Bruce Charlton's Notions

I have said this before her, but it is probably worth repeating that I regard the Authorised Version of the Bible - or 'King James' Bible, as truly divinely inspired. Indeed, very obviously so!

This means that the KJB should never be treated as if it was a 'translation' of an 'original' text - and that the KJB has equal and independent validity with any other inspired version of the Bible Texts.

This means that Biblical 'scholarship' - non-religious academic speciality, dating back to around the early 1800s, and which uses the same methods as were developed for dealing with ordinary, not-divinely-inspired historical texts, is worthless nonsense.

Indeed, Biblical Scholarship is worse than nonsense, it is profoundly and actively wrong; and has been extremely damaging to the Christian religion.  

When I read the King James Bible, I am getting the word of God as refracted through the minds and pens of Men - it is (therefore) a communication of truth, not itself the truth... But I am Not reading a secondary/ translated version of a primary-communication. I am instead reading words that were produced by an inspiration of truth that was as direct as the people who wrote the original texts.

I am not saying that the KJB, or any other version, is infallible - I am saying that the KJB has equal validity with any other divinely-inspired version such as the original, and (probably) the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and Luther's Bible.

This means that when I cannot understand a part of the KJB - or when I suspect an error or omission on the part of the authors of the KJB, it does Not help to look at the original language version - since this is no more valid, no more likely to be correct, than the KJB.

Instead, with a divinely inspired text, the reading needs to be done in a state that is receptive-to, empathic-with, inspiration. So that reading the text will lead me to a direct understanding... So that reading the KJB I will be as directly aware of the truth and reality of what is being said, as were the KJB authors, or the author of the first known text. 

Such a way of reading is limited by my own range of sympathy, my own seriousness, my capacities, my goodness... so there is nothing 'infallible' about my reading. Nonetheless, it is the only proper way of reading scripture - I must know it for and from myself.

If I merely read an interpretation of 'what the Bible means' (whether popular low brow or scholarly and done by a great 'expert') - then this is analogous to reading a prose summary of some great poetry... like reading 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare' instead of experiencing the play, or reading a Hamlet soliloquy done-into bureaucratic bullet points... it is something altogether different and qualitatively inferior.

If you are an English speaker, you have the great (potential) privilege of being able, in principle, to read one of the true, direct, inspired versions of the Bible. If you are serious about your faith; it does not make much sense to read translations (of which there are hundreds, and more every year) when you can read the real thing - except insofar as translations of the Bible may help prepare you for reading the directly-inspired word of God.

Adam G at Junior Ganymede has posted a transcript of a great talk he gave at church. This is both realistic, and very inspiring! In it Adam references the 'great and spacious building' which comes from a vision described in The Book of Mormon (see my note at the end); G&SB means much the same as the Liberal Elites/ the Establishment or The Cathedral. Here is an abbreviated version:

OK, let’s talk about Journalism and the Media.  These people are incredibly socially liberal, they don’t share our values, and the  higher up and more powerful and elite the journalist, the more they don’t.  They don’t go to church, they may not even know someone who goes to church, they are pretty much all in favor of gay marriage and transgender and all that and they may not even know someone who isn’t.  They are hostile to the idea that men and women are different, they are hostile to Christianity and organized religion.  That really matters.  Just to give you an idea,  though its about politics, studies estimate that the media changes elections in the direction of Democrats by as much as 5%.  Without them, purple states would be red and red states would be Saudi  Arabia.  If they can have that kind of effect on politics, what kind of effect do you think they have on culture and people’s attitudes about life?

OK, let’s talk about Academics and Education.  That is super important in today’s world.  Getting a degree is your ticket to the good life and it gives you status.  We don’t think about it that way, but its true.  People are proud of their degrees, it’s a status thing.  So when we send our kids to college, who are we sending them too.  Well, these people are incredibly socially liberal, they don’t share our values, and the  higher up and more powerful and elite the academic or the professor, the more they don’t.  They don’t go to church, they may not even know someone who goes to church, they are pretty much all in favor of gay marriage and transgender and all that and they may not even know someone who isn’t.  They are hostile to the idea that men and women are different, they are hostile to Christianity and organized religion etc. etc.

Entertainment.  Hollywood, singers, all that.  Ditto.  Socially liberal, don’t share our values, all of that.  Even the occasional actor who comes out as conservative is still careful to be socially liberal.  To them, thinking like us is unthinkable.  They make sex and violence into entertainment, they teach that nothing really matters and right and wrong is just up to you, they teach that women are the same as men and/or are sex objects, they teach that life is just about finding yourself.  Obedience to God isn’t on the radar.  This is our entertainment.

Social media.  Its everywhere, and its designed to hack your brain.  Its designed to make you think you are having a real social experience when you are not.  There are valid uses for it, obviously.  But there are also reasons why some of the billionaires who created this stuff won’t let their kids use it. So here they are, the rich and the influential and the famous, and they’re against us, and their influence is everywhere.  Look at the centers of power of our civilization, look at where all the decisions are made, go to New York or LA or DC, are they on our side?  We live in a world that is increasingly organized against us, even to the point of persecution, and where incessant propaganda fills every corner of our lives attacking what is sacred and precious to us.  Absolutely the Great and Spacious Building was for our day.

I don’t watch horror movies because I’m a big scaredy-cat with an overactive imagination.  But basically we live in a horror movie.  We are surrounded by monsters who want to swallow your soul. The thing is, most horror movies rely on people doing stupid stuff.  If it were real life, if the monsters were real, we’d cope.

The thing is, the Mormon home is a powerful thing.  It may sometimes feel like a fortress where we are holed up, surrounded by the world.  But if so, it’s the kind of fortress that is a base we use to launch strikes deep into enemy territory.  You are amazing people.  You are stronger than you know. Protecting my family against the world is something I brood about a lot.  It seems overwhelming.  How can I possibly win?  I will not give up, even for a moment, because losing my kids is unacceptable.  But its overwhelming. It’s me against everyone who matters in the world. 

So I went to the church General Conference brooding about this.  How am I going to protect my kids against overwhelming odds?  How can I do the impossible? Then one of the church leaders gave a talk about being a Dad and the Spirit whispered to listen up, this talk was my answer.  I did.  So what did he talk about?  He talked about having silly games at Family Home Evening.  He talked about praying for your kids and telling them you love them.

It’s that easy.

Imagine it like this.  Its like in a movie.  You are in your castle surrounded by your enemies.  Tomorrow is the Last Battle.  Maybe imagine a battle from Lord of the Rings.  The thing is, there’s no one the castle but you.  You’ve got your wife and your kids and that’s it.  And the enemies around you, they’re orcs or monsters and you can’t even count them, you can’t even see all of them they stretch so far out, there are millions of them, and its just you.  In the early hours, it’s the very early morning, you are getting on your armor and getting your sword and you are praying.  You have no idea what to do.  Because charging out and dying heroically in some kind of big last stand is not acceptable.  This is not a drama, this is real.  You have to win.  You have to fight and fight and fight and live and fight and fight and fight, you have to win, but there are millions of them, and its just you.  So you’re praying.  And God says, well, say family prayers with real intent.  OK.  And He says, read some scriptures.  OK.  And then have some family councils and family games and those little jokes that families have and mess around with your wife and kids.  OK, you say, but what then?  That’s basically it, God says.  Do that, you win.

