What seems like (or is promoted as) a battle of the sexes, or vying for domination between sexes, or patriarchy versus feminism, is actually and properly (merely) a process of experiencing and learning. The ultimate reality of the situation towards which divine destiny is tending is the dyadic love of a man and woman true marriage: this is the only completion and wholeness of human life.

Now, when it comes to the situation of an individual in mortal life - this is bound to have some vital relevance; although it may not be (in fact, by design) the most important or prominent aspect of a specific individual's life.

(We each have different and unique primary needs for learning in this life - some lives end very quickly - even in the womb; some lives are constrained by serious handicap or disease or situation; some lives are celibate - more are unmarried; the sexes may be segregated or pitted against one another - or individuality crushed by society; and many cultures have-been and are actively hostile to even an approximation of true-divine marriage.)

Due to the radical incompleteness of each sex, the relationship between men and women goes far, far beyond the realm of reproduction - and includes all the highest and most important aspects of thinking.

It isn't just that men and women think differently, have different abilities and dispositions; it is that only when there is a dyadic fusion of both a man and a woman, then the fullness and truth of perception, insight, knowledge and creativity can be.

(This applies to individual persons - a man and a woman; and it also applies if or when there is a true, organic, familial society - the men as a real group, and the women as a real group, will have analogous complementarity. The 'social organism' is intended, destined, to be complementary also.)  

It is my impression that CS Lewis's 'fairy-tale for grown-ups' That Hideous Strength (1945) is - for many conservatives, traditionalists, and spiritual Christians - the single premier work from all the many which describe, understand, and prophesy the end-of, the modern spiritual condition (which is scientism, materialism, positivism, demonic inversion of The Good etc).

At the Albion Awakening blog; John Fitzgerald gives us his appreciation of this book in a complex yet integrated piece that includes personal memoir, literary criticism, and fiction:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/journey-to-centre-of-earth.html

I have always found that the more I thought-about and worked-on a theme, the more distinctive my views became - distinctive from those of other people. In the end, they were unique: nobody else shared them. Nobody at all.

And, of course, my assumption was that this was distinctiveness arose because other people had not thought as much, as accurately or as honestly as myself - while those others assume that whatever was distinctive about my views was in error.

Ultimately, this is a matter of self-trust and other trust: how much do I trust myself, how much do I trust others? Do I trust myself enough to stand against... everybody (one versus all); do I trust any other person or group enough to squash my own deepest and best and most intuitive thoughts?

As a matter almost of technique in writing - problems arise from distinctiveness. Either one simply states the conclusions without defence - to stand or fall in terms of their intuitive appeal or coherence; or else one references, evidences, buttresses each individual statement and ingredient of the distinctive idea, to emphasise that although the overall idea is unique, its components are agreed.

But then, will any casual reader take one person's view against a lot of others... on the whole, people want o 'back a winner' and will side with the majority, right or wrong. This is attractive because rewarded; and also attractive from fear of isolation.

Most people have never been isolated, except in nightmares; and not many people are able or willing to acknowledge when they are. After all, an unique person is 1. probably wrong, 2. weak, 3. maybe crazy, and 4. even if they are right, then since nobody believes it, then it doesn't make any difference.

What I find interesting is that a set of unique ideas is often very appealing in context of a biography - we want people we read about to be unique, and strange - or else why read about them? But in a non-fiction context, we seem to want consensus, solid 'facts' and standard interpretations - indeed, it is more important not to be wrong, than to be right!

(John Cowper Powys is among the strangest of people, and/ but wrote one of the best autobiographies.)

Those writers and thinkers who have strange and unique ideas are often - for such reasons - best known in a biographical than expository fashion... for example Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Charles Williams...

It seems that the human personality provides a more powerful and flexible integration than any overall conceptual framework.

'God' is a dyad of Heavenly Mother and Father, they are co-creators and parents of all. The metaphysical reality is that all persons are male or female and there is no-one who is neither or both.

The whole person is therefore neither man nor woman - each being incomplete - but a dyad of the two complementary persons man and woman; sealed in an eternal loving relationship.

Traditional Christianity - for good reasons - has focused on God the Father, but the time has come for change. While we might continue to refer to 'God' as tacitly implying the two personages, this is coming to seem evasive, and even dishonest.

