Romantic Christianity made a brilliant start with Novalis, William Blake and ST Coleridge - and then nothing-much for many decades until Rudolf Steiner became (strange sort of) Christian in about 1898; to be followed by Owen Barfield and William Arkle in later generations - and there is William Wildblood and myself among current writers. But there have never been many Romantic Christians...
Why so rare, and what went wrong with the intermediate generations? Of course there were plenty of Romantics - but among them hardly any Christians; indeed most of them were either atheists or spiritual anything-but Christians.
A pre-eminent example was Ralph Waldo Emerson; who was an arch-Romantic and who began as a Unitarian minister - Unitarians being, at that time, like Emerson, Christians on-the-way-out. He ended-up as a kind of deist, flavoured with what he had gathered of Hinduism and Sufism.
Emerson was known for his elevation of the intuitive, epiphanic, 'moment' of insight to the highest possible valuation; like most Romantics, he required that all knowledge be derived from direct personal experience. SO why did Emerson not do the same for Christianity as he did for everything else? Why did he not develop a Romantic Christianity built from the kind of direct intuitive insights that fuelled the rest of his wide-ranging creativity? This will be answered below.
My guess is that Emerson accepted the evaluation of most Churches that Christianity must be derived from external authority - or else it is not Christianity. Catholics demand that the individual conform to the teaching of the Church authorities, or the traditions of the lineally descended ancient Church. Protestants demand conformity to the canonical scriptures of the Bible.
But what unites all churches is the assumption that whatever Christianity is, it is located outside the individual. The insistence is that Christianity does not come from within - not from individual experience, not from personal intuition.
Ultimately the task for the individual is to conform to external authority. The church judges the individual.
If this is true; then Romanticism and Christianity are incompatible. So, how did Novalis, Blake and Coleridge come to believe that they had developed a Christianity based on their inner knowledge? It is mostly a matter of their basic and ultimate assumptions, of metaphysical assumptions. These authors believed that the individual could have direct knowledge of Christianity without it being derived from any intermediary at all; not rooted in church authority, without canonical scripture, traditional, philosophical theology or anything else.
Or, at least, and in conformity to Romanticism; that this direct form of personal knowing should serve to evaluate all other knowledge claims. So the individual judges the church; and may (like Blake, Steiner and Arkle) dispense with all churches - although Coleridge and Barfield were both, in later life,' communicating' (communion-taking) members of the Church of England.
We can see, then, why Emerson did not remain a Christian - because he apparently accepted the assertion that a real Christian must be under the authority of a church. (The only dispute was about which church/es it was correct to regard as really Christian.) It seems that, for Emerson, anyone who claimed to be a Christian outside of a church, was not really a Christian.
But there may be more to it than this - because Emerson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus; therefore real Christians were in error. Emerson's idea of deity was abstract - 'The Over Soul' - and therefore infinitely different-from a Man. The only union of Man with deity, therefore, was for Man to surrender his self and 'melt-into' the infinitude of deity.
So Emerson was a hopeless case! Ultimately, he did not want what Jesus offered; and preferred what Eastern religions offered. And what applies to Emerson, also applies to many other Romantics since. Some Romantics are materialist; but among those who are spiritual - it has mostly been an Eastern spirituality; which ultimately regards the individual self and our mortal world as temporary illusions.
This is the source of the paradox by which Emerson valued the moment of insight above all; yet ultimately he regarded each epiphany as evanescent, soon to be lost in time - and therefore worthless.
Other Christians have had strong Romantic impulses, but retained the conviction that the individual judgement must be subordinated to church authority - GK Chesterton is an example. Chesterton regarded the 'catholic' church (at first the Anglo Catholic wing of the Church of England; then in his late middle age, the Roman Catholic church) as the source of knowledge, of truth. For Chesterton Romanticism was the proper attitude each individual ought to adopt towards this truth.
For Chesterton, therefore, the individual did not have direct and personal intuitive access to knowledge; except for the knowledge that the church was true. The only primary knowledge was that the church was the only source of knowledge.
Something similar could be said for CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. They were Romantics and also Christians - but their Romanticism was secondary to their Christianity - and was at most understood to be a good and proper (perhaps even necessary) attitude towards their Christianity. The Romantic intuition was not, for them, a primary source of knowledge: that was revelation as communicated by their churches.
This is why Romantic Christians - by a strict definition - have been so rare. Most Romantics were not Christians, but among those that were; Romanticism is regarded as an attitude but not as a source of knowledge.
It was the great contribution of Owen Barfield - posthumous disciple of Steiner, best friend of CS Lewis, and fellow Inkling with Tolkien - to clarify and emphasise this vital distinction.
Thursday 10 January 2019
Does the modern world 'work'? Population growth says yes - subfertility says no
The validation for many/ most things in the modern world (post-industrial revolution) is... the modern world itself; and its technological capability, material abundance, comfort and convenience.
But ultimately - the success, the 'truth' of modernity is the number of people it supports. The validity for modernity is the fact that we have seven billion people in 2019 whereas 200 year before there was one million.
Or, on a smaller and more immediate, observable, scale: for most of its history the population of England did not exceed 4 million (mostly it was a lot less) but from about 1800 it began to increase to about 50 million natives in about 1970. This increase was very obvious, and was obviously caused by big families; those with three or more surviving children.
The ability to support a much larger population was a sign of success; the much larger population was itself an agent of success - enabling the English to spread to may places around the world.
Population growth is, indeed, the most effective validation of modernity. It is the most objective measure that says: the modern world works.
So the first-glance validation, at least up to around 1970, is that modernity works.
But it was noticed even during the later 1800s that those who were most successful in modernity (highest status, riches, most educated etc) were usually the least fertile, had the fewest surviving children - and this especially applied to women. The most successful were indeed subfertile - had fewer than two children per woman.
Subfertility then extended, over the next century, to include entire national populations, then the entire Western world.
If early population growth validated early modernity; then later population decline invalidates later modernity.
The conclusion is that modernity used-to 'work'; but now does not work.
Is this a problem? It is indeed a problem, because people have changed the rules, moved the goalposts - and are now defining the 'success' of modernity as population reduction, instead of population increase!
And matters are worse than this, because the modern world uses its technological capability and material abundance to increase the population in the non- or -less modern parts of the world. The modern world population declines, but transfers modernity to the not-modern world and expand it.
Modernity is not only declining, but hastening its own decline.
Yest surely this a a soluble problem. The power of modernity to solve problems is legendary... But this has not happened - population decline of modern populations has indeed spread to all developed countries without exception. That is the past.
And is not happening in the present; mostly because the problem of population decline is not acknowledged, is denied: indeed - the problem is redefined as success!
So, by the major and most objective criterion with which modernity judges its own success, its own superiority as a world view; modernity has failed; and modernity has been for several generations objectively a failure.
And if modernity is a failure, then the ideas, ideology, assumptions that fuelled modernity are a failure - simply by applying the exact same criteria by which they used to be judged a success.
Modern modernity is objectively a failure. That modern modernity is a dishonest failure ensures that the probems will not even be addressed, never mind solved.
But ultimately - the success, the 'truth' of modernity is the number of people it supports. The validity for modernity is the fact that we have seven billion people in 2019 whereas 200 year before there was one million.
Or, on a smaller and more immediate, observable, scale: for most of its history the population of England did not exceed 4 million (mostly it was a lot less) but from about 1800 it began to increase to about 50 million natives in about 1970. This increase was very obvious, and was obviously caused by big families; those with three or more surviving children.
The ability to support a much larger population was a sign of success; the much larger population was itself an agent of success - enabling the English to spread to may places around the world.
Population growth is, indeed, the most effective validation of modernity. It is the most objective measure that says: the modern world works.
So the first-glance validation, at least up to around 1970, is that modernity works.
But it was noticed even during the later 1800s that those who were most successful in modernity (highest status, riches, most educated etc) were usually the least fertile, had the fewest surviving children - and this especially applied to women. The most successful were indeed subfertile - had fewer than two children per woman.
Subfertility then extended, over the next century, to include entire national populations, then the entire Western world.
If early population growth validated early modernity; then later population decline invalidates later modernity.
The conclusion is that modernity used-to 'work'; but now does not work.
Is this a problem? It is indeed a problem, because people have changed the rules, moved the goalposts - and are now defining the 'success' of modernity as population reduction, instead of population increase!
And matters are worse than this, because the modern world uses its technological capability and material abundance to increase the population in the non- or -less modern parts of the world. The modern world population declines, but transfers modernity to the not-modern world and expand it.
Modernity is not only declining, but hastening its own decline.
Yest surely this a a soluble problem. The power of modernity to solve problems is legendary... But this has not happened - population decline of modern populations has indeed spread to all developed countries without exception. That is the past.
And is not happening in the present; mostly because the problem of population decline is not acknowledged, is denied: indeed - the problem is redefined as success!
So, by the major and most objective criterion with which modernity judges its own success, its own superiority as a world view; modernity has failed; and modernity has been for several generations objectively a failure.
And if modernity is a failure, then the ideas, ideology, assumptions that fuelled modernity are a failure - simply by applying the exact same criteria by which they used to be judged a success.
Modern modernity is objectively a failure. That modern modernity is a dishonest failure ensures that the probems will not even be addressed, never mind solved.
Wednesday 9 January 2019
Not growing-up - the possibilities
There is a serious problem: that sensible, sensitive people don't want to grow-up - and rightly so; actually, this has probably been the case for hundreds of years, but at different ages.
In middle agrarian societies such as Europe in the Middle Ages, most children were (it seems) compelled to work (the most menial, repetitive agricultural work) from the earliest age that they could be so compelled... so maybe they barely had a conscious childhood. Certainly the 'golden age' of my own childhood - say six to nine years - was obliterated. They were mini-adults before they knew enough to know what they were missing. Given what we know of human nature, this was of course physical child abuse; normal, mandatory - socially-approved.
Nowadays, there is the nasty transition to adolescence - being pushed-back, younger and younger in the form of sexualising children; not just by the media, but now by the politicians and government, by the education system.
This is systematic sexual abuse - children's minds being force-fed with sex, and wrong sex - here, now, increasing; normal, mandatory - socially-approved.
Then adolescence; which is supposed to be (by the role models depicted in the media, implied by official policy) a period of promiscuous sex, drugs and intoxication; mental illness treated by indoctrination (i.e. 'psychotherapy') and drugs (mostly and increasingly sedatives and tranquillisers; emotion numb-ers; SSRI-type agents, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants etc.).
