Bruce Charlton's Notions

These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins,
Where have ye been? behind
What curtain were ye from me hid so long?
Where was, in what abyss, my speaking tongue?

When silent I
So many thousand, thousand years
Beneath the dust did in a chaos lie,
How could I smiles or tears,
Or lips or hands or eyes or ears perceive?
Welcome ye treasures which I now receive.

(Read the whole thing)


It seems to be characteristic of Romantic Christians that they - we, including myself - have a belief in having lived before this mortal life.

Often this takes the form of some version of reincarnation - which seems to be a basic, default belief among tribal people, and many Eastern religions. But the key things seems to be not reincarnation, but the direct, intuitive conviction of having lived before this mortal life; of having lived as a spirit, before being incarnated.


In the poem above Traherne describes (or imagines) the memory of being incarnated; and many people - perhaps all Romantic Christians - have some such memory, although they may be unsure of its validity.

William Blake explicitly believed in a pre-mortal existence; Wordsworth described it in glorious detail in his Intimations of Immortality; Coleridge in a poem to his son. But of these, Coleridge seemed especially uncomfortable about his statements - and rejected the  reality of pre-mortal life; and Wordsworth became similarly negative about in his later life - because it conflicts with the metaphysical assumptions of traditional Christianity.

(The reality of pre-mortal spirit life is, however, consistent-with the Fourth Gospel - being specifically asserted for Jesus; and indirectly in the discussions of the Baptist's identity, and at John 9:2.) 


I have come to recognise that a belief in my pre-mortal existence is more powerful and more causally-important for me than a belief in post-mortal Life Eternal.

This is so, because the pre-mortal implies the post-mortal; and the pre-mortal is more sure.

Memory of my pre-mortal life, albeit dreamlike and hazy, is a direct and personal experience. And since I also believe that pre-mortal life had no beginning, but was from eternity; then this implies to me that post-mortal life is also eternal.

Since I have lived from eternity, then I expect that I shall live - in some form - to eternity; since I was transformed (not created) at birth, then I expect to be transformed (not annihilated) at death. 

By contrast, post-mortal life eternal (after biological death) can, for me at least, only be known indirectly*.


*Those who know post-mortal life directly are (I guess) those who (potentially) believe in reincarnation; but I do not have such memories or intuitions.
 

There can be no neutrality about anything that matters at all - certainly not about anything as important as sex.

Every-thing - Every Possible Choice - is either positively or negatively inflected; and must be explicitly acknowledged as such.

If not, and if the proper direction of evaluation is denied; then in practice we Will get moral inversion.

This has happened many times, with respect to many themes, over the past fifty years; is continuing; is accelerating...

It is better to be a Christian or not? If it is not explicitly said that Christianity is better; then the result will (after a few intermediate steps) be anti-Christian.

Is marriage better than not? If it 'doesn't