Of course the potential for being misunderstood, and deliberately misrepresented, is vast - it is a hazardous, dangerous doctrine; but that applies to Christianity in general - and so, where there is need, hazard does not deter.

The key fact is the grounding in the dyadic and complementary metaphysics; this is the basic assumption, which is attested by direct intuitive knowing and coherence, not by empirical 'evidence'. It is thus metaphysical assumption rooted in faith and personal knowledge which clarifies and protects the concept of Heavenly Mother.

What she is, is a matter that need attention, now.

*

What she is not?... She is not the same as the Father, not another name for the Father, certainly not an equal to the Father. Complementarity means dissimilarity: two complementary things are not the same, are not equal - their quality is that both in combination are needed to make the whole, the unit.

Heavenly Mother is a part of the dyad of God - not a Goddess; she is not any kind of revival - because she has never been acknowledged nor known up to now. She is of the future, not the past.

She is nothing to do with feminism, and is indeed ultimately the opposite of feminism. She is not in any way 'for women' rather than or in preference to being for men (any more that the legitimate Queen of a nation is for the women of that nation more than the men! Or that mothers are for their daughters more than their sons. Nonsense!).

She is not a 'balance' yet not a take-over either... Heavenly Mother is a fact and a necessity.

*

Heavenly Mother is a mystery - because divine; but she is a person we already know, from our long pre-mortal lives as her sons and daughters; we have known her for as long as we consciously knew anything.

If, for good reasons, we have been focused on Heavenly Father (and the reality of our Mother awaited the Mormon revelations of the middle 1800s) - then why do we need her now?

We need her now because the unilateral focus on the Father is preventing our divinely-destined spiritual progression. Where we are now (culturally, individually) is nihilism, despair and death; but we cannot (and should not) go back (which is why all attempts have failed); yet going forward is blocked by a partial and distorted understanding which cuts to the root; progression entails acknowledging the fullness of fundamental understanding, and building-upon that.

At some deep and intuitive level we know this, or we can know it - each for himself or herself - for the asking (serious asking). And we can find out more, and as much as we need, by addressing questions in prayer and meditation and listening for the responses - observing the responses.

(This is not really a matter of 'worship' because the incremental collapse of that concept is representative of the reasons why our Heavenly Mother's time has come. It is instead a matter of acknowledged reality, followed by love; and of conversation, communion, communication.)

*

This is not a matter of capturing Heavenly Mother in definitions, any more than this is helpful for our Father; because persons are known, not defined.

There is no need and little value from dividing-up the powers and responsibilities of our Heavenly parents any more than our real parents - yes they are different, and rightly; but no, the difference is not a consequence of, nor captured by, legal categories.

Persons are primary; loving relations are the cohesion and source of organisation.

*

How important is this - is it necessary? Since the idea of Heavenly Mother is unsafe, will be deliberately and carelessly misunderstood and misrepresented, will be a reason for hatred and loathing... is she not better set-aside, down-played, kept-quiet about?

That is a decision you need to make for yourself. You need to feel that Heavenly Mother is something we need to know - now: urgently; and which honesty requires that we know - openly, explicitly; knowledge the lack of which is poisoning us in many ways.

The impulse is there, the impulse is in our hearts and unfolding in Western culture. If the impulse is refused and kept  unconscious; it will nonetheless emerge in distorted and inverted forms (like feminism, like misogyny, like resentment and competitive exploitation between men and women).

But if Heavenly Mother is acknowledged and takes her place explicitly and joyously as a completion of our knowledge of God and the basis of our mortal lives; then the destined new era of consciousness may commence.

It seems an especially hard time to be alive - for those in The West who experience the alienation propagated by modern culture.

We are in a thought-world where subjectivity can poison but not heal. Where we believe the nihilistic promptings of imagination and readily accept the idea of futility - yet reject the good news brought us from that same quarter.

The resistance of this problem, decades after its formulation, is the resistance we have to a metaphysics of meaning - and that even the problem of the problem is a challenge, a learning experience potentially - indeed it is perhaps the learning experience of all.

Because the modern predicament is the crux of all things: Is the universe Good - was it created, is it meaningful, purposive - does it have a place for each of us specifically, a destiny, a path, and an achievable goal? Does death render everything futile or is it an essential step to a great gift?