Which is hysterically, hilariously easy.  It makes you want to laugh.  Imagine that Last Battle, all the nasty orcs spreading out to the horizon, and up there at dawn on the castle walls is Brother G. half-dressed in his armor, capering around, dancing around with glee, laughing his fool head off.

We should all be laughing our fool heads off.

It’s that easy.

**


Here is the main section in which the nature of the G&SB is defined. This excerpt is edited from the First Book of Nephi, Chapter 8:

And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood. And I also beheld a strait and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood; and it also led by the head of the fountain, unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world.

And I saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward, that they might obtain the path which led unto the tree by which I stood. And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path did lose their way, that they wandered off and were lost.

I beheld others pressing forward, and they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree. And after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed.

And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth. And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit.

And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.

Long-term readers of this blog will know that I am trying to understand Christianity using only the fourth Gospel, as if it was my only source; because I regard it as qualitatively the most authoritative scripture.

On that basis I have come to regard the author (the disciple who 'Jesus loved') of the gospel as the resurrected Lazarus (and that Lazarus was resurrected, not just brought back to life); that Lazarus's sister Mary (of Bethany) was married to Jesus in Cana (in an 'ordinary' Jewish ceremony) when the first miracle was performed, and that there was a further mystical marriage at the time of the anointing of Jesus's feet with Spikenard on Mary's hair, and that this Mary is the same person as Mary Magdalene ('both' Mary's treating Jesus with loving but respectful familiarity, and 'both' engaging in physical contact appropriate only to a wife)...


Anyway; this is the background for trying to interpret an anomalous verse John 2: 4 - when Jesus says to his mother "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is yet to come."

To me, there is something clearly wrong with this verse - certainly it does Not mean any kind of rejection of Jesus's mother, since she accompanies Jesus (and his brothers) to Capernum in verse 12. The verse might be garbled, or interposed - but my guess is that - since Jesus is the 'bridegroom' of the marriage feast, it may refer to Jesus's new allegiance to his wife.


And this may answer another puzzle about the fourth Gospel: why did Jesus's ministry start when it did? The answer seems to be that Jesus's ministry began when he was baptised by John the Baptist, and JtB recognised Jesus as the Christ, as the divine Spirit descended upon him and stayed - causing Jesus's new self-awareness as Son of God (to become Son of Man, at his ascension), and his new powers.

But why did Jesus get baptised by JtB? Well, the author doesn't say that Jesus and John are cousins  (that is in another gospel) - which seems like a strange omission, since the author of the fourth gospel - Lazarus - was a disciple first of John then of Jesus. So, if they were cousins, then he would know!

However, I think we can assume that it was Lazarus who brought his future brother-in-law Jesus to be baptised by his then-Master John the Baptist, just two days before the wedding. Perhaps (as in my own extended family) terms like 'sister' (referring to John's and Jesus's mothers), did not necessarily mean sharing the same parents - and perhaps the real link was the marriage-link between Lazarus's and Jesus's families, and that was underpinned by some childhood relation between the mothers of Jesus and Lazarus... (The beloved disciple is asked, by Jesus on the cross, to look-after Jesus's mother.)

Thus it was Lazarus who was responsible for the timing of  Jesus's ministry; and Lazarus was present at his sister's wedding to Jesus in Cana two days later when Jesus's new status as the Messiah became explicit with the first miracle - in which water to wine is both literal and deeply symbolic (the symbolism - which is itself literal - being multiply expressed in other parts of the fourth Gospel).


The second omission is more obvious and important than the garbled comment of Jesus to his mother; and it is the dispute among the Jewish leaders about whether Jesus could be the Messiah given that he had not been born in Bethlehem.

John 7: 41-3 - Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh out of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where Davis was? So there was a division among the people because of him.

Having raised this as an important issue, the author of the fourth Gospel does not resolve it for us. Of course, we are told in Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born in Bethlehem... But we are not told this in the fourth Gospel, where the issue is left 'up in the air' and (so far as I can see) never resolved for the reader.

This could be some omission from the Gospel, something that was lost - a statement that Jesus was born in Bethlehem; because it seems strange that, if Jesus was indeed born in Bethelehem, the dispute reported in the fourth Gospel was not simply settled.

Or, if nothing was lost; and since I regard the fourth Gospel as more authoritative than any of the Synoptics (or Epistles); perhaps this really was one way in which Jesus did not fulfil all the prophecies - but one which was later patched-up by oral history and legend...

After all, the fourth Gospel provides in abundance all the evidence necessary to prove that Jesus really was the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah... There is, in particular, the testimony of John the Baptist (the most authoritative witness of that time and place); the miracles - especially the raising of Lazarus; and of course Jesus's resurrection, ascension, and his sending of the Holy Ghost.

There is a general plan of salvation - requiring the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus; and there is a general plan of theosis - by which we are all intended to strive for greater degrees of divinity, to become grown-up, mature Sons and Daughters of God...

But we know that God's attention goes down to the level of each person, and - presumably - everything that happens to and around us (given that nothing is random, and all determinism is actually do do with the purposes of beings) is intended (although not necessarily or usually intended for our own personal salvation and theosis - often for others).

Maybe this aspect is neglected by most Christians? - it is by me. It could be that the 'standard' model for salvation and theosis is more of the nature of an average description, than it is a simple categorical scheme into-which all-must-fit... or, at least, there will surely be such standard elements in sequence;  but it may be that our personal lives are much more 'targeted' on the spiritual needs of our pre-mortal spirit selves than is usually understood...

This would start with when and where we were born, and to whom; it may extend to the matter of God having encouraged several types of society and civilisation and circumstance to help with the needs of different types of people, of different levels of spiritual maturity...

And it may extend to a detailed level of the things that happen, and do not happen, to us each day.

Of course, we personally will not be able to know or understand most of what is going-on; but just knowing that 'something of the kind' is always going-on, is potentially a very helpful attitude to Life.

It is all very well for me to call Jordan Peterson an antichrist, and to warn people off taking seriously someone who is a merely a psychotherapist, left-libertarian, atheist... but the rejoinder is that 'who else' is there in the modern world getting mainstream coverage that is talking as much common sense?

And the answer is: nobody. Nobody else who has comparable fame and impact is any better than Jordan Peterson  - and yet Jordan Peterson is qualitatively inadequate for the needs of this time: he is a waste of time, a blind alley, a red herring; thus, in our state-of-emergency - he does more harm than good...

There just isn't anybody who has anything significantly worth listening to that most people have heard of, or who has power or fame. That is the nature of our time and place...