Adolescents are groomed to feel themselves entitled, victims; groomed to resentment and despair (the two great modern sins); groomed, of course, to pride.
Yet, even so, because this adolescent stuff is all addictive; people don't want to grow up - which means marrying and having families. They stay as adolescents.
Insofar as people do grow older (not up); they hate it - because life without religion, without spirituality, is strictly and necessarily and by definition meaningless and purposeless.
So, decent people yearn for childhood; which we can't have - because it is on the other side of adolescence.
So they are stuck; they despair - and basically they want to die, painlessly; as soon as the distractions and pleasures wear-off.
There is a solution; but there is only one solution - and it has two parts.
One is religion - and, if we wish to avoid despair, that must be Christianity; the second part is to heal the alienation that cuts us off from reality, and the materialism which insists that reality is dead (and humans, as part of reality, are dead too). Dead stuff whirling in a void...
We can fix the alienation by recognising that we were correct when we were young children: reality really is made of beings having relationships with each other. All is alive, conscious, motivated...
One solution: two parts... But nobody is going to do this for us, these two things - for as long as we rely on external validation and authority and institutions, we shall remain stuck.
But we can do it for ourselves - and we can do it in the realm of thinking (thinking of this sort being the real 'action', the real Life); where (if we are thinking by-from our real, divine selves) we have direct knowledge and contact with the purpose of things.
We can do it this instant - if we choose; it is entirely up to each of us.
What then? Who knows? - because it will be different for each person... but that is the essential first step. Only after we have taken it will we know what comes next.
In middle agrarian societies such as Europe in the Middle Ages, most children were (it seems) compelled to work (the most menial, repetitive agricultural work) from the earliest age that they could be so compelled... so maybe they barely had a conscious childhood. Certainly the 'golden age' of my own childhood - say six to nine years - was obliterated. They were mini-adults before they knew enough to know what they were missing. Given what we know of human nature, this was of course physical child abuse; normal, mandatory - socially-approved.
Nowadays, there is the nasty transition to adolescence - being pushed-back, younger and younger in the form of sexualising children; not just by the media, but now by the politicians and government, by the education system.
This is systematic sexual abuse - children's minds being force-fed with sex, and wrong sex - here, now, increasing; normal, mandatory - socially-approved.
Then adolescence; which is supposed to be (by the role models depicted in the media, implied by official policy) a period of promiscuous sex, drugs and intoxication; mental illness treated by indoctrination (i.e. 'psychotherapy') and drugs (mostly and increasingly sedatives and tranquillisers; emotion numb-ers; SSRI-type agents, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants etc.).
Adolescents are groomed to feel themselves entitled, victims; groomed to resentment and despair (the two great modern sins); groomed, of course, to pride.
Yet, even so, because this adolescent stuff is all addictive; people don't want to grow up - which means marrying and having families. They stay as adolescents.
Insofar as people do grow older (not up); they hate it - because life without religion, without spirituality, is strictly and necessarily and by definition meaningless and purposeless.
So, decent people yearn for childhood; which we can't have - because it is on the other side of adolescence.
So they are stuck; they despair - and basically they want to die, painlessly; as soon as the distractions and pleasures wear-off.
There is a solution; but there is only one solution - and it has two parts.
One is religion - and, if we wish to avoid despair, that must be Christianity; the second part is to heal the alienation that cuts us off from reality, and the materialism which insists that reality is dead (and humans, as part of reality, are dead too). Dead stuff whirling in a void...
We can fix the alienation by recognising that we were correct when we were young children: reality really is made of beings having relationships with each other. All is alive, conscious, motivated...
One solution: two parts... But nobody is going to do this for us, these two things - for as long as we rely on external validation and authority and institutions, we shall remain stuck.
But we can do it for ourselves - and we can do it in the realm of thinking (thinking of this sort being the real 'action', the real Life); where (if we are thinking by-from our real, divine selves) we have direct knowledge and contact with the purpose of things.
We can do it this instant - if we choose; it is entirely up to each of us.
What then? Who knows? - because it will be different for each person... but that is the essential first step. Only after we have taken it will we know what comes next.
Review of the movie Christopher Robin (2018)
The movie Christopher Robin (2018) starts, and indeed continues for more than half its length, superbly; truly masterly storytelling and inspired, gorgeous visuals - a textbook example of consummate craft in film-making.
It then rather degenerates into a kind of 'caper' movie, with chases, last-minute escapes, slapstick, ham-acting elicited from the background characters* - and an inept, unsatisfying ending.
It looks like a wonderful script was meddled-with and spoilt in the process of movie-making; it looks as if there was a failure of nerve; it looks very much that an original and unusual but coherent project was (to a significant extent) messed-up en route by dumb, vulgar outsiders insisting upon the insertion of film-school, boilerplate cliches.
Not many movies are as good as this one is to start-with - so this very typical pattern of Hollywood failure is even more than usually disappointing.
But it is certainly well worth watching the very beginning, which sets-up the situation of the adult Christopher Robin.
This is a deft and exact montage of scenes of Christopher Robin growing-up - schools, college, courtship and marriage, army, battles, a child, and peacetime respectable success. This is done - perfectly - by transitioning back and forth between animated versions of the EH Shepherd drawings from Winnie the Pooh, and lovingly luminous recreations of 'real life'.
The movie continues very well for most of its (rather bloated - again a common flaw) length; perhaps because its theme is one close to my heart - the disenchantment of modernity and its intolerability. And I think I can imagine, clearly enough to suffice, the way the film should have ended: its Platonically ideal ending...
I can honestly say I have never seen a more beautiful celluloid rendition of that England of happy memory. The tough question I take from Christopher Robin is - what does this imply?
*Note: When we see 'bad acting' from minor or background characters in movies, this is nearly-always because of the way they have been directed to act - almost-never due to lack of acting ability. These people can act, and very well - it is only, some, stars who can't act. Exceptions are likely due to the evils of the 'casting couch' system.
Tuesday 8 January 2019
What is Heaven like? What is your personal intuition?
A genuine question - hoping for a personal answer. And something that we, our culture, urgently needs to know. What is your understanding of what Heaven is like?
Note added later: The supposedly-childish idea that Christians are people who 'want to go to Heaven after they die' is actually, literally, true - or at least it should be true. That is the core message of the Fourth Gospel. But there are serious (and often deliberately-induced) misunderstandings about what Heaven entails, and how people get there.
Note added later: The supposedly-childish idea that Christians are people who 'want to go to Heaven after they die' is actually, literally, true - or at least it should be true. That is the core message of the Fourth Gospel. But there are serious (and often deliberately-induced) misunderstandings about what Heaven entails, and how people get there.
A population of self-styled victims looking for excuses to reject truth
I am not optimistic about the necessary spiritual awakening in England, because we are mostly a population that are, as individuals, looking for excuses Not to do what we Need to do.
Of course, we are swimming in a mas/social-media and bureaucratic sea of evil-tending propaganda; but the fact is that most people are very keen to accept this; because a key tenet of their core beliefs is that individuals are not responsible for what they think, say or do. Somebody else is always to blame.
The tenor of modernity - mostly indirectly, but sometimes quite explicitly - is that we 'can't help' it, ever - where 'it' can be almost anything. And 'you can't help it' is a message that almost everybody is desperate to hear, for one thing or another; and if for one thing, then sooner-or-later for all things.
The deal is: you get let off the hook for this; if you agree to support others being let off the hook for that.
Every-body is thus encouraged to see himself as a helpless victim - a help-seeking victim; and is rewarded for doing so. The deal is that if I am a victim, everybody is a victim; and therefore everybody needs to be protected from everybody else; everybody needs to be helped.
But where does help come from (in a world of victims)? Well, the only sure answer is that everybody must be made to help everybody else: hence the totalitarian society we inhabit, hence its becoming ever more totalitarian.
Because, only an all-knowing, all-powerful unified state can monitor all injustices, and have the power to set all wrongs to right.
Only an impersonal, bureaucratic state can escape the facts that all are both victims and oppressors. Ultimately, only an inhuman 'artificial intelligence' will be regarded as sufficiently authoritative to wield the absolute power (over human thought) we all demand is necessary...
Of course such supposed 'impersonality' has been, is, and always will be a fake. In reality matters are run by the Establishment for personal agendas; which is why it is now forbidden to notice any purpose behind the bad things that happen.
Behind the Establishment stand the immortal demonic powers, responsible for the strategy that spans many human generations, and has persuaded the ruling human elites to behave 'unselfishly'; their policies of 'social justice' inevitably destroying their own later lives and cultural legacies - destroying everything they claim to value most...
This world is supposed to operate only on the basis of a mixture of selfishness and 'random', purposeless chaos. The totalitarian regime implicitly claims to transcend this, and to impose benign order by being impersonal (hence not a conspiracy). Until we are induced to accept a facade of impersonal artificial intelligence, we have bureaucracy.
This fake-impersonality is the function of the large committee/ vote based institutions - governments, executive boards, the European Union, the United Nations etc. - these massive institutions appear impersonal, claim therefore to be impersonally unselfish; and therefore are seen as morally superior to any actual individual human.
Thus the nonsense; but each individual person who chooses to say he has no alternative but to accept this nonsense, is lost. In trying to avoid responsibility, in his passion to be a victim; he has not merely lost but destroyed himself.
So it goes. We can't fix the world: true. Individuals just are free, and if they - en masse - freely choose death rather than Heavenly Life Eternal; they can and will do so.
So, our only necessary decision is what we, each, personally are going to do about it in our own lives.
Of course, we are swimming in a mas/social-media and bureaucratic sea of evil-tending propaganda; but the fact is that most people are very keen to accept this; because a key tenet of their core beliefs is that individuals are not responsible for what they think, say or do. Somebody else is always to blame.
The tenor of modernity - mostly indirectly, but sometimes quite explicitly - is that we 'can't help' it, ever - where 'it' can be almost anything. And 'you can't help it' is a message that almost everybody is desperate to hear, for one thing or another; and if for one thing, then sooner-or-later for all things.
The deal is: you get let off the hook for this; if you agree to support others being let off the hook for that.
Every-body is thus encouraged to see himself as a helpless victim - a help-seeking victim; and is rewarded for doing so. The deal is that if I am a victim, everybody is a victim; and therefore everybody needs to be protected from everybody else; everybody needs to be helped.