All these characteristic, modern, alienation problems; are forcing us to confront the most essential of all questions. They bring us to face the ultimate choice, which all must face.

Because reality is a participated reality - reality just does not force itself upon us; we must always decide, choose, to make reality.

The 'facts' are insufficient, the facts are always insufficient to compel choice. That is the nature of things.

Reality is as reality is; but we cannot make sense of it without our-selves evaluating and interpreting - and rejecting or endorsing.

For each Man it is as for Jesus and Lucifer. The facts are the same; the difference is a personal act of understanding those facts. Ultimately it is a choice between alliance with the creator, or imposing our-selves on creation.

Is the world a family to be part-of; or a situation to be made the best-of?

The modern predicament brings us to this situation, unavoidably - although part of the reality of the situation is that understanding the nature of our personal predicament is exactly the point at issue.

One of the ways that thinking is kept locked into materialism and superficiality, is the deluge of 'news' that demands attention, evaluation and suggestions about what-should-be-done...

The problem with all such is assuming we know the situation's relevance and significance for each individual.

But we don't and never can. Consequently the whole discourse is conducted by false selves in accordance with socially inculcated evaluations.

Instead, I should regard all such in terms of only the thinking of that real true and divine self, whose evaluations are intrinsically valid.

What cannot be or is not evaluated by the real self is simply, swiftly set-aside.

I can recall that in 1967 'everything changed' - the whole feel of things was transformed. I was a young child of about 8 years old, but it is a distinct memory.

Why did everything change, and suddenly?

It was - I believe - something external and supernatural that came-upon Britain, and indeed Europe, the USA and the whole Western and developed world - and it was this inner and spiritual wave that caused so many observable and measurable transformations to happen simultaneously.

My understanding was that this transformative influence was divine rather than demonic in origin and intention - it was a change of human consciousness; however, human agency, people's choices, the response of Western Man to the divine stimulus was overwhelmingly (albeit not entirely) hedonic, selfish and short-termist; and the main consequence of the transformative influence was that multi-pronged battering-ram of evil which is The Sexual Revolution.

(Also the whole complex of New Leftism: antiracism, Western self-hatred, national suicide, mass media addiction and the rest of it - in sum, 1967 was when the Old economic-Left tipped-over into the New cultural-Left.)

A further point, which came even before any moral decision; was that the prevalent mainstream public ingrained materialism of the West meant that the spiritual impulse could only be misperceived in a materialist guise. So what should have been a spiritual revolution - a turn-towards acnowledgment of and participation-in the spiritual realm (and consciously known as such), was instead regarded as a political revolution, a sexual, personal, psychological, musical revolution... that is as almost any kind of material change but not the intended spiritual one.  

My point is that a divinely-ordained but invisible transformation of consciousness was imposed-upon Western humanity very suddenly and very powerfully, and everything changed in the perceptible world; but the fact of human agency, the interacting decisions of the mass of people, meant that this was almost-instantly twisted to evil rather than to Good.

Now, of course, people were strongly encouraged - by government (political and administrative) and the mass media - to make the wrong choices; indeed there was a kind of frenzy of propaganda for evil at that time - coming from law, the arts, sciences... almost everywhere. And on the whole, the leadership of the mainstream Christian churches joined-in with enthusiasm.

The big question is: was 1967 the last chance of the West; or - now we are fifty years down the line - might something of the sort happen again? And is it possible that - if it did happen again, if there was another sudden, powerful, universal, supernaturally sourced transformation of consciousness - would people decide differently, could they (in sufficient number, and with sufficient courage) make the right choices? Could people this time actually acknowledge and become aware of the spirit, of the unerceived, supersensible reality?

I - and some others - have a feeling that we are about to experience another intervention like 1967. I'm not at all certain about it - and no doubt the timing or even actuality of such things is under continuous evaluation. But I can't shake off the feeling that something of the kind is coming; not because the times are right for people to choose well; but because it is getting too-late, and soon people will be in no position to choose...

The outcome of such things are not destined, nor can they be pre-decided. But maybe forewarned is forearmed.

Modern Man is sabotaged by an evil metaphysics - in other words, it is our fundamental assumptions that undermine and subvert good living for us.

We therefore need to discover, first that we actually do have a metaphysics; secondly what it is; and thirdly we need to reconstruct it so as to become true - insofar as we can discover true assumptions (which is a matter of intuition, revelation, direct knowing).