Surely this is not surprising? What do you expect - we live in an evil-dominated totalitarian society! What public figures, 'public intellectuals', people with a high impact 'platform' were there in Stalin's USSR or Mao's China or current North Korea? Exactly the same number that we have in the UK, the US and Western Europe.

For people to regard JP as a significant thinker is evidence that they have no idea of the severity of the situation here and now.  They have no idea of the pervasiveness and depth of corruption in a society that officially advocates and enforces moral and aesthetic inversion; which punishes truth and systematically generates an interlocking structure of lies. We are in a very bad way indeed - advanced en route to self-chosen damnation on a mass scale.

Put it this way; if our situation was such that Jordan Peterson really was a valuable public voice saying something we needed to hear; then we would not need him.

But as things are, to find what we need, we must (and must means must) look outside the scope of the mainstream mass media - that is: we need to look to writers and thinkers from the past or other places, or who operate in relative or extreme obscurity.

What we need to know will not be given us - we need to seek for it. And if we haven't sought for it, then we can be sure that it is not what we need... That's what it means to live in a totalitarian society.   

I was asked a question yesterday by commenter NW, about what qualifies a person to be regarded as a Christian - and this led to the following reflections...

I don't like the implications of being 'qualified' to be a Christian! I think that gives the impression we are trying to plead before a judge, or satisfy and examiner. But our God is a loving Father, who wants the best for us - wants us to accept his gift of creation and join with him in the great work.

The way I regard definitions of being a Christian is that we need to 'believe' in Jesus - that is to have faith and trust in him; we need to believe that he was the Son of God and was creator of this world; that his incarnation, deeath and resurrection enabled us to have 'life eternal' which involves our own resurrection.

The above passage contains several key bits of terminology, and I don't think it is crucial to being a Christian that everybody agrees on them all... it is mostly (as usual) a matter of motivation. I think one can be a Christian by accepting that Jesus is 'in some way' personally essential to our salvation - without being sure of exactly how it works, or being sure of exactly what salvation consists in.

As you know, I am reading and re-reading the fourth Gospel ('John') as an eyewittness account by the beloved disciple. What Jesus teaches is very simple, and is mostly about 'belief' - the impression I get is that Jesus will lead us to salvation like a shepherd leads his flock... the flock trusts the shepherd (who will sacrifice his life for the least of the sheep) - and follows him to safety.

In a simple and profound sense, it is by trusting Jesus that we *follow* him through death and into the life eternal. I think that we need to ensure during mortal life that we are ready to do this after death, that we trust Jesus to lead us.

This implies that non-Christians, who have never even heard of Jesus, can also meet him after death and recognise him and trust him, and follow him to eternal life.

Indeed, it is probable that thsoe who have never heard of Jesus are more likely to trust and follow him after death than the typical modern person who has been poisoned-against Jesus.

(This is our particular test in the modern world, and why these times and this place is particularly hazardous to salvation.) 

I think Jesus understood this double-edged aspect of his incarnation, and refers to it several times in the Gospels. In that sense Jesus brought Hell as well as Heaven, and an unavoidable decision - because since the incarnation, many/ most people have *hated* Jesus, when they encountered him. So they actively-reject his gift.

And if we do not trust the Good Shepherd when we encounter him after death, then we will not follow him to life eternal - we will reject Heaven, and prefer the Hell of isolation-from love.


(This choice of Hell may not be irreversible, in principle. For example, I think that the dead may be reached by prayers from those who love them, and may 'change their minds', may revise their choice and accept the gift of Christ. Thus our love of neighbour, love of fellow-men, (when genuine) is potentially an instrument of salvation. But everything suggests that the decision whether or not to believe in Jesus Christ during our mortal life is extremely important - and I think we must assume that in practice such decisions are not easily or often reversed; even though the door to salvation is always kept-open by our loving Father in Heaven.)

A recent blog post by William M Briggs collects together just some of the evidence that has been coming into the open about the fact that the Global Establishment, near the apex of its hierarchy, is quite literally (although - as yet - deniably) a cult of supernatural evil, of demon worship and systematic desecration.

(Many other such reports can be found at Vox Day's blog; and have, indeed, been disseminated over the past three decades by David Icke. This is, of course, the dreaded 'conspiracy theory' material! - but all serious Christians must believe in the real conspiracy of supernatural evil, since it is repeatedly referenced in the New Testament.) 

Such monstrous activities as sex abduction and slavery, paedophilia, ritual torture, murder, and cannibalism; are utterly alien to many or most people - but they are apparently mainstream, protected and - probably - compulsory; among the Global Establishment (whether among national rulers, the UN, the international banks, or the BBC and Hollywood).


This ought not to be surprising to Christians who must acknowledge the reality and power of Satan and his minions in this world, and who can recognise the very obvious strategic evil intent of the Global Establishment in its manifestations among the international institutions of politics, government, economics, education, the mass media, the military etc.

Since the system is run by demons and is pursuing a demonic agenda; those humans near the apex must naturally be corrupted and inculcated (more or less explicitly, and presumably incrementally) with a religion of inversion in which the dark forces and motives are regarded as good; and truth, beauty and virtue are vilified, subverted, attacked and destroyed.


There is - from a Christian perspective - an irony about this; in that the 'hard-nosed' realists of bureaucracy, media and so-called science; are being played as useful-idiots by those who know that their this-worldly-utilitarianism and universalist-altruism are merely a disposable smoke screen for the implementation of their opposites. Any 'system' of individuals each pursuing selfish hedonism is intrinsically going to be self-contradicting. 

At present, the great majority of the educated middle class commissars who implement the secular Leftist agenda of evil (in its aspects such as sexual revolution, diversity, antiracism, feminism, egalitarianism etc.) hold fast to what they assume is scientific rationalism, and are utterly scornful of those less-educated and less-powerful ('idiots, crazies and lying manipulators') who 'cling' to belief in Jesus Christ and the reality of the spiritual.

But it is not just the middle management who are dupes - indeed the entire hierarchy of evil are all self-deceived fools striving for the impossible; right up to the very apex where Satan's burning resentment against God drives him to seek the destruction of all Good, ultimately all of his worshippers, and all of creation including his own (divinely-made) soul.

(Because, since evil is the negation of good, there can be no unmixed evil - there is good in everything by the fact of its existence; so the destruction of good - which is the aim of evil - aims at the futile impossibility of total annihilation...)


It is God's love which holds-together, makes sense of, and gives-direction-to reality which is his creation; and only by trust and faith in Jesus can we participate in the endlessly life of Heaven...

Any and all other options are sub-optimal - but we are free to choose them, and take the consequences.

Not all the consequences of rejecting Jesus are terrible, in terms of suffering - but active support and advocacy of supernatural evil brings its own entailed punishment; later if not sooner, everyone becomes a victim.

And some of these consequences are increasingly on display in the reported actions of the Global Elites. Things are coming to a point, evil being revealed, the time for decision is upon us; as I keep saying...

The idea that we already (in childhood, spontaneously) know everything truly-knowable, but are unconscious of the fact - and that learning is a kind of remembering and making-explicit and understanding....