But where does help come from (in a world of victims)? Well, the only sure answer is that everybody must be made to help everybody else: hence the totalitarian society we inhabit, hence its becoming ever more totalitarian.
Because, only an all-knowing, all-powerful unified state can monitor all injustices, and have the power to set all wrongs to right.
Only an impersonal, bureaucratic state can escape the facts that all are both victims and oppressors. Ultimately, only an inhuman 'artificial intelligence' will be regarded as sufficiently authoritative to wield the absolute power (over human thought) we all demand is necessary...
Of course such supposed 'impersonality' has been, is, and always will be a fake. In reality matters are run by the Establishment for personal agendas; which is why it is now forbidden to notice any purpose behind the bad things that happen.
Behind the Establishment stand the immortal demonic powers, responsible for the strategy that spans many human generations, and has persuaded the ruling human elites to behave 'unselfishly'; their policies of 'social justice' inevitably destroying their own later lives and cultural legacies - destroying everything they claim to value most...
This world is supposed to operate only on the basis of a mixture of selfishness and 'random', purposeless chaos. The totalitarian regime implicitly claims to transcend this, and to impose benign order by being impersonal (hence not a conspiracy). Until we are induced to accept a facade of impersonal artificial intelligence, we have bureaucracy.
This fake-impersonality is the function of the large committee/ vote based institutions - governments, executive boards, the European Union, the United Nations etc. - these massive institutions appear impersonal, claim therefore to be impersonally unselfish; and therefore are seen as morally superior to any actual individual human.
Thus the nonsense; but each individual person who chooses to say he has no alternative but to accept this nonsense, is lost. In trying to avoid responsibility, in his passion to be a victim; he has not merely lost but destroyed himself.
So it goes. We can't fix the world: true. Individuals just are free, and if they - en masse - freely choose death rather than Heavenly Life Eternal; they can and will do so.
So, our only necessary decision is what we, each, personally are going to do about it in our own lives.
Monday 7 January 2019
Why do modern Western people live, on average, so much beyond threescore years and ten?
Modern life extension is generally regarded as A Good Thing, and perhaps the greatest triumph of our civilization. The usual reasons given have to do with medicine, public health and societal changes; but maybe the real reason is spiritual - and negative.
Maybe so many modern people live so much longer because they have failed to learn the vital spiritual lesson/s for which they have been mortally incarnated. Some lives have perhaps been mercifully extended (by divine intervention) because if they were to die at the normal time, such people would choose hell.
In such a pervasively evil world as the modern West; an extended life perhaps gives such people more chances to awaken to the realities of their existence, and make an active decision to accept the gift of Jesus.
What, then, of the poor physical health and high prevalence and severity of dementia that so often accompany advanced age? How might that benefit the eternal destiny of those individuals who suffer such things?
To speak in gross generalisations - applicable only to some instances - the experience of physical and mental degenerative disease strips-down life, simplifies human experience, in what may be a very stark and extreme fashion. Adult (pseudo-) sophistication is dissolved. A person may be reduced to absolute dependence. Ideologies and interpretations are lost.
It may be that, under such circumstances, a human soul might - for the first time - perceive the basic human condition with a clarity that was never attained during earlier years of health, vigour, ability; pleasure, comfort and prosperity; distraction and temptation.
If so, this would indeed be a harsh lesson, and a suboptimal way of teaching and learning. Nonetheless, Men are often such that kind teachings are rejected and only harsh lessons are learned. When we repeatedly and scornfully refuse to learn under optimal conditions, it is a mercy if we are allowed further chances, in different conditions - perhaps exactly the condition best tailored for our-selves.
In sum; the reason why modern people live (on average) much longer than previous generations of humans may be because we are (overall, in an average way) the most evil generation of Men ever to inhabit the planet.
Maybe so many modern people live so much longer because they have failed to learn the vital spiritual lesson/s for which they have been mortally incarnated. Some lives have perhaps been mercifully extended (by divine intervention) because if they were to die at the normal time, such people would choose hell.
In such a pervasively evil world as the modern West; an extended life perhaps gives such people more chances to awaken to the realities of their existence, and make an active decision to accept the gift of Jesus.
What, then, of the poor physical health and high prevalence and severity of dementia that so often accompany advanced age? How might that benefit the eternal destiny of those individuals who suffer such things?
To speak in gross generalisations - applicable only to some instances - the experience of physical and mental degenerative disease strips-down life, simplifies human experience, in what may be a very stark and extreme fashion. Adult (pseudo-) sophistication is dissolved. A person may be reduced to absolute dependence. Ideologies and interpretations are lost.
It may be that, under such circumstances, a human soul might - for the first time - perceive the basic human condition with a clarity that was never attained during earlier years of health, vigour, ability; pleasure, comfort and prosperity; distraction and temptation.
If so, this would indeed be a harsh lesson, and a suboptimal way of teaching and learning. Nonetheless, Men are often such that kind teachings are rejected and only harsh lessons are learned. When we repeatedly and scornfully refuse to learn under optimal conditions, it is a mercy if we are allowed further chances, in different conditions - perhaps exactly the condition best tailored for our-selves.
In sum; the reason why modern people live (on average) much longer than previous generations of humans may be because we are (overall, in an average way) the most evil generation of Men ever to inhabit the planet.
The spiritual implications of death by mass immigration - Fr Celier SSPX
Over at Albion Awakening is a fuller version of an interview excerpted below (H/T Gornahoor) from the perspective of a traditionalist Roman Catholic priest:
To approach this difficult question, let’s try to understand better the reasons for emigration and immigration. The principal cause of emigration, as we have said, is poverty, misery...
But then, there are two less obvious reasons. Politics is the art of what can be done based on what is. The first reality to take into account is the “biological” reality. A country whose population is stagnating, diminishing, or aging, creates a vacuum for younger, more active, poorer peoples.
The second reason is a corollary of the first. A country that no longer has children is a country that has lost confidence in itself, its culture, its history and its values.
A strong country, proud of its values, young mentally and demographically, whose citizens are ready to make themselves respected, will know how to regulate immigration. A country aging mentally and demographically, because of its refusal to give life and to believe in itself, is an easy prey for the uncontrolled migratory masses.
It is plagued with “cosmopolitanism” meaning, not so much a generous welcome of others, but rather the stagnation which preludes death. The immigrants sense that, in this depressed country, they can keep their own customs while benefiting from the local wealth, for the natives no longer have a zest for life and camouflage this death wish beneath a false notion of welcome and sharing.
The question of immigration is certainly a political question. But it is pre-eminently a philosophical question touching on the purpose of life. Do our people still have a zest for life? Are they ready to make efforts in proportion to the end?
As I see it, it is only a renewed Christianity which can restore to our nation a taste for eternal life, and then, for life on earth.
To approach this difficult question, let’s try to understand better the reasons for emigration and immigration. The principal cause of emigration, as we have said, is poverty, misery...
But then, there are two less obvious reasons. Politics is the art of what can be done based on what is. The first reality to take into account is the “biological” reality. A country whose population is stagnating, diminishing, or aging, creates a vacuum for younger, more active, poorer peoples.
The second reason is a corollary of the first. A country that no longer has children is a country that has lost confidence in itself, its culture, its history and its values.
A strong country, proud of its values, young mentally and demographically, whose citizens are ready to make themselves respected, will know how to regulate immigration. A country aging mentally and demographically, because of its refusal to give life and to believe in itself, is an easy prey for the uncontrolled migratory masses.
It is plagued with “cosmopolitanism” meaning, not so much a generous welcome of others, but rather the stagnation which preludes death. The immigrants sense that, in this depressed country, they can keep their own customs while benefiting from the local wealth, for the natives no longer have a zest for life and camouflage this death wish beneath a false notion of welcome and sharing.
The question of immigration is certainly a political question. But it is pre-eminently a philosophical question touching on the purpose of life. Do our people still have a zest for life? Are they ready to make efforts in proportion to the end?
As I see it, it is only a renewed Christianity which can restore to our nation a taste for eternal life, and then, for life on earth.
What is Education? Wittgenstein, for instance
I have thought a great deal about education - what it has been, is, and should be; but I have always been aware that formal or systematic, education as we know it is an unnatural thing. In simpler tribal societies there is simply people spending time together, and what eventuates from that.
Time together is of the essence. There isn't really any 'teaching' - more a matter of showing, of letting people observe. The main motivation comes from the learner, who wants to become able to know and do things; the 'teacher' mainly 'allows' the learner to spend time with him.
This is more like apprenticeship; and I experienced a fair bit of apprenticeship in medicine and laboratory science; in the gaps between a great deal more formal instruction and testing.
In the kind of education we get in schools, colleges, and the like - this original kind of education, therefore, happens (when it does happen, which is seldom or never) in the gaps in the curriculum, the the non-systematic parts of the experience; unplanned, unexamined.
The main skill is to seize the moment - which is , again, mostly a matter of having the right kind of motivation.
The philosopher Wittgenstein gave classes of this kind - in which a group of people would be allowed to be in attendance while Wittgenstein was doing philosophy, aloud. He was working at things that preoccupied him, while other people were in the room.
The only formal element was that this happened at a specific place and time (which is, in actually, a pretty tight constraint, when it comes to creative work). There was no product, and no exams. From a student's perspective; Wittgenstein's education was something that happened while they were at college - it was absolutely distinct from the degree curriculum, although some students later (apparently) regarded it as the major experience of their lives.
Wittgenstein had a need for company too (in some phases of his life) and favoured people were allowed to 'hang-out' with W. in an unstructured, sustained and more-or-less social kind of way (going for walks, to the movies - sitting in the middle of the front row etc); although it might be closer to the truth to say that these individuals were required to be at W's beck and call as he wanted them (or else be excluded from the charmed circle).
Trying to communicate one's deepest understandings to 'other people' is a different thing; since it is led by the teacher's interest, rather than the student's. Perhaps a lot of it is that we want people with whom we can communicate profoundly on particular matters that may obsess us - but few others, and are therefore tempted to shape other people into suitable companions!
This is the great appeal of a group like The Inklings. For a while, they were near to the Platonic ideal of what we crave in our communication.
The lesson of biographies is that this 'shaping of other people' seldom works, but the attempt can itself be creative and clarifying for the would-be teacher (as well as frustrating and a waste of time). This creative clarification can be the main (or only) benefit of writing a book; which is - after all - almost-never read with the degree of comprehension and agreement that the author hopes for.