(The point is that the unconscious and unacknowledged metaphysical assumptions of mainstream modern life are clearly wrong - not least because they are incoherent; but mainly because their overall wrongness is obvious to each and every person once the assumptions are exposed. Of course, some specific aspects of modern metaphysics are true; it is the overall system that is false.)

So first we need to discover true metaphysics, as best we may. This seems to imply that what we most need to do - now - is to practise tracing our casual, automatic thoughts back to these metaphysical assumptions.

It will generally be found (at least at first) that even when we have revised and improved our metaphysical assumptions; we nonetheless tend (partly by sheer habit, partly because of past social training and the prevalent surrounding culture); we nonetheless continue to use the old/ wrong metaphysics.

So we may explicitly acknowledge that modern metaphysics is nonsense; yet continually falling-back into implicitly assuming it.

One vital consequence is that the Good and positive future for Western Man must be conscious, explicit, and purposive.

We cannot realistically hope that a good future will just happen, due to unconscious instinct, or due to what up-wells naturally. We must reveal our metaphysics, and we must analyse our own tendency to base our lives on that false set of assumptions that has been elaborately - and with such appalling results - implanted into us and protected by distraction and denial.

The professional skeptic/ cynic is a notable internet phenomenon - posting blogs, wikis, vlogs, videos and other social media that purport to debunk commonly held fallacies.

But while they may be rightly skeptical about small things, they all have a world view based on the incoherent built-in assumptions of materialist utilitarian sexual revolutionary Leftism; and nearly all of them swallow the One Big Lie of modernity which is the climate change scam.

My litmus test says that when somebody cannot see the biggest fraud of all time, which is all around and everywhere; very obviously engineered to justify and facilitate a tyrannical global bureaucracy of total surveillance, monitoring and control...

Well, if that can't see the Biggest Lie, then they can't see the little lies either - not really: they're just spouting a very minor, Establishment-friendly micro-frisson variant of the usual mainstream mass media garbage.

When I continue to read Leftists ranting about the evils of "capitalism", which they delusionally imagine rules this world, I wonder what it would take to awaken them to reality.

There is no capitalism. We live in a world of massive bureaucratic surveillance, regulation and monitoring - almost everything is controlled.

The winners don't compete -  they are allocated. The losers are absorbed into the system. There simply isn't anywhere for "capitalism" to operate!

There is now just one vast, interconnected bureaucracy comprising all the smaller ones, interlinked.

And of course this uni-bureau is totally, without exception, run by Leftists. So billionaires are Leftists, all significant global and Western leaders are Leftists, all mainstream political parties are Leftists - because all are spirit-denying materialists, this-worldly utilitarians and sexual revolutionaries.

Democracy is bureaucracy, so is egalitarianism, so is multiculturalism, so are all radical transformative programs... All share an underpinning bureaucratic imperative.

Can civilisation escape the bureaucratic cancer? I think not. There is no pendulum swing. When the parasite grows large enough, it will kill the host.

Post bureaucracy is post civilisation.

It will happen either way; but maybe it is for the best (though I won't survive mortal life to experience it).

But for Heavens' sake, let's hear no more about "capitalism" !

I recently got an e-mail from a chap who has this laudable goal:

The Fall is (merely) the dawn of consciousness - of self-awareness.

(There was a time when we were not self-aware, did not distinguish our-selves from our environment and memories: this happened in early childhood and early in Man's history - apparently; we each recapitulate human cultural history - in part, and in a sense. Then there was no problem of Good and evil - we just were, and did - passively.)

As soon as we are conscious, we are severed from the world.

(And thus we became free, agent; no longer passive 'effects' - our thinking was become a primary and self-aware cause; itself un-caused.)

But equally, we can be rejoined with the world in our thinking  which we inhabit - and in which we combine-in-one all that is thought (our self, our sensations and perceptions, our memories...).

The Problem is that modern people suppose thinking to be private, arbitrary and temporary. So it cannot be any real solution to anything...

Whereas; if we recognise (by direct intuitive knowing) that thinking is reality (I mean primary thinking of the real self, knowing in thinking its own freedom and agency...) - that everything we think is real and true and (potentially) universal...