That idea has a complementary aspect, which is that our spontaneous childhood beliefs and wishes have a validity, even and especially when these Bs &Ws have no correspondence with earthly reality, experience or apparent possibility.

An example is flying. I have clear memories of not just yearning to be able to fly (fly by 'levitation', without wings or propulsion - just moving through the air), of knowing what it would be like to fly, and the conviction that it was possible for me to fly... if only I could discover the 'knack'.

More profoundly, I - like most people - was apparently born into this world with the belief that it ought to be a paradise; and that any departure from paradisal conditions was a kind of violation: unjust, against the order of things.

Now, obviously there is no biological basis for human flying, nor any social basis for life as paradise; and therefore such in-built hopes and beliefs are either extraordinary yet common delusions or reality-distortions; or else they relate to a reality that is different from our own, but of which we have memory.

My assumption is that this reality is of pre-mortal spirit life - when we could indeed fly, and life was indeed paradisal. And at an unconscious, implicit, but effective level - we remember this...

We could also, as spirits, do many other things that I believed (against the evidence) was possible; such as read minds, communicate telepathically, change the world by thinking a thing, have my thoughts compelled, move things by a kind of telekinesis, and 'talk' with animals and befriend them.

(Interestingly, such beliefs also re-emerge in people with psychosis and altered states of consciousness.)

In sum, I think that we could reflect more on these childhood, and - in our culture - child-ish, counter-evidential beliefs and desires. And could regard them as destined paths to truth - things we need to become aware of, and to understand.


Note: The above is a version of the 'argument from desire' which was used often by CS Lewis, and also by JRR Tolkien - and which I personally find compelling. I refer to it and provide references in this essay.

Does he have to be either? - you ask. And the answer is, in principle, of course not.

But in practice Jordan Peterson is indeed being treated as if a saviour, or potentially such; therefore - since he is nothing of the kind! - in practice JP is indeed an antichrist.. and such by a precise definition of being a person who rhetorically uses aspects of a Christianity he disbelieves and opposes to deny Christ; someone who advertises to superficially-Christian agenda but who is fundamentally pursuing an un-Christian agenda.

(An antichrist is not supposed to be explicity against Christ - as some people mistakenly imagine; an antichrist is someone who seems a Christian or Christian supporter; who might indeed appear 99% Christian - but the missing percent is their real agenda. Because the Antichrist is a deceiver, in-practice. Whether an antichrist is a purposive deceiver, or has deceived himself before he deceives other people, is not a crucial distinction - an antichrist can do his evil work even if he is unaware of his own true motivations; and perhaps more effectively. For example: antichrists abound among 'Liberal Christian' church leaders - who may speak 99% Christian-talk, but whose real agenda is an aspect of Leftist materialsm, such as progressing the sexual revolution.)


But is Jordan Peterson really being treated as a saviour? Well, yes! Obviously!

Now of course anyone who - in their hearts - is regarding JP as a saviour may deny it to themselves or others; but my personal experience over the past year or so has been to have an unprecedented number of individuals write to me to recommend Jordan Peterson.

It was not just the fact of them having written to inform and enlist me; it was the starry eyed enthusiasm of their advocacy that was so striking. The tone was that 'Here, at last!" was someone to inspire faith and hope, someone to get-behind... (CoughAntichristCough)

By unprecedented, I mean that this has never happened before with any other person, nothing like it; yet these letters were frequent enough that I at first assumed that there was an organised campaign, or that they all emanated from a single besotted 'troll'... however, it became apparent that there was indeed a 'movement' who regarded JP as their personal saviour and the world's potential saviour.


Am I sure that Jordan Peterson is not a saviour? Yes! Of course he isn't! He lacks the 'one thing needful' - which is to be a Christian; and the other linked needful, which is to advocate a non-materialist, a transcendental metaphysics that acknowledges the objective reality of the spiritual.

What Peterson advocates is merely a moderately libertarian variant of modern, mainstream, Leftism - and those who can't see that fact at a glance are merely revealing their own unconscious complicity in the assumptions of secular, hedonic/ utilitarian materialism.

To base a world-view, a morality in (this-worldly) psychology just-is Leftism; and the disagreements and differences among Leftists are merely quibbling over the most effective means to that end.

This is a plain fact of categorisation: Peterson is a Leftist and a materialist - and there is absolutely no way in which yet-another Leftist materialist is going to awaken, inspire or lead anybody in the direction they need to be going... except, perhaps, in seeing-through and understanding the deception being practiced, and reacting-against JP.


In principle, of course, one can read/ watch/ listen to JP for what he is worth - just as we do with any other non-Christian materialist. I personally have read a great deal of Jung and his disciples and followers, and there is certainly value in it.

Yet this is not what is needed. No psychology addresses what is fundamentally wrong in us, or in modern society. And if we overvalue any kind of psychology as an aim in life, it will block what is needed. Sometimes a half-correct, semi-satisfying, moderately-useful answer becomes a trap that does more harm to us than an answer that is more-obviously inadequate and impels us to continue seeking the truth.

However, if/ because/ when circumstances force us to make a choice between embracing Jordan Peterson as saviour or rejecting him as antichrist; well, the answer is a no-brainer.

At first sight this seems a ridiculous idea, that has apparently been refuted by the great accumulation of knowledge through human history; but I believe there is a sense in which the broader argument is indicative of a profound insight - and this is why the argument has been taken seriously for more than 2000 years (ie. since Plato).

The sense is that life is two curves running from childhood to maturity - a rising line of self-consciousness which increases from childhood to a maximum plateau attained at adolescence. And a descending line of innate and spontaneous knowing which is high in childhood (albeit it is an unconscious knowing), and reaches a nadir in at adolescence.

In modern society adolescence is (spiritually) usually where matters stop - what we call adulthood is not 'maturity' but merely a sustained and degenerate adolescence. Modern 'adults' have lost their  spontaneous natural knowledge (instead just passively absorbing propaganda and hypothesies from 'society') and they live in a cut-off state of self-consciousness (so cut-off that it doubts and denies even itself). 

The task of adolescence ought-to-be to change that descending line of knowing into an arc - rising in adult maturity to reach the same kind of spontaneous and universal knowing that we began-with - but this time it is conscious knowing.

Thus, children know everything but are unaware of the fact, adolescents know nothing and are aware of the fact; but spiritually-mature grown-ups potentially know everything, and know-what-they-know.

I say adults potentially know everything, because the process of discovering-what-you-already-know is linear and happens in-time; so it would be more accurate to say that knowledge is un-bounded, open-ended, and tends-towards a situation of knowing everything-that-can-be-known - always from the perspective of a single self.

This scenario is, presumably, why all real learning - all knowing of truth - has the distinct feeling of being a realising, a remembering, a recognition... true knowledge is always 'familiar' - we always feel that we 'always knew that' but had never articulated it. I'm saying that we always Did know that - but did not realise we knew it, and could not use that knowing until after we had articulated it.