Conversely, what we (as 'student') get from a book that influences us, may well be very different from what the author hoped. Very, very seldom does the writing and reading of a book lead to the profound communication that the author hope for while in the process of making it; very seldom does 'top down' education actually happen.
In sum, real 'education' is very rare and essentially uncontrollable; and has almost nothing to do with systematic, professional education; and the more that is done to make formal education more 'efficient' and 'accountable' - the more certainly any possibility of real education will be excluded.
Time together is of the essence. There isn't really any 'teaching' - more a matter of showing, of letting people observe. The main motivation comes from the learner, who wants to become able to know and do things; the 'teacher' mainly 'allows' the learner to spend time with him.
This is more like apprenticeship; and I experienced a fair bit of apprenticeship in medicine and laboratory science; in the gaps between a great deal more formal instruction and testing.
In the kind of education we get in schools, colleges, and the like - this original kind of education, therefore, happens (when it does happen, which is seldom or never) in the gaps in the curriculum, the the non-systematic parts of the experience; unplanned, unexamined.
The main skill is to seize the moment - which is , again, mostly a matter of having the right kind of motivation.
The philosopher Wittgenstein gave classes of this kind - in which a group of people would be allowed to be in attendance while Wittgenstein was doing philosophy, aloud. He was working at things that preoccupied him, while other people were in the room.
The only formal element was that this happened at a specific place and time (which is, in actually, a pretty tight constraint, when it comes to creative work). There was no product, and no exams. From a student's perspective; Wittgenstein's education was something that happened while they were at college - it was absolutely distinct from the degree curriculum, although some students later (apparently) regarded it as the major experience of their lives.
Wittgenstein had a need for company too (in some phases of his life) and favoured people were allowed to 'hang-out' with W. in an unstructured, sustained and more-or-less social kind of way (going for walks, to the movies - sitting in the middle of the front row etc); although it might be closer to the truth to say that these individuals were required to be at W's beck and call as he wanted them (or else be excluded from the charmed circle).
Trying to communicate one's deepest understandings to 'other people' is a different thing; since it is led by the teacher's interest, rather than the student's. Perhaps a lot of it is that we want people with whom we can communicate profoundly on particular matters that may obsess us - but few others, and are therefore tempted to shape other people into suitable companions!
This is the great appeal of a group like The Inklings. For a while, they were near to the Platonic ideal of what we crave in our communication.
The lesson of biographies is that this 'shaping of other people' seldom works, but the attempt can itself be creative and clarifying for the would-be teacher (as well as frustrating and a waste of time). This creative clarification can be the main (or only) benefit of writing a book; which is - after all - almost-never read with the degree of comprehension and agreement that the author hopes for.
Conversely, what we (as 'student') get from a book that influences us, may well be very different from what the author hoped. Very, very seldom does the writing and reading of a book lead to the profound communication that the author hope for while in the process of making it; very seldom does 'top down' education actually happen.
In sum, real 'education' is very rare and essentially uncontrollable; and has almost nothing to do with systematic, professional education; and the more that is done to make formal education more 'efficient' and 'accountable' - the more certainly any possibility of real education will be excluded.
Gerry Anderson's puppet shows (and Barry Gray's music)
These were a Big Thing in my childhood, spanning into middle adolescence. The first I (vaguely) recollect was Fireball XL5, including the of-its-era song:
This was perhaps when I got a lasting taste for Barry Gray's wonderfully compelling, massively over-orchestrated, theme tunes. I loved the space ship launch, shown in the clip above (repeated as 'stock footage' every episode); and the Robbie the Robot character.
But Fireball XL5 didn't get into my 'real life' - the first to do that was Stingray.
Was there ever a more exciting intro for a 5 year old? Those massed drums! The stentorian announcements!
Alas, the show itself was rather slow-moving - even for those days - but the villains were creepy enough, with their fish-shaped submarines. A school book has survived in which, as an infant, I drew a picture of this show.
Stingray also led to one of my favourite and most-treasured Christmas presents ever:
Next came Thunderbirds, and my enthusiasm became extreme. Me and my friends got into trouble wearing our 'uniforms' to school - each of them improvised using various elements - mine was based on Boys Brigade regalia.
The Thunderbirds theme is famous: here is a great version recently done by Alfie Pugh in Exeter, Devon, England - renewing the tradition and keeping Barry Gray alive as a composer (his Stingray arrangement is even better):
And there was more. My introduction to the next Gerry Anderson was... interesting. One Sunday afternoon I picked up a comic which informed me (in a 'News Report) that the world was under sustained attack from Mars, by some aliens called the Mysterons.
It seemed so serious and urgent that I wanted (I still recall the moment) to run straight to my father to find out more, and what we should do.
Then I gradually realised that this was a fiction linked to a new Gerry Anderson puppet show: Captain Scarlet. I soon became absolutely crazed about this new show, engaging in considerable role playing at school and in the holidays; and buying an excellent waterpistol, and an annual.
Here are biographies of the beautiful and contrasting Angels, pilots of the anti-Mysteron air force (with a peculair focus on their colleges and qualifications - Symphony had seven degrees from Yale, no less! - despite being only about 26 years old):
The puppets were now becoming quite realistic, and Captain Scarlet's arch enemy was the extremely sinister Captain Black - distinctly Gallic and 'existential'-looking, with his five o'clock shadow and leather jacket (only the smoking Gitanes were missing):
After Captain Scarlet I began to become more of an adolescent; but as my younger brother grew up I came to enjoy Joe 90, with its grossly improbable situation (Father uses his 9 year old son for dangerous espionage operations, by giving him the brain-waves of various experts).
Again a marvellous Barry Gray opening builds anticipation. Here the first episode set-up segues into the normal theme tune:
My final Gerry Anderson experience was the live action series UFO - with yet another great theme sequence and montage (more Alfie Pugh here).
By this time I was in my mid teens, and Lt Ellis on moonbase (played by Gabrielle Drake) certainly had something to do with my regular viewing.
Better than a puppet!
This was perhaps when I got a lasting taste for Barry Gray's wonderfully compelling, massively over-orchestrated, theme tunes. I loved the space ship launch, shown in the clip above (repeated as 'stock footage' every episode); and the Robbie the Robot character.
But Fireball XL5 didn't get into my 'real life' - the first to do that was Stingray.
Was there ever a more exciting intro for a 5 year old? Those massed drums! The stentorian announcements!
Alas, the show itself was rather slow-moving - even for those days - but the villains were creepy enough, with their fish-shaped submarines. A school book has survived in which, as an infant, I drew a picture of this show.
Stingray also led to one of my favourite and most-treasured Christmas presents ever:
Next came Thunderbirds, and my enthusiasm became extreme. Me and my friends got into trouble wearing our 'uniforms' to school - each of them improvised using various elements - mine was based on Boys Brigade regalia.
A Thunderbirds puppet, showing the uniform
A Boy's Brigade uniform such as I wore in emulation
And there was more. My introduction to the next Gerry Anderson was... interesting. One Sunday afternoon I picked up a comic which informed me (in a 'News Report) that the world was under sustained attack from Mars, by some aliens called the Mysterons.
It seemed so serious and urgent that I wanted (I still recall the moment) to run straight to my father to find out more, and what we should do.
Then I gradually realised that this was a fiction linked to a new Gerry Anderson puppet show: Captain Scarlet. I soon became absolutely crazed about this new show, engaging in considerable role playing at school and in the holidays; and buying an excellent waterpistol, and an annual.
Here are biographies of the beautiful and contrasting Angels, pilots of the anti-Mysteron air force (with a peculair focus on their colleges and qualifications - Symphony had seven degrees from Yale, no less! - despite being only about 26 years old):
The puppets were now becoming quite realistic, and Captain Scarlet's arch enemy was the extremely sinister Captain Black - distinctly Gallic and 'existential'-looking, with his five o'clock shadow and leather jacket (only the smoking Gitanes were missing):
After Captain Scarlet I began to become more of an adolescent; but as my younger brother grew up I came to enjoy Joe 90, with its grossly improbable situation (Father uses his 9 year old son for dangerous espionage operations, by giving him the brain-waves of various experts).
Again a marvellous Barry Gray opening builds anticipation. Here the first episode set-up segues into the normal theme tune:
My final Gerry Anderson experience was the live action series UFO - with yet another great theme sequence and montage (more Alfie Pugh here).
By this time I was in my mid teens, and Lt Ellis on moonbase (played by Gabrielle Drake) certainly had something to do with my regular viewing.
Better than a puppet!
Sunday 6 January 2019
Some recent Star Wars movies reviewed, overall
Aaah!...
This post is likely to be the most controversial I have ever written; given the intensity of the Star Wars fandom.
But I am not a part of that fandom. I saw and enjoyed all three of the original Star Wars movies as they came out; and I rewatched them on video and DVD; but the movies never communicated any special depths to me. I never developed the special affection I had for the first four Dr Who incarnations; or for Blade Runner.
So - the most I expect from a Star Wars move is entertainment with a good heart.
That was the attitude with which I approached three recent Star Wars movies. All had been rather negatively reviewed by most of the people I read - and I expected not to like them and to give-up part way through; but in fact I watched them all to the end, which means I found them sufficiently entertaining.
The best was Rogue One; which I have now rewatched twice. It is worth 4 stars (out of five); entertaining and a bit more; very strong movie albeit not quite first rate (spun-out climax).
The Force Awakens was less good; but still worth watching - I gave it 4 stars on first view, but perhaps it declines to 3 stars on re-watching, as its flaws become more intrusive (and as its inconsistencies do not get explained by the next movie).
The Last Jedi is clearly the least good of these three movies; and I had read quite a few fan reviews that suggested it was Very Bad. Indeed, I waited until I could watch it 'free' - because I was not expecting to enjoy it, and expected to bail-out before too long...
However, to my surprise, I found Last Jedi entertaining despite its many and obvious flaws and incompetences. So I watched it through to the end although it is - as story telling - a contrived shambles.
The main plot and characters, their (non-)motivations and improbabilities and competences are clearly nonsense - the movie as a whole is nonsense! So, what kept me going?