Then (if you let it) the fact of thinking as a solution to alienation becomes valid, solid, satisfying. 

I just today came across a 2005 movie about Glenn Gould, which I hadn't seen before:

And it made me reflect yet again on the part that this musician has played in my own life - arriving, as he did, when I was aged 19; and just as I began to become more-and-more alienated (more cut-off in my-self, and from perception and memory) - from getting older, being away from family, living a more superficial life, spending time alone, in a city, and moving towards a round-hole that I did not fit...

For me Gould represented intensity. The ideal of living with such intensity - of living in intensity - that all problems were solved. Intensity of living (whether in listening to Gould play Bach, or some other musician or music of similar intensity) - or in personal relationships (but not very often)... did indeed solve the problem of alienation, while on-going.

But I never, over several years of trying, integrated this with my 'working' life - I was too feeble of will, got lonely too easily - or bored; plus of course it was impossible...

Gould himself experienced intensity more often and more powerfully than most people - but still very intermittently: much of his life was dissipation, time-filling (just like mine).

In the end, being a musicia of genius and having near-complete control over his life was grossly-insufficient, because he was up-against the limits of the human being, and of the human condition.

This did not mean that Gould was as adrift as my young adult self; because, I was unaware that Gould was a religious man with a profound conviction of life everlasting. For me, mortal life was everything, and when (not if) we failed to live well then that was It; but for Gould this life was a prelude leading on to wondrous and eternal fugues!...

This is a good candidate for the book that 'everybody should read'. Firstly, because nearly everybody will experience psychiatric illness in themselves, a friend or relative; and secondly because the over-prescription and wrong-prescription of psychiatric drugs is one of the major problems of this era.

Reading Healy's Psychiatric Drugs Explained is therefore a basic necessity of psychological self-defence.

It is, of course, an exaggeration to say 'everybody' should read this (or any) book, because - although it is comprehensible by a non-professional audience - it does require at least average intelligence and motivation to understand.

However, if not quite 'everybody' could read it; I have found it highly suitable for both general undergraduate and Masters post-graduate classes of both high and low ability - and indeed the typical chapter in Psychiatric Drugs Explained takes the reader from basic instruction up to what is (or should be) the cutting-edge of the subject.

And what a subject! One of the pleasures of teaching psychiatry and psychopharmacology (as I have been doing for the past 21 years) is that almost-everyone finds the subject fascinating!

Psychiatric Drugs Explained begins with sections on management of the major categories of psychiatric disorders: schizophrenia, depression, bipolar/ mania, anxiety and dementia; with the relevant drugs considered under each section.

There are also drug-orientated sections on stimulants, hypnotics (sleeping pills and draughts), drugs that affect sexual function (for better or worse) - and the vital subject of drug withdrawal with its sub-types of addiction, rebound, tolerance, and long-term dependence.

The book rounds-off with some discussions of the socio-political aspects of psychiatric diagnosis and drugs.

The main reason to read Psychiatric Drugs Explained is that it is written by David Healy - director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine in Bangor; whom I regard as the most important of living psychiatrists: a great scholar, a discoverer and re-discoverer, the subject's deepest philosopher, and the field's most incisive and constructive critic.

School of Psychology

We need, urgently need, to be aware of the remarkable thing that we are doing when really thinking!

When thinking from our true-selves; we are knowing, participating and creating.

Only in thinking is freedom - Only in thinking is agency.

Consciousness severs us from the world - but thinking restores the world to us.

Thinking is the cure of alienation (properly understood, properly done) - It is in real thinking that we belong to the world, and the world to us; in thinking we know that the world is real and autonomous; and we know that we ourselves are co-creators of the world - which, until we thought it, was partial and incomplete.

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Such are the joyous, inspiring and motivating insights which may be attained from reading, pondering and knowing Rudolf Steiner's early metaphysical/ epistemological works:

Philosophy of Freedom (aka. Philosophy of Spiritual Activity - of 1894) 
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/English/RSP1964/GA004_index.html

and his Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception (of 1886). 
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA002/English/AP1985/GA002_index.html

I have found a couple of essays by the highly-insightful (and highly-irritating!) maverick Anthroposophist Joel Wendt to be helpful and clarifying of what these books mean and how they should be understood:
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Prokofieffbookreview.html
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Saving.html