In terms of knowledge the trajectory is therefore from unconscious knowledge to conscious knowledge; from the implicit to the explicit; from immersion-in knowledge to standing outside it; from passivity through contemplation to creativity.

Edited from Equations of Being: notes on the nature of love - by William Arkle:

The God we are trying to understand is a living God.

There are many dead gods in our culture. The most common one is never described in any specific way and yet it is a part of the attitude which most ‘educated’ people bring to bear on our present day civilisation. This is the mechanical feedback god.

This God is ‘given worth’ or ‘worship’ through the type of thinking which sees all the phenomena of life in terms of an endless series of computer functions. Such an attitude never admits to a state of true consciousness being present in any event, but only to a series of learned responses which are truly a form of machinery.

In such a frame of understanding nothing is ever real in its own right but everything is an effect of one set of things and the cause of another, and in itself is left worthless and empty. What we would take to be our own consciousness is not admitted by this thought.

Instead we are taught that what appeared to us to be consciousness is in fact a series of electrical and chemical connections in the physical brain which compute from storage circuits the patterns of behaviour which have occurred to us. Such patterns are therefore the complete effectiveness of our identity so that we have become the sum of what has happened to us. Thus we ourselves are nothing but a playback system to other playback systems, and all and everything is thus made out to be a complex build-up of accidents which are remembered by the system.

There can be no such thing as individual effort or merit in this ‘scientific’ system and there is no way that we can be creative. What appears in us to be creative is merely the result of circuits of behaviour which have built-up to a degree that they then begin to give-off, in a mechanical way (because they can’t help it), further patterns for further circuits.

This is the dreadful and insidious picture of reality which knowledgeable men are teaching as the proper education for our day and age.


I have used the word dreadful in the last paragraph, because what has now become a common, but often unspoken, attitude in our way of life results in the opposite sense of values to the ones which we arrive at if we believe that we possess a non-mechanical source of consciousness from which mechanical responses to life situations can be eliminated.

It thus becomes possible for me, if living by faith in my God-like reality given to me by the living God and Creator of all creation, to know that I am inserting a deliberate and intentional expression of behaviour in amongst other patterns of behaviour which are otherwise partly mechanical or purely mechanical. 

I can then learn to observe exactly where I can inject my true autonomy into life and where I can allow life to behave in a reactive way, according to the mechanical feed-back response nature that it does possess.


The point at issue is whether I have the ‘faith’ in my identity as a God-like Being; a faith which allows me to make my responses to life from that purely numinous reality of awareness and consciousness; or alternatively whether that ability has been crippled in me by the insinuations of the culture I have grown-up-in that such free and responsible behaviour can only be an illusion.

It is the more scientific members of our society who have suggested the mechanical and accidental model of our life.

In practice, however, those who lead us in social and political matters ask a great deal more from us in terms of individual responsibility and problem-solving; but they argue their case in terms that are almost entirely concerned with a close-up, ‘second hand of the clock’ view of life’s purpose; thus throwing us our of context with the deeper and more universal attitudes of our nature, which again are treated as though they did not exist, or are governed by a system over which we have no control.


These deeper attitudes can only come to us, as a means of solving our problems, if we allow the time values that stem from a perspective of 'the minute hand' and 'the hour hand' into our deliberations. The religious and spiritual nature which deals with these more 'timeless' qualities must be seen by us to be the heart and lungs of our whole body of life - and not some strange aberration or emotional illness which has no respectable link with researched and proven data and knowledge of the physical and social sciences.

We are not arguing against these researches, but simply against mainstream discourse failing to set their findings within the context of man’s whole significance - by which failure they often add to the fragmentation rather than the integration of our sense of purpose and value.

When I first became interested in JRR Tolkien in the middle 70s, there was not much attention paid to him by the British mass media - but when there was, there was always some reference to the popularity in US college campuses, and to phenomena such as the 'Gandalf for President' lapel button, and graffiti along the lines of 'Frodo Lives'. Then The Lord of the Rings (LotR) movies in the early 2000s triggered another - much larger - wave of mass-, and the social-, media fandom.

When I consider the phenomenon of Tolkien popularity represented by the Gandalf for President button, I can find no relationship at all between that and what I value in Tolkien or LotR, with what is actually-in Tolkien; indeed the joke political slogan is the antithesis of what the LotR represents ex-plicitly, im-plicitly and every kind of plicitly... Saruman for US President/ Sauron for UN President would make a great deal more sense.

In their way, 'fans' of Tolkien are sincere; and may expend a great deal of time, money and effort in their fan activities. Yet, in the end it gets the participants nothing-at-all - it corrupts Tolkien rather than learning from him.

Fandom - by its insatiable (daily, hourly) appetite for novelty, and it mass nature, always corrupts; and always corrupts in the direction of prevalent mainstream ideology: whether that be 60s hippiedom, late 70s environmentalism, or - since the 80s and increasingly - the various facets of the sexual revolution, political correctness and 'social justice'.

Instead of learning-from Tolkien; it is quite normal for fans to read-into Tolkien whatever happens to be the current nihilism, hedonism, materialism, atheism... somehow fans find in Tolkien exactly what they seek - or else try (in effect) to 'teach' Tolkien about feminism, socialism, radical sexuality... whatever - for example via the vast mass of fan fiction (including 'slash' fiction) that quite explicitly inserts this kind of stuff into Tolkien's world.

Other fandoms are closely analogous - revealing that this is a property of fandom rather than being related to specific authors or their work. In Harry Potter, another work of Christian fantasy with traditional values at its heart; the main fan website was initially obsessed with the 'shipping' (romantic relationships between) the main characters, in all possible and inconceivable combinations. Later the web pages and fandoms were quite explicitly and systematically enlisted for a check-list of current social justice campaigns, such as agitation for same sex 'marriage' legislation. And the fans duly complied, with apparent enthusiasm and zeal.

Or Brandon Sanderson - I recently attended a talk, reading and book signing done by Sanderson; which was packed with hundreds of fans who turned-out and paid money to be there... and I say fans, because in the Q&A session every single one of the couple of dozen questions was related to the most trivial, ephemeral and superficial aspects of his work. There was not one single interesting, insightful, or challenging question asked by this mass of people; not the slightest indication that the novels were anything other than depictions of magic systems and 'cool' personalities.

Sanderson is an active Mormon, and all of his work is permeated with a serious consideration of religion and spirituality; both on the surface and as underlying structure. But it was clear that for Sanderson's fandom this was of sub-zero interest - invisible and irrelevant. 

The phenomenon of fandom is therefore at best trivial and fashion driven, there being more incommon between fans (regardless of what they are fans-of) than between fans and the subject of their fanaticism. Fandom is corrupting and destructive of whatever is good in the authors and works that get caught-up by it; and in its advanced form, fandom embodies subversion and inversion of whatever is specific and distinctive in its subject matter; the aim being to reinterpret and rewrite it in line with currently-dominant, top-down, manipulative social campaigns that ultimately emanate from (and are funded by) the global Establishment elites.

So the phenomenon of fandom is a product of evil purpose; and has a malign influence all-round. No wonder that the elderly Tolkien was so confused and appalled by its first stirrings in the 1960s, and by the 'Gandalf for President'-type expressions.

Journalists thought that this was 'ungrateful' of him, because masses of fans led to more sales and more money in Tolkien's pocket.

But Tolkien was not a 'professional author' - he wrote from the heart and for the highest motivations. And he realised that fandom had nothing to do with him or his work; but on the contrary was the attempted obliteration of his work, the attempt to harness his books for a dark agenda.

So far as I know from personal experience - people I have known before and after they attained 'power' - high position, high status, fame, influence etc - this generalisation is true: perhaps 100% true (although there may be exceptions that have slipped my mind).

The main corruption I have observed is pervasive, habitual, systematic dishonesty - with the self and with others.

Of course there is a confounding element; which is that those who seek power, who do-what-it-takes to attain power - are usually partly, or at least latently, corrupt already. And there is the factor that uncorrupt (and probably-incorruptible) people would be excluded from power - unless by some error they happened on it, when they would normally be purged from the institution. But there is not much doubt that the environment of power is itself rapidly and pervasively corrupt-ing.

I do not think that this was always the case - indeed I'm confident that it was not always the case. In my fields of professional activity - medicine, science and academic generally - there used to be (as recently a couple of generations ago) quite a lot of people who attained power and influence and who were not corrupt. Quite a few of these survived until 25 years ago; but now there are, well, none who have power. (Only a few, and all marginalised.)

(In the past - even a few politicians remained basically honest!)

One thing observation reveals is that mainstream modern people - secular people, materialists, atheists - who are known for alternative, off-beat, dissenting, cynical views; nowadays always sell-out; indeed, my impression is that they actually live in-order-to sell-out. They develop their alternative careers until they have made just enough of a nuisance that they are worth bribing to conform - and they grab the opportunity with both hands.

Hence all the 'red hot radicals', the edgy nonconformists, the avant garde, the socialists, the men/ women of-the-people... with knighthoods, peerages, awards, prizes, and Establishment pulpits.

And I have not the slightest doubt that if any of the current crop of non-Christian 'Right Wingers' or 'Libertarian's' or Free marketeers, or Nationalists in the public sphere ever get a sniff of power, they will sell-out so fast that the transitional phase will be invisible - especially when they are kept-on as pretend-conservatives or pseudo-reactionaries; as fake evidence of the broad minded tolerance of the modern Establishment.

What I am saying is that - here and now - power and integrity are incompatible; and possession of power is sufficient evidence of achieved-corruption; and desire for power is sufficient evidence of willing corruptibility.

Up to about fifty years ago nobody minded admitting that life was a disappointing thing which opened with high hopes and sounding trumpets, moved on to frustration after frustration, and terminated in a disillusioned crawling to the grave. 

Nobody minded, because everybody supposed that all this was merely the prelude to another life in which they would be promoted to some kind of unimaginable bliss. 


But, fifty years ago, exponents of popular science began to hammer it into these optimists that the notion of a hereafter in which everything would be put right was utter nonsense. 

There was, they pointed out, no future life for any of us; and our world, in sober truth, amounted to nothing more than an execution chamber – dealing as expeditiously as possible with a continuous procession of new victims. 

It would be foolish to revile God for this, because there was no God to revile.


That picture, it seems, was too grim for the human mind to face fairly and squarely. People in general believed it, but they turned their backs on it. 

Then someone arose to point-out that gilding the walls of the cell - making the room bright for the next batch of condemned prisoners - would be, in these circumstances, a truly unselfish occupation; and the intelligentsia jumped at this distraction... 

They concentrated upon decoration; and soon they were all shouting to one another: 'See what a beautiful place we shall make of it someday'. 

A handsome antechanber to eternal extinction! That had become the highest hope in which humanity might indulge...


The old-stagers among our materialists have been disturbed very greatly by the discovery that, beneath to-day's flood tide of almost universal intolerance; there is running, as a more evil undercurrent, a definitely malicious contempt for all human life. 

They had assumed that the first step towards rendering any man good tempered and companionable would be to convince him of his own complete insignificance in an entirely senseless world, and to promise him a rapidly approaching end. 

That the victims of this delightful teaching should, thereafter, start snapping at their fellows like any other lot of trapped animals has puzzled beyond measure these naively optimistic sociologists. 

Many of the latter had taken it for granted that a creature with only one fleeting life to lose would regard this as too precious to be risked in any conflict, so that the triumph of materialism would herald universal peace. 


But Man has taken a different line. He is sensible enough to realise that a life which is to be poisoned at every instant by the knowledge that it is a mere scurrying to extinction is a life which cannot be worth any one's preserving. 

He is consistent enough to perceive that the termination of all human existence in a general holocaust would be a happening of no great moment.

...The foregoing is written as a warning addressed to those overworked scribes to whom truth per se means nothing at all, but who take it for granted that materialism, right or wrong, is to be supported at all costs because it will assist progress and assure peace.


Edited from JW Dunne. The New Immortality. 1938.


The above passage (from 1938) is a lucid and striking account of the psychological and social effects of what has now become mainstream, official, mandatory public discourse and the basis of all public policy throughout the entire Western world.

Dunne interprets this as an unintended consequence of intellectuals who lack adequate understanding of human nature. He assumes that the advocates of materialism and atheism are well-meaning fools, who will back-off from their activities once hey can be convinced of their malign consequences.

However, eighty years downstream, and with the entirety of the global ruling establishment not only doubling down on their incoherent ideology of materialist progress and utilitarian social engineering - but actively enforcing lies, nonsense, and sin while persecuting virtue, beauty and truth; I regard things quite otherwise.

Materialism was deliberately made the public norm is clear understanding of its destructive, demotivating,  despair-inducing and insanity creating consequences. And for those demonic powers behind materialism; things are working our just fine - pretty much exactly as they had hoped-for.

The mass of people apparently now actually want materialism to be true, and for their lives to be an antechamber to extinction; they will refuse to consider otherwise, and indeed will actively attack anyone putting forward an analysis of the incoherence of the arbitrary assumptions leading to such bleak conclusions.

Hostility is now directed at those who try to practice goodness; and official admiration (awards, medals, status, fame, money, jobs and promotions) are showered-upon those who advocate and cooperate-with the agenda of materialism, atheism and value-inversion.

Dunne's world was one in which ordinary people felt sadly compelled (by 'science') to believe that Christianity was un-true; but three generations on, we live in a world in which ordinary people regard Christianity as wicked; and they would not want it, even if it was true...

For many modern people; the idea of this world as a handsome antechamber to eternal extinction is preferable to a created world of purpose, meaning, permanent relationships and creativity - but in which they would be required to acknowledge and repudiate their pet sin (often sexual in nature).

So the intelligentsia were correct, after all...

I regard William Wildblood, one of my co-bloggers on Albion Awakening, as one of the wisest people I have ever come across - and wisdom is an extremely rare thing in my personal experience. Today's post is a typical example - it is a relaxed meditation on the subject of Awakening from Illusion; but has a depth, calmness and sweetness that is highly satisfying. It leaves me better than it found me.

It used to be universally accepted that precognition was possible, and indeed surveys of modern people in developed countries have shown that even now a large proportion of the population believe in precognitive dreams - dreams that foretell the future.

Given that most people have always believed that this this happens; the question of how it is possible has been a subject for speculation. It is a matter of particular concern to Christians - since our religion assumes that we have 'free will' or individual agency: because we must choose to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, if we are to receive the gifts he promises. And if there is real choice, then how can the future be known in advance?

The way that I personally explain this, and which seems perfectly clear and comprehensible to me! - is yet apparently so unusual that I have never found it articulated by anyone else; so I plank it down here, for what it's worth.


Everything has meaning and purpose - nothing is random, and nothing is merely passively, 'mechanically' determined.

(Not every 'unit' of occurrence has individual meaning/ purpose; not every distinguishable thing nor every distinguishable time-slice; but every-thing and time-slice is part-of divine meanings and purposes.)

Therefore, God is 'behind' everything that happens - and at the same time, how we personally respond, think-about and act after these happenings, can be our-own, comes-from our-selves.

So the totality of happenings is a combination of God's will and the multitude of interacting wills of people (and other entities with will).


How then does God pursue his plans? Well, the situation is always 'in flux' but God is continually acting-upon that flux. God is shaping the flux in his desired direction... this is sometimes termed Divine Providence.

I envisage it as God working behind the scenes to set-up the scenes; but how each scene plays-out is not under God's control. Yet he can and will continue setting-up scenes in hope that they will, sooner or later, play-out as desired.

Mortal life is (in brief) about experiences and learning from them; so God is always working to provide each person with the experiences that they need - but whether or not we learn from them what God wishes us to learn is not under God's control. Therefore, he will often repeatedly set-up experiences in order to give us the type of experience we most need, and these experiences will be repeated until we have learned.

For example, we may need to learn that pride is a sin, and will repeatedly get experiences from-which we ought-to infer that pride is a sin - but it may take many such experiences before 'the penny drops' - and indeed, we may never learn that pride is a sin; no matter how frequent and harsh the lessons we are given.

So precognition is possible because God is trying to accomplish certain things, and provide us with the kind of experiences - indeed specific experiences - that are potentially useful experiences.


But the well-validated, convincing precognitive experiences (including prophecies) are (almost always) only partial, often distorted, and are not given exact timings... Actual precognition does not give a complete, exact and exactly-timed prediction.

This is because God is working via human free will. God can make an exact thing happen - but not at an exact time if it is subject to free will; or, God can make 'something' happen at an exact time in the future, but what exactly happens is is not predictable insofar as it is subject to free will.

So precognitions are either: exactly-X will happen - sooner or later; or 'something' will happen on the exact time/date of X; or some combination of the two.

This also explains why - although everything is, in-principle, meaningful and purposive, we only very seldom understand actual things.

The world operates to provide experiences and opportunities for learning, for everybody alive (and indeed all living things - which is every-thing). But we do not know the experiences that every-body else and every-thing else needs; nor whether they have learned what they need - therefore, we do not understand most things, most of the time.


(We can, in principle, learn and know what we personally need; and therefore we can understand our own lives in terms of Divine Providence. We can ultimately understand and can know everything that is understandable and knowable - however, this will be a cumulative process, happening in time; and will be from our personal perspective, 'seen' from our 'point-of-view'.)


 

Spiritual is a dirty word among many serious Christians; yet it is necessary that the Christian revival I so much hope and work for be a spiritual Christian revival - or what I have termed 'Direct Christianity'.

The meaning of 'spiritual' as I use it here is not a matter of surface beliefs of a spiritual type; it is about metaphysical assumptions. I believe that mainstream Christianity, indeed official Christianity through much of its history, has shown a tendency towards abstraction that has been a factor in its demise - this needs changing, indeed such change is more than two centuries overdue.

(By needs I mean that this is the path of divine destiny, this change - which is a theosis - is what God wants from us; a vital part of what Jesus came to bring us.)

'The opposite of abstraction' (and what we need) has no generally-accepted or respectable name - it is something-like 'animism combined with anthropomorphism'... I mean the understanding that reality is alive, that nothing is 'dead' and everything is conscious (to some, usually limited, degree) - and also that everything is purposive; either having its own purpose (as Men do) or else a part-of something that is purposive (as a grain of sand, or a leaf of grass).

So to be spiritual is not to have certain specific beliefs about, say, spirits, ghosts, telepathy, meditative trances, communication with the dead or whatever; rather it is (or should be) the baseline and permeating conviction and (ideally) experience of Life, the Universe and Everything as alive, conscious, purposive and with everything in relationship with everything else.

The 'metaphysics' is our explicit description of such a reality - and in modernity we must have expicit descriptions, it is a necessity of our phase in order to move towards maturity of thinking - then the task is to make this metaphysics the baseline and permeation of our lives...


The work of Owen Barfield has made me aware of this matter; and how this correct understanding is blocked by unexamined metaphysical assumptions that are all-but universal in modernity; including among Christians - and it is this, as much as anything, which blocks the Christian awakening we so much need (as individuals - and by individuals as a society).

I mean that modernity assumes (without explicit awareness that this is an assumption, and could be changed) that everything is naturally dead - assumes the universe began as lifeless and devoid of consciousness; assumes that everything is essentially random or deterministically caused (hence has no purpose); assumes that isolation of consciousness is primary and that all relationships are a later development, and must be generated and sustained by communications...

Our modern mainstream Christian understanding of Genesis seems to validate this materialism - with God creating the dead stuff, plants and animals and with the first sign of consciousness (Men) coming at the end... Taken this way it is not all that different from the Big Bang cosmology and evolution by natural selection.


Yet before the making of the earth - there was spiritual awareness, consciousness, purposiveness, being... As pre-mortal spirits we inhabited a world of universal communication, universal relationships, universal meaning and purpose... And (as Barfield tells us) the movement was from this, and towards separation-off of individual consciousnesses (such as you and me) in order that our free will, our agency, be developed.

The new thing, the later thing, is free will and agency - communication and relation were the backdrop, taken for granted...

It is this baseline, background, implicit-in-everything animistic/ anthropomorphic understanding that is spiritual - and which we need to restore. 'Restore' because it is spontaneous and natural to us as young children, and seems to be the 'religion' of all the simplest nomadic tribal societies - but unconsicous, naive, unarticulated. But this time restore voluntarily, with explicit understanding, chosen because it is true.

Christianity ought not to be seen in opposition to this; but for much of history the developmental focus was on individual freedom; and the animistic aspect was neglected. Only from the late 1700s with the advent of Romanticism were we ready for the balance to swing back - but it did not happen.  Instead we got a pagan or atheistic spirituality and a Christianity based on impersonal abstractions that saw most of reality as 'dead', determined, random...