It was the abundance of details that I enjoyed. Perhaps especially the weird animals and creatures, and most especially the small and cute penguin-like ones ('porgs' - see above). But also the big, loping, Anglo-Nubian goat-eared racers. The little drunken Victorian gentleman-creature guy in the casino, trying to put coins into R2D2 under the impression he was a slot machine... The Toad-as-Washerwoman (from Wind in the Willows) creatures that inhabited Luke's Island - and I also liked the Island itself; modelled on the beehive huts of Irish hermit monks of the dark ages. Micro-stuff like that.
I also appreciated the acting, or maybe just the face-acting, of Adam Driver as Kylo Ren - despite (again that word!) so many suboptimal lines and situations, he is strangely compelling; he has star quality (unlike several other cast members...).
In sum, I enjoyed enough about 'the world' - the general 'situation', to keep me going, despite the risible things that went on in it, and despite that I probably won't rewatch. So I would have to say that The Last Jedi is 'worth watching' (once), and therefore (by definition) worth 3 whole stars...
Sorry!
Why *must* we (all) strive for Final Participation?
Although it will strike many as implausible, including myself at some times; I think it is accurate to say that all modern people must strive to become more divine, more god-like; must organise their life around theosis.
'All' meaning all in The West, all who have moved out of the unconscious, taking-it-for-granted type of Christianity of earlier generations (including all who have been atheists) - all who have at any point been materialists, or put socio-political issues in a position of primacy...
All such people have no viable alternative but to strive for theosis (for the divine mode of consciousness, as well as salvation. To put it another way; here-and-now, and for everybody reading this, salvation is not enough. More exactly, if we strive only for salvation, a 'simple' salvation without theosis; then we will not get salvation.
This is because of the times; over the past 200 years a situation has developed in which the modern consciousness has an absolute need for theosis; such that when it is lacking, then salvation is sabotaged.
There is perhaps a brief time window in the new convert of Christianity when salvation is 'enough'; but the modern materialism, atheism, evil - is so pervasive, that we cannot just hold-on to salvation. We are compelled either to move on towards a move divine consciousness; or else to lapse back out from real Christianity, and into a secular worldly materialism that implicitly, or explicitly, rejects salvation - does not even want life everlasting in Heaven.
We moderns need to know about life everlasting, we need to know about Heaven in order to want these things enough to resist the temptations to let them slide. The kind of vagueness on such matters that sufficed in the remote past will no longer suffice. Negative theology is useless. Modern Christians must be clear, simple, explicit about Heaven and the divine consciousness.
In a sense, we must all strive to be 'saints' - but not saints in the medieval pattern. The greatest saints were not those who did good works, but those who attained to a divine consciousness while mortal - those who 'had their heads in Heaven even as their feet walked on the earth'.
And that task is now universal; we all most strive (each is our own and unique fashion) to move towards that goal.
The divine mode of consciousness is what Barfield has termed Final Participation, and I have discussed under the name of Primary Thinking. It can only be effective within the Christian framework - although it does happen spontaneously to many secular, materialist people and those from other religions - who inevitably misinterpret the experiences, because only the Christian framework is both true and sufficient.
(An individual may not be fully aware of, or able coherently to articulate, their Christian framework - often because they try to express it in a false metaphysical system - but that framework must nonetheless be in-place.)
Of course we will not succeed in becoming saints in any permanent and complete fashion, because that is the nature of mortal life; change, decay, disease, weakness... these prevent perfection; or rather, mortal perfection is attainable but always temporary.
But the success is in the striving, and the outcome in in resurrected life eternal; mortal success is in the experiencing of momentary and infrequent successes, and in the value we place upon these experiences.
Conscious experiencing of the divine consciousness is what makes the qualitative difference between salvation and self-chosen damnation.
'All' meaning all in The West, all who have moved out of the unconscious, taking-it-for-granted type of Christianity of earlier generations (including all who have been atheists) - all who have at any point been materialists, or put socio-political issues in a position of primacy...
All such people have no viable alternative but to strive for theosis (for the divine mode of consciousness, as well as salvation. To put it another way; here-and-now, and for everybody reading this, salvation is not enough. More exactly, if we strive only for salvation, a 'simple' salvation without theosis; then we will not get salvation.
This is because of the times; over the past 200 years a situation has developed in which the modern consciousness has an absolute need for theosis; such that when it is lacking, then salvation is sabotaged.
There is perhaps a brief time window in the new convert of Christianity when salvation is 'enough'; but the modern materialism, atheism, evil - is so pervasive, that we cannot just hold-on to salvation. We are compelled either to move on towards a move divine consciousness; or else to lapse back out from real Christianity, and into a secular worldly materialism that implicitly, or explicitly, rejects salvation - does not even want life everlasting in Heaven.
We moderns need to know about life everlasting, we need to know about Heaven in order to want these things enough to resist the temptations to let them slide. The kind of vagueness on such matters that sufficed in the remote past will no longer suffice. Negative theology is useless. Modern Christians must be clear, simple, explicit about Heaven and the divine consciousness.
In a sense, we must all strive to be 'saints' - but not saints in the medieval pattern. The greatest saints were not those who did good works, but those who attained to a divine consciousness while mortal - those who 'had their heads in Heaven even as their feet walked on the earth'.
And that task is now universal; we all most strive (each is our own and unique fashion) to move towards that goal.
The divine mode of consciousness is what Barfield has termed Final Participation, and I have discussed under the name of Primary Thinking. It can only be effective within the Christian framework - although it does happen spontaneously to many secular, materialist people and those from other religions - who inevitably misinterpret the experiences, because only the Christian framework is both true and sufficient.
(An individual may not be fully aware of, or able coherently to articulate, their Christian framework - often because they try to express it in a false metaphysical system - but that framework must nonetheless be in-place.)
Of course we will not succeed in becoming saints in any permanent and complete fashion, because that is the nature of mortal life; change, decay, disease, weakness... these prevent perfection; or rather, mortal perfection is attainable but always temporary.
But the success is in the striving, and the outcome in in resurrected life eternal; mortal success is in the experiencing of momentary and infrequent successes, and in the value we place upon these experiences.
Conscious experiencing of the divine consciousness is what makes the qualitative difference between salvation and self-chosen damnation.
Saturday 5 January 2019
Spiritual experiences - If not, then what?
A few days ago I stated my view that the 'standard methods' of attaining spiritual experiences have the disadvantage of failing to be associated with spiritual development; such that people who have frequent and intense spiritual experiences are often entirely lacking in spiritual wisdom.
Specifically, I said that magic and ritual systems of divination on the one hand; and training in meditation methods or induing of altered consciousness on the other hand; were both ineffective when it comes to developing the Romantic Christian life which I believe ought to be our priority, in The West.
Yet the Romantic Christian life is one that aims to restore the spiritual to life, so that we may reconnect with creation, and ultimately participate in creation; because Western people are dying of alienation - and mainstream Christianity does not even begin to address this core malaise - mainly because it emerged in an already alienated world, and grew to incorporate the alienated consciousness.
This is why the spiritual 'techniques' above operate separately from the kind of development in consciousness that is needed; the needed development is in the future and unprecedented; while the methods of the past only draw us back towards an obsolete consciousness that we cannot return to, nor would it be good for us if we could return.
This seems to set-up an impasse, in which on the one hand we must-have spiritual experiences - and I mean must; because I think that this is an absolute essential in The West if we are to avoid continuing down our path to mass chosen damnation... yet on the other hand we must-not seek such spiritual experiences using any of the standard, historical methods of doing so.
So, if not, then what? If not these methods, yet we must become more spiritual - then what should we do?
My answer is related to the idea of final participation as being our goal in consciousness (to use Owen Barfield's term); this is the consciousness that we will attain as resurrected beings dwelling in Heaven - but we need to attain this same quality of consciousness, as much as possible (as frequently and intensely as possible), during mortal life; in order to respond to the special challenges of this era.
To be in final participation is to participate in God's ongoing work of creation; it happens when we are thinking from our real self - because our real self is divine. Our real self - being divine - is free, and therefore our personal thinking adds to God's creation, is woven-into it; and this is indeed the main 'work' of our Heavenly lives.
When we attain to Final Participation in our mortal lives, we are having a spiritual experience. We are a part of the ongoing work of creation, which we experience in the mode of thinking. Our thinking is also divine thinking. Yet when this happens it is not in an 'altered state of consciousness' such as a trance or a dream; nor is it the narrowed and channelled consciousness of a ritual - it is simply ordinary thinking, rooted in the real self and raised to the fullness of clarity and simplicity.
Such thinking is, if we let it, self-validating - intuitively valid. We know that we know.
And I think many people have experienced this kind of thinking; although they seldom have a name for it; and very often deny its special significance. In my own life, the times when I have been thinking in this way make up a special sequence of memories I have termed the Golden Thread; the times and events that feel as if they were the only truly significant things (with all the great mass of routine and shallow pleasures falling away, barely remembered).
(These might include phenomena such as peak experiences, flow states, self-remembering, holiday consciousness, epiphanies and the like - as discussed often in the works of Colin Wilson.)
Yet these Golden Thread moments include many seemingly 'trivial' things, often unplanned and surprising; and apparently 'not real' things like reading something, or imagining something. And in the past I was more puzzled by them than inspired by them.
And this is the danger - that we have spiritual experiences but fail to notice and learn from them, for the simple reason that we discount them, disvalue them - regard them as trivial instead of The most Important Things in our lives.
In sum, spiritual experiences - properly understood - happen as a by-product of a proper way of living and understanding. And, as many people have noticed; the more they are noticed and learned-from; the more often they will happen.
So - the proper action to take is a kind of self-awareness, not simply to drift through life half-asleep; but be aware of what is happening, as it happens; and to recognise value the best of life as it deserves on the basis of intuitive experience rather than theory.
Specifically, I said that magic and ritual systems of divination on the one hand; and training in meditation methods or induing of altered consciousness on the other hand; were both ineffective when it comes to developing the Romantic Christian life which I believe ought to be our priority, in The West.
Yet the Romantic Christian life is one that aims to restore the spiritual to life, so that we may reconnect with creation, and ultimately participate in creation; because Western people are dying of alienation - and mainstream Christianity does not even begin to address this core malaise - mainly because it emerged in an already alienated world, and grew to incorporate the alienated consciousness.
This is why the spiritual 'techniques' above operate separately from the kind of development in consciousness that is needed; the needed development is in the future and unprecedented; while the methods of the past only draw us back towards an obsolete consciousness that we cannot return to, nor would it be good for us if we could return.
This seems to set-up an impasse, in which on the one hand we must-have spiritual experiences - and I mean must; because I think that this is an absolute essential in The West if we are to avoid continuing down our path to mass chosen damnation... yet on the other hand we must-not seek such spiritual experiences using any of the standard, historical methods of doing so.
So, if not, then what? If not these methods, yet we must become more spiritual - then what should we do?
My answer is related to the idea of final participation as being our goal in consciousness (to use Owen Barfield's term); this is the consciousness that we will attain as resurrected beings dwelling in Heaven - but we need to attain this same quality of consciousness, as much as possible (as frequently and intensely as possible), during mortal life; in order to respond to the special challenges of this era.
To be in final participation is to participate in God's ongoing work of creation; it happens when we are thinking from our real self - because our real self is divine. Our real self - being divine - is free, and therefore our personal thinking adds to God's creation, is woven-into it; and this is indeed the main 'work' of our Heavenly lives.
When we attain to Final Participation in our mortal lives, we are having a spiritual experience. We are a part of the ongoing work of creation, which we experience in the mode of thinking. Our thinking is also divine thinking. Yet when this happens it is not in an 'altered state of consciousness' such as a trance or a dream; nor is it the narrowed and channelled consciousness of a ritual - it is simply ordinary thinking, rooted in the real self and raised to the fullness of clarity and simplicity.
Such thinking is, if we let it, self-validating - intuitively valid. We know that we know.
And I think many people have experienced this kind of thinking; although they seldom have a name for it; and very often deny its special significance. In my own life, the times when I have been thinking in this way make up a special sequence of memories I have termed the Golden Thread; the times and events that feel as if they were the only truly significant things (with all the great mass of routine and shallow pleasures falling away, barely remembered).
(These might include phenomena such as peak experiences, flow states, self-remembering, holiday consciousness, epiphanies and the like - as discussed often in the works of Colin Wilson.)
Yet these Golden Thread moments include many seemingly 'trivial' things, often unplanned and surprising; and apparently 'not real' things like reading something, or imagining something. And in the past I was more puzzled by them than inspired by them.
And this is the danger - that we have spiritual experiences but fail to notice and learn from them, for the simple reason that we discount them, disvalue them - regard them as trivial instead of The most Important Things in our lives.
In sum, spiritual experiences - properly understood - happen as a by-product of a proper way of living and understanding. And, as many people have noticed; the more they are noticed and learned-from; the more often they will happen.
So - the proper action to take is a kind of self-awareness, not simply to drift through life half-asleep; but be aware of what is happening, as it happens; and to recognise value the best of life as it deserves on the basis of intuitive experience rather than theory.
John Fitzgerald's valedictory at Albion Awakening
This is a grand way to say farewell!
John has given us an alternative future set in a world almost, but not exactly, like this one - and set within the next year at a time of international crisis, breakdown and war. Against this backdrop, he describes the seeds of a spiritual and Christian rebirth; and a man at a point of decision.
It certainly made me think.
John has given us an alternative future set in a world almost, but not exactly, like this one - and set within the next year at a time of international crisis, breakdown and war. Against this backdrop, he describes the seeds of a spiritual and Christian rebirth; and a man at a point of decision.
It certainly made me think.
Friday 4 January 2019
Duck Tales - song and story
This is a great theme song, in the 1960s Stax/ Atlantic soul style. I have listened to this so many times - mainly for the immaculate brass riffs in the background. Just first rate.
But the lyrics are a bit hard to unravel. Luckily, Sir Ian Mckellen has been gracious enough to act them for us - in his inimitable vocal style...
(This, also, I have viewed innumerable times. Perfect of its kind.)
Immunity to ghosts and stories about them
Ghosts don't show-up on photos, usually
I have had a lifelong uninterest concerning the subject of ghosts. I don't actively dislike, but am unmoved by ghost stories, and stories about ghosts.
I am happy to acknowledge that there are 'such things' as ghosts, since the credible eyewitness consensus of all times and cultures attest to their reality; but I haven't experienced ghosts (so far as I know) and don't bother trying to seek out such experiences.
Yet the British public are fascinated by ghosts; and belief in - and fear of, ghosts is widespread; including among people who are in other respects highly rationalist, atheistic types.
I lived for a year in Durham Castle, an extremely beautiful, ancient, and architecturally-multilayered set of buildings for which guided tours are given - and the guides reported that the single thing which most excited the guests was a story about a ghost seen around the sinister 17th century carved black oak staircase. This was what really gripped people. Yet the story seems to have been fabricated quite recently by a student guide trying to spice-up the tour experience (and maybe get a bigger tip?).
I once spent the night in this castle absolutely alone, among hundreds of empty rooms - and even the porter absent. The place was full of creaks and other noises, and I felt far more nervous and on-edge than I had anticipated. Yet it wasn't the possibility of ghosts that bothered me - although I'm not really sure what it was.
I once visited the old, rural house of a research scientist; and mentioned casually and jokily that it looked like 'the kind of place' that might be haunted. The next morning, this scientist came to work with hollow eyes and a haggard expression, having been awake all night worrying about ghosts - and very angry with me for having made that off-hand comment.
For many people, therefore, ghosts are a real possibility - whether exciting or sinister; including the Inklings. But not for me - at least not up to now. I'm a bit surprised by my 'blind-spot' on the subject of ghosts; but there it is...
Thursday 3 January 2019
Spiritual experience versus spiritual wisdom
As a generalisation; I find it striking that those who plausibly claim to have exceptional spiritual experiences mostly lack exceptional spiritual wisdom.
Such people may display clairvoyant or precognitive gifts; may have remarkable mystical visions and epiphanies; may be able to contact and channel spiritual beings; may even begin to affect the world spiritually to make changes or healings... and yet be quite unremarkable (or sub-average) people in terms of their wisdom, holiness, profundity of insight.
The accounts given by spiritual and mystical people (descriptions, information, predictions etc) usually vary extremely widely - they can't all be right, but could all be wrong. The way they talk about their many and varied experiences tends - cumulatively - to be experienced as glib and trivial; either incoherent or over-systematic in a contrived and superficial way - in other words intuitively unconvincing.
In other words, it is one thing to have remarkable spiritual experiences - and quite a different thing to learn-from these experiences; to be transformed (for the better) by such experiences. Some people seem utterly unaffected - their experiences comes and go like water off a duck's back. Others seem to be damaged by their experiences - made worse people.
One problem is that spiritual experiences are often most highly regarded either when experiences come-upon a person unsought and overwhelm that person - or else when they are the result of long training, initiation, and ritual practice.
The people who have spontaneous spiritual beliefs are just that kind of person - and it is a gift or curse of being that kind of person; but this is essentially a passive thing.
Spiritual experience is just something that happens-to such people; there is no engagement of the real self in the process (indeed, the real self may be deliberately set aside, as with channelling) - it is lower selves, personality selves, inculcated selves that are involved.
Since the spiritual experience is passive, does not involve the real self, and is (pretty much) uncontrolled - it is should not be surprising that such spiritual experience fails to make someone a better person.
As for those who seek a spiritual experiences as a result of training in meditation, regular practice, by formal rituals, by the use of consciousness-altering substances or rituals, and so forth.
This is a process of narrowing, or confining and entraining (hence lowering) the consciousness. It is a matter of making the spiritual experience into a habit - and a habit is a diminution of consciousness.
So the problem can be seen in exactly this reduction of spiritual experience into a thing narrowed, habitual, controlled. Eventually the adept will be able to induce-at-will and control the spiritual experience; but the self that experiences is a more superficial or lower self - not the real self.
I think the above descriptions explain why almost all the individuals who report special spiritual experiences are not special people. It seems clear that there is little correlation between impressiveness of spiritual experiences and the impressiveness of a person - in terms of his spiritual wisdom, depth of understanding.
A person may be a remarkable spiritual adept but such persons are usually unsuitable to be a guide, teacher, mentor. When both spiritual expertise and spiritual wisdom are found in the same person, this is (or has been up to now) actually very unusual.
Yet I would say that nearly-all of the wisest spiritual guides that I know of, have some some spiritual experience. But these experiences (at least those that get reported) are not especially remarkable; often quite ordinary and everyday.
On the other hand, when someone denies having had any spiritual experiences ever; when there are spirituality-blind, utterly insensitive to the immaterial - these are seldom or never wise or deep persons.
Indeed, it is likely that such people are either habitually suppressing the possibility of a spiritual experience, or else systematically denying (explaining-away) the validity and meaning of spiritual experiences when they do occur.
The non-spiritual situation is therefore probably due to a contrived, trained materialistic shallowness or to an habitual dishonesty - both of which negate the possibility of wisdom.
What this tells me is that spiritual experiences are necessary to the awakening mind; but ought not to be the centre of personal life; and that the ways of amplifying and inducing spiritual experiences all have deleterious effects.
A spiritual experience is of significant value only when it is encountered fully by the real self, as a real and true experience; is learned-from, and has a transformative effect. Then it is an experience of decisive positive value.
Such people may display clairvoyant or precognitive gifts; may have remarkable mystical visions and epiphanies; may be able to contact and channel spiritual beings; may even begin to affect the world spiritually to make changes or healings... and yet be quite unremarkable (or sub-average) people in terms of their wisdom, holiness, profundity of insight.
The accounts given by spiritual and mystical people (descriptions, information, predictions etc) usually vary extremely widely - they can't all be right, but could all be wrong. The way they talk about their many and varied experiences tends - cumulatively - to be experienced as glib and trivial; either incoherent or over-systematic in a contrived and superficial way - in other words intuitively unconvincing.
In other words, it is one thing to have remarkable spiritual experiences - and quite a different thing to learn-from these experiences; to be transformed (for the better) by such experiences. Some people seem utterly unaffected - their experiences comes and go like water off a duck's back. Others seem to be damaged by their experiences - made worse people.
One problem is that spiritual experiences are often most highly regarded either when experiences come-upon a person unsought and overwhelm that person - or else when they are the result of long training, initiation, and ritual practice.
The people who have spontaneous spiritual beliefs are just that kind of person - and it is a gift or curse of being that kind of person; but this is essentially a passive thing.
Spiritual experience is just something that happens-to such people; there is no engagement of the real self in the process (indeed, the real self may be deliberately set aside, as with channelling) - it is lower selves, personality selves, inculcated selves that are involved.
Since the spiritual experience is passive, does not involve the real self, and is (pretty much) uncontrolled - it is should not be surprising that such spiritual experience fails to make someone a better person.