It needs to happen from now - Christianity needs to build on a different and animistic metaphysics. It is that which is intended by the term 'Spiritual' Christianity.

I cannot allow myself to be downcast by those (a majority, perhaps; certainly a majority of the powerful, rich, influential...) who are determined to embrace damnation...

Just as Jesus (and the Beloved Disciple) were realistic about those who actually saw Jesus, heard him speak, observed his work; yet rejected him, hated him: the light 'shone in the darkness' but 'the darkness comprehended it not'; 'the world knew him not'...

Yet although this was and is a cause for regret, it was entirely what Jesus expected. The fact that it happened did not deter him.

There is no compulsion with Jesus. Free will and personal agency are necessary, real and good - and they have implications that Jesus did not deny, nor did he wish to deny them.

Jesus did what he did for those who wanted what - by his life, death and resurrection - he offered.

Here and now, you and I can do no more than did Jesus. We should do that: we should bear witness as, when and how our intuition and the Holy Ghost prompt us; but we should not be surprised at our limited degree of success...

Posted in full at Albion Awakening...

In the New Testament; Jesus is sometimes referred to as the Son of God, other times as the Son of man - and the meaning and difference has been hard to define.

However, if the Fourth ('John's') Gospel is taken as the primary and authoritative Gospel and source of knowledge about Jesus, and if we consider Jesus as living in linear-sequential Time (so that 'before' and 'after' make a real difference in ultimate reality); then the usage of 'God' and 'man' is seen to be consistent - and potentially enlightening.

In sum, Jesus was born as a Son of God, but became the Son of man after he was resurrected - and it was the Son of man who ascended to Heaven.

The Chapter and Verse references (according to my Kindle search facility for the Gospel of John in the King James Bible) are as follows:

'Son of God': 1:3; 1:49; 3:18; 5:25; 9:35; 10:36; 11:4; 11:27; 19:7; 20:31.

These all refer to the mortal Jesus, during his earthly ministry and before his resurrection - but seem to include the period after his death and before his resurrection when, in 5:25 it says 'The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.' Presumably this refers to 'the harrowing of Hell' - or more accurately (since Hell did not exist until after the ascension) the ministry of Christ to the souls in Sheol.

The references for 'Son of man' are: 2:11; 3:13-14; 5:27; 6:27; 6:53; 6:62; 8:28; 12:23; 12:34; 13:31.

These refer to the resurrected and, especially, to the resurrected-ascending Christ.

The 'switch' from naming Jesus the Son of God to the Son of man, gives us important knowledge of Christ's mission - why it was necessary for him to be incarnated, die and be resurrected. Before incarnation, Jesus was already a Son of God, and was 'maker' of everything that-had-been-made (which, I take it, does not include Men).

But the Son of God could not save Men, could not offer us life everlasting; that entailed Jesus becoming the Son of man - that state of having-died as a Man, and then been resurrected to eternal life.

Jesus as Son of man was a higher being than when he was referred to as the Son of God: it is the Son of man who is our Saviour.

This conviction has been building on me since I began to immerse myself in the Fourth Gospel ('John's' Gospel) - which I take to be the most authoritative book of the Bible.

Again and again we are told that the essence of the Christian life is belief (i.e. faith, trust) in Jesus, in (or on) the name of Jesus; and that Jesus was the creator (co-creator) of this world - and that we know the Father by knowing Jesus, and that (in effect) this knowledge supersedes, makes unnecessary, the old religion of the Jews focused on the Father.

It sees like a plain, one-step, inference (if we are using the Fourth Gospel as our source) that we should pray directly to Jesus. (And not therefore, as is usual, to The Father, 'in the name of'/ mediated by Jesus).

The Eastern Orthodox do this already, in The Jesus Prayer (one version of which would be: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy upon me.') - so this is not a new-fangled innovation. Plus of course many/ most 'simple' Christians have always prayed to Jesus - whatever their priests or pastors might say.

It is, indeed, common sense and obvious - so much so that I wonder at the motivation behind the prohibition among most Christians against praying direct to Jesus. To me, this looks like an attempt to prevent the fullness of the new dispensation from taking effect - a pushing of Jesus away from us, to one remove; and an implicit denial of his sufficiency.

Anyway, it is worth the experiment - pray to Jesus; our eldest brother - the very act of doing which is salvation because it is an act of belief.

From a perspective that sees world history and human history as an unfolding, a developmental-evolution of human consciousness, then the advent of 'modernity' is seen as a necessary stage or phase in the maturation of the human spirit.

Modernity is, indeed, analogous to adolescence in the individual - it is the necessary transitional phase between childhood and adulthood. In this understanding, early human history is the childhood, and modernity is adolescence: we have not reached adult maturity.


The current phase of Western culture, noticeable in the 16th or 17th century (and beginning even earlier) but most obvious with the Industrial Revolution, is therefore a case of arrested adolescence. We were meant (meant by God, that is) to go-through modernity into maturity, but this has not happened.

In that sense, I am 'against' modernity; because it has become a pathologically-prolonged transition - instead of being a transition it is an incoherent and impossible attempt to maintain a half-maturity and to refuse (because ultimately this is a willed decision) adult maturity.

This is A Bad Thing because adolescence perpetuated is self-corrupting. It is incoherent because it is meant to be a temporary transition leading onwards, being incojherent it does not cohere, which means that it inevitably corrupts. To be a perpetual adolescent is necessarily to become incrementally corrupted.


In ultimate spiritual terms, we are talking about the maturation of human society towards the divine state of consciousness. The divine state of consciousness is one in which that which was unconscious, taken-for-granted, in childhood; becomes known consciously. Not just knowing, but knowing that we know, and knowing what we know.

The maturation of consciousness is therefore an increase in freedom. The child is unfree because he is not separate from his environment, he cannot regard himself and his environment separately. The adolescent can do this - but for the adolescent the separation tends to become a severance; because he cannot see the necessary and intrinsic relationship between the person and the environment.

Thus adult maturity is to know and experience that the self and the environment are distinguishable, but not separable - that they are different and also related. This adult insight is also divine, in that it is the way that God knows reality.


But how does culture and the individual relate? What is the relationship between my development, and the development of the culture I inhabit? For example, can I personally move forward through modernity into an adult state of consciousness while the society remains in arrested adolescence?

Yes, this is possible, indeed it is necessary; it is the way in which culture changes - by individuals changing. The development of human consciousness is one in which the step between childhood and adolescence is involuntary - it just happens and cannot be stopped; but the development between adolescence and adult maturity must be chosen consciously. That is, indeed, how arrested adolescence is possible.

The powers of purposive evil in this world, via modern culture, have induced many/ most people to refuse to choose adult maturity of consciousness - indeed, by creating a dichotomy of being either for or against modernity, they have ruled-out the correct attitude by-assumption; they have eliminated The Right Answer even from consideration!