As for those who seek a spiritual experiences as a result of training in meditation, regular practice, by formal rituals, by the use of consciousness-altering substances or rituals, and so forth.
This is a process of narrowing, or confining and entraining (hence lowering) the consciousness. It is a matter of making the spiritual experience into a habit - and a habit is a diminution of consciousness.
So the problem can be seen in exactly this reduction of spiritual experience into a thing narrowed, habitual, controlled. Eventually the adept will be able to induce-at-will and control the spiritual experience; but the self that experiences is a more superficial or lower self - not the real self.
I think the above descriptions explain why almost all the individuals who report special spiritual experiences are not special people. It seems clear that there is little correlation between impressiveness of spiritual experiences and the impressiveness of a person - in terms of his spiritual wisdom, depth of understanding.
A person may be a remarkable spiritual adept but such persons are usually unsuitable to be a guide, teacher, mentor. When both spiritual expertise and spiritual wisdom are found in the same person, this is (or has been up to now) actually very unusual.
Yet I would say that nearly-all of the wisest spiritual guides that I know of, have some some spiritual experience. But these experiences (at least those that get reported) are not especially remarkable; often quite ordinary and everyday.
On the other hand, when someone denies having had any spiritual experiences ever; when there are spirituality-blind, utterly insensitive to the immaterial - these are seldom or never wise or deep persons.
Indeed, it is likely that such people are either habitually suppressing the possibility of a spiritual experience, or else systematically denying (explaining-away) the validity and meaning of spiritual experiences when they do occur.
The non-spiritual situation is therefore probably due to a contrived, trained materialistic shallowness or to an habitual dishonesty - both of which negate the possibility of wisdom.
What this tells me is that spiritual experiences are necessary to the awakening mind; but ought not to be the centre of personal life; and that the ways of amplifying and inducing spiritual experiences all have deleterious effects.
A spiritual experience is of significant value only when it is encountered fully by the real self, as a real and true experience; is learned-from, and has a transformative effect. Then it is an experience of decisive positive value.
Wednesday 2 January 2019
Sheer, blind craziness and murderous evil: factual implications of demography
The obscene vision that is Germany's population structure
The nemesis that is Nigeria's population (note the numbers on the horizontal axis, five-fold larger than Germany)
We of The West live in societies that are much older than any that have existed in the history of our species; and getting older by every passing year. The cause is that all atheist societies without any exceptions are always grossly subfertile; as well as pessimistic, despairing and functionally suicidal in their attitudes, behaviours and policies (to the point of denying the facts of their own actually existing situation).
From Infogalactic, a sample of Median Ages for nations:
Germany - 46
Japan - 46
Italy - 45
Finland - 43
Canada - 42
UK - 41
France - 41
Russia - 39
Australia 38
US - 38
China - 37
...
Brazil - 31
Turkey - 30
Indonesia - 29
Iran - 28
India - 27
...
Egypt - 25
Bangladesh - 24
Kenya - 19
Nigeria - 18
DR Congo - 18
Afghanistan - 18
Somalia - 18
Ethiopia - 18
South Sudan - 17
Uganda - 16
To see the significance of these numbers, see the population sizes bearing in mind that the youngest countries will have grown and the native populations of the oldest countries will have shrunk since 2010.
The crude numbers are very bad indeed - but underestimate the problem, firstly because things are still getting worse and secondly because they are distorted by the presence of massive and increasing numbers of much younger recent arrivals of migrants and immigrants in The West (for example, in the UK an excess of 10 million - about 15% of the population? (not accurately measured by our 'government') - has been replaced in the past couple of decades - at a rate of between 0.5-1% p/a).
The dupes and demons who govern us say that these recent arrivals are necessary for our future survival - but clearly this is false, since (obviously) a large majority never do productive work and are indeed a colossal resource drain; but mainly because they have zero interest (quite the reverse) in supporting the aged natives.
The extremes occur because-of the developed world; since development is associated both with population decline in The West and population growth in the third world. e.g. Population growth in Africa is wholly-dependent on decades of Western medicine and 'aid'. Until the past few generations, sub-Saharan Africa was thinly populated due to its level of disease. It was essentially hostile to human survival. Consequently, among disease-survivors, pre-modern Africa had a much higher standard of living per person than pre-modern Europe or Asia.
Sometimes people will speculate, albeit dishonestly, about the economic consequences of these massive and unprecedented extremes of old and young populations. However, the psychological consequences are more fundamental than the effect on the economy. A society in which half the population are in their late forties or older is something new under the sun; and a very different thing from a society when more than half the population are children.
Considering The West; the most important question is how we got here. The simple answer is atheism - the secular society. This demonstrably leads to an existential despair manifest across the board but most objective in sub-replacement fertility (a sign of terminal environmental stress in captive animals).
The second most important question concerns the implications of being so very, very old; of having so grossly distorted a 'population pyramid'.
If our Western populations contained the historically-usual proportion of youth and vigour, perhaps sheer biological self-interest would provide sufficient drive to do something about our desperate situation. But the massive, inertial, top-heaviness of our disaffected, despairing, secularised, materialistic, burnt-out hedonistic elderly population has paralysed us.
However, as a society we don't just do 'nothing' - instead, we actively work to hide the truth and make matters worse even more rapidly.
When you start thinking about this, and assuming your head does not explode, you will soon realise that (spiritual questions aside, which underpin all-the-above) demography is the single most important material fact of the world today.
The fact that this fact is merely ignored or lied-about, is evidence of a degree of mental malaise that amounts to insanity. And this is not really a matter of opinion. So that insanity is the single most important material fact of our world: sheer, blind craziness.
Unless the single most important fact is that this whole subject is made taboo, with severe sanctions for broaching it. That goes beyond insanity into the realms of murderous evil.
So, the most important spiritual fact is that we in The West are ruled by purposive, deliberate, strategic evil.
Happy New Year!
Curmudgeon time... A deliberately non-sensical ritual over for another year...
Now that another objectively fake 'new year' pseudo-celebration has passed*, what next? Well, nothing special, because it is an unnatural and bogus 'beginning' - we may choose to force our personal lives into a January-First-shaped cycle - and the mass media and calendar makers will support us in this; but it is unsupported by anything profound in The Real World, including in Religion.
As long-time readers may know - I used to be an active scientist and theorist in the field of intelligence, personality and creativity; and therefore I noticed that the (vastly-over-rated) media pundit Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been doubling-down on some objectively false and demonstrably ignorant remarks he made about intelligence testing (IQ tests).
No surprises there; but a useful reminder of the way that someone's personality flaws are amplified by cultic admiration until these flaws become... well, I was going to say 'undeniable', but that is wrong: let's just say 'very dominant'. The same can be seen with Jordan Peterson. The thing is, in this world here-and-now nobody gets rich/ influential/ famous and stays that way, unless they really want to be rich/ influential/ famous as (pretty much) their primary priority in life.
And that's the top and bottom of it. The influential maverick is an oxymoron. Anyone who is looking for spiritual and Christian leadership among those who have significant impact in the mass media, those who are high in the establishment, those at or near the head of major institutions - is making an error. Such seekers will not find even 'neutrality' among such eminent individuals (not least because there is no neutrality in the spiritual war) - they will find only those who are more, or less, completely aligned to purposive evil.
That isn't to deny that there is some good in such persons, something valid to be learned-from them; of course there is. There is always some good to be learned from even some of the most evil people in history (or in personal life). But it is a matter of choosing your mentors with discernment. To learn good from someone acknowledged to be net-evil is a very different matter from being guided by someone whom you regard as a worthy mentor. In neither case should discernment be set-aside; but the basic mind set is extremely different according to the nature of the person.
What of this matter of being 'influential'? It is interesting that the whole thing is impossible except for that handful of truly 'Great Men' as they used to be called. 99.9% of influential people in The West are obedient servants or slaves to The System, The Establishment - and ultimately the demonic powers behind it all. The individual servants/slaves may perhaps suppose they personally have harnessed great powers to their own ends; but the reverse is the case.
To be corrupted by evil entails convincing oneself that one's harness is a self-controlled tool; that obedience to evil is a roundabout strategy for good. Ultimately, that whatever The System dictates and imposes is what you yourself actually always wanted, all along. That what is, is best.
The more influence such persons crave, the more compromises they make; the more compromises they make, the more fully they are enslaved - because compromise is just as euphemism for submission.
Corruption at the higher levels is universal. The promise is that by moving to a higher level in the hierarchy, one will be able to 'make a difference', 'work from inside' and shape matters for good... This promise is made to a thousand, ten thousand, people a day - usually in the context of taking-on managerial roles.
https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-fathers-engage-in-time-honored-ritual-of-telling-their-kids-they-havent-seen-them-since-last-year Some, may, initially believe it, and genuinely intend to do it. But it never happens. And once a person has been through cycle of this corruption a couple of times, they know in their hearts that it never happens... but they choose promotion anyway.
Indeed, the better you do the job, the stronger The System becomes; whatever contrary fantasies you may indulge.
And The System is evil in its intent - that is, its strategic intent is the destruction of Good.
*From The Babylon Bee yesterday: U.S.—In a beloved custom, every single father in the nation told their kids this morning that they haven't seen them since last year, according to sources across the country. "Hey look at you, sleepyhead," said one man in Nebraska as his son came downstairs. "Say, I haven't seen you since last year!" "It's an important tradition," he told reporters as his son groaned and shook his head. "Everyone loves it, especially our kids. They enjoy seeing their father employ a little cleverness and wit." He added that when your kids act like the joke is tired, unfunny, and embarrassing, that's when you know it's actually really funny. "It's all part of the dance," he said. Millions of other fathers all over America partook in the tradition as well, dutifully reciting the joke, which relies on the conflation of the colloquial and literal understandings of the term "next year." "Frankly, if you're a father and you haven't made a joke like this in the past 24 hours, you should probably get right with God," said Paul David Tripp. "It's an essential part of gospel-based, grace-centered parenting."
As long-time readers may know - I used to be an active scientist and theorist in the field of intelligence, personality and creativity; and therefore I noticed that the (vastly-over-rated) media pundit Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been doubling-down on some objectively false and demonstrably ignorant remarks he made about intelligence testing (IQ tests).
No surprises there; but a useful reminder of the way that someone's personality flaws are amplified by cultic admiration until these flaws become... well, I was going to say 'undeniable', but that is wrong: let's just say 'very dominant'. The same can be seen with Jordan Peterson. The thing is, in this world here-and-now nobody gets rich/ influential/ famous and stays that way, unless they really want to be rich/ influential/ famous as (pretty much) their primary priority in life.
And that's the top and bottom of it. The influential maverick is an oxymoron. Anyone who is looking for spiritual and Christian leadership among those who have significant impact in the mass media, those who are high in the establishment, those at or near the head of major institutions - is making an error. Such seekers will not find even 'neutrality' among such eminent individuals (not least because there is no neutrality in the spiritual war) - they will find only those who are more, or less, completely aligned to purposive evil.
That isn't to deny that there is some good in such persons, something valid to be learned-from them; of course there is. There is always some good to be learned from even some of the most evil people in history (or in personal life). But it is a matter of choosing your mentors with discernment. To learn good from someone acknowledged to be net-evil is a very different matter from being guided by someone whom you regard as a worthy mentor. In neither case should discernment be set-aside; but the basic mind set is extremely different according to the nature of the person.
What of this matter of being 'influential'? It is interesting that the whole thing is impossible except for that handful of truly 'Great Men' as they used to be called. 99.9% of influential people in The West are obedient servants or slaves to The System, The Establishment - and ultimately the demonic powers behind it all. The individual servants/slaves may perhaps suppose they personally have harnessed great powers to their own ends; but the reverse is the case.
To be corrupted by evil entails convincing oneself that one's harness is a self-controlled tool; that obedience to evil is a roundabout strategy for good. Ultimately, that whatever The System dictates and imposes is what you yourself actually always wanted, all along. That what is, is best.
The more influence such persons crave, the more compromises they make; the more compromises they make, the more fully they are enslaved - because compromise is just as euphemism for submission.
Corruption at the higher levels is universal. The promise is that by moving to a higher level in the hierarchy, one will be able to 'make a difference', 'work from inside' and shape matters for good... This promise is made to a thousand, ten thousand, people a day - usually in the context of taking-on managerial roles.
https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-fathers-engage-in-time-honored-ritual-of-telling-their-kids-they-havent-seen-them-since-last-year Some, may, initially believe it, and genuinely intend to do it. But it never happens. And once a person has been through cycle of this corruption a couple of times, they know in their hearts that it never happens... but they choose promotion anyway.
Indeed, the better you do the job, the stronger The System becomes; whatever contrary fantasies you may indulge.
And The System is evil in its intent - that is, its strategic intent is the destruction of Good.
*From The Babylon Bee yesterday: U.S.—In a beloved custom, every single father in the nation told their kids this morning that they haven't seen them since last year, according to sources across the country. "Hey look at you, sleepyhead," said one man in Nebraska as his son came downstairs. "Say, I haven't seen you since last year!" "It's an important tradition," he told reporters as his son groaned and shook his head. "Everyone loves it, especially our kids. They enjoy seeing their father employ a little cleverness and wit." He added that when your kids act like the joke is tired, unfunny, and embarrassing, that's when you know it's actually really funny. "It's all part of the dance," he said. Millions of other fathers all over America partook in the tradition as well, dutifully reciting the joke, which relies on the conflation of the colloquial and literal understandings of the term "next year." "Frankly, if you're a father and you haven't made a joke like this in the past 24 hours, you should probably get right with God," said Paul David Tripp. "It's an essential part of gospel-based, grace-centered parenting."
Tuesday 1 January 2019
Enjoying Test cricket again! - Jasprit Bumrah!
Note the hyper-extended, cubitus valgus elbows...
I have begun enjoying Test cricket again - and the main reason is that we are again in an era when the ball has become dominant over the bat.
I began to go-off Test match, and other forms of, cricket from 2014-15, when the international authorities banned the 'doosra' - a slow bowler, finger-spinner's delivery by which the ball was deceptively spun in the opposite from usual direction. From then we experienced a rather dull era of high scoring batters and apparently unremarkable bowlers.
After the superb 2015 New Zealand tour of England, I found that I didn't much enjoy any Test matches until the last English season of 2018 - mainly getting my cricketing pleasure from the (rather more disposable) format of 50-over 'one day internationals, at which England began to excel and dominate by scoring shedloads of runs - despite rather mediocre bowling (except for the excellent Rashid and Woakes).
But it has always been bowling that gets me most excited, and especially unusual - unique - bowlers. These are usually spinners (slow bowlers) but a really exciting and different fast bowler has emerged from India; who is currently pulling up trees in the Indian Test series in Australia.
Jasprit Bumrah has just about the silliest 'run up' approach to the wicket of any bowler I have seen: a short walk, a stutter, a few steps of a gentle jog and then in his wind-up he presents a stiff right arm, sticking out at 45 degree and with an abnormally deformed elbow - extreme abduction (outward angled) and hyper extended (bent back the wrong way).
But, from this weird and unpromising beginning, he unleashes a whiplash-armed delivery at very high pace (around 90 mph or above).
Bumrah has immaculate control of line and length; and as well as a 'stock' delivery of good length, he bowls a hard-to-avoid short bouncer, an even deadlier 'yorker' (homing-in on the base of the stumps); and the ball could be swinging towards or away from the batter! He also has a disguised slow ball, that floats out of his hand despite the fast arm.
And, whereas most fast bowlers are aggressive, angry-staring, swearing, bad-tempered characters (the greatest recent quick bowler - Dale Steyn - being a classic example) - Bumrah seems always to be cheerful and smiling. When he dismisses a batsman he is happy, rather than triumphant.
Originally Bumrah dominated one-day (including T20) cricket, and has been the best fast bowler in that format for the past few years. But it has surprised many people to see him so rapidly showing himself a master of the long game. One-day bowlers may thrive despite relatively-poor fitness and stamina - in T20 there are a max 24 deliveries, in ODIs a max of 60; wheras Test matches last about seven hours per day, for five days; and fast bowlers may bowl hundreds of deliveries, spread-out over three or more of those days. Bumrah's weird action looked as if it might not be sustainable without self-injury.
Well, it is still early days, and Bumrah is only in his third test series; but these have all been 'away' (most bowlers perform better at home) and already he is probably the most feared bowler of our era; the one most batters would least like to have bowling at them. He shows no sign of fatigue, and is able to bowl just as well or better (and just as fast) at the end of a long match, as at the beginning.
Of course, Bumrah isn't the only reason I am enjoying test cricket again; but it is always something special to have witnessed the emergence of an unique talent; someone who does the job in a way nobody before has ever done it; and as a result of some physical abnormality which the player has turned into an advantage.
(Often this has been the case for spinners. The greatest ever bowler, Murali, had a permanantly flexed elbow and freakishly bendy wrists) - but less often with fast bowlers. Chandrasekar bowled fizzing top-spinners and googlies from a polio-withered right arm that was so weak he couldn't throw with it!)
After so long, cricket still has the capacity to surprise!...
A 'closed mind' actually identifies metaphysical assumptions
WTP became a Major and served with distinction in the 1914-18 World War
I am reading The Silent Road - a book of essays by Wellesley Tudor Pole published in 1960; in which he accuses mainstream materialist intellectuals of having a 'closed mind' about spiritual realities; and advocating that they develop a more 'open' mind' as a cure for this.
The book is mostly descriptions about the remarkable spiritual experiences of WTP: and WTP talks about closed minds in relation to those who will always - on principle, without investigation - reject the truth of his experiences. As soon as these people hear the subject matter, WTP says, they immediately make up their minds that whatever he says cannot be true.
I'm sure WTP was correct; I can remember doing the same myself for a long time, and I still respond the same way about what many people say on many topics: I will not believe them, no matter what 'evidence' they bring forward. I relation to WTP, I accept some of his accounts of spiritual experiences, and reject others.
And I quite often reject his explanations of his experiences; that is, I accept that WTP had the experiences described, but reject WTP's explanations of their causality and meaning. In WTP's terms, I am closed-minded on some matters; open minded on others.
I can remember a great deal of discussion of 'closed' and 'open' minds in the late 1960s and into the 1970s; in which having an open mind was always Good, having a closed mind was Bad. Although initially having wider scope (as when WTP used the terms); open/ closed soon became a left-liberal/ right-conservative distinction. And especially it became related to one's attitude to the sexual revolution; only the 'closed-minded' would reject extra-martial sex, promiscuity, divorce and so on - and only the closed-minded would reject the sexual revolution.
(Later the distinction would be enshrined in psychology by the highly influential, but essentially bogus, personality trait of Openness to Experience.)
Closed minded became synonymous with irrational and wrong; then was interpreted as evidence of ignorance at best, but more often of cruel wickedness. To be closed minded (implying sealed-off from evidence, from experience, 'dogmatic') was the characteristic attributed to the bogeymen of fanatical 'fundamentalist' right-wing/ fascistic/ authoritarian - Christians; in essence, those who tyrannically restricted sexual behaviour.
However, open versus closed minds is a poor analytic description; partly because so front-loaded with evaluation - a term which has covertly prejudged and decided every issue to which it applied - yet denied this characteristic of itself .
But the open/ closed distinction does indicate a potentially genuine insight; which is that when a person is 'closed minded' on a subject, i.e. when that person becomes immune to evidence or any other form of persuasion - this is because of the metaphysical assumptions.
The reason that a rationalist scientist would reject all of WTP's accounts of spiritual experiences was that the scientists regarded such experiences as unreal and impossible - to the scientist these experiences could not happen. They could not happen because there was No Such Thing as 'the spiritual'. And if they were impossible, then whatever 'evidence' WTP might provide, and however plausible and competent a witness he might be, was irrelevant.
What this reveals is that the mainstream materialist (such as the rationalist scientist) has a metaphysical view - a set of fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality - which excludes the possibility of any 'spiritual' element. This becomes a fault when the materialist denies that he actually does have such assumptions, or when he tries to argue that such assumptions are based on 'evidence'.
However, the reality is that - because of these assumptions - he would always and invariably reject anything and everything put forward as 'evidence'; he would always deny that it was 'real' evidence.
So, the fault of 'closed mindedness' is a fault only when it entails this falsity; this lack of awareness or denial of the reality of, one's own assumptions.
And this explains why, for the past half century or more, it has been the open-minded who are most prone to closed-mindedness! It is the open-minded who are ignorant of their own assumptions, who deny their assumptions, who indeed deny that they have any assumptions; and who falsely claim that therefore everything they themselves open-mindedly assert derives from objective evidence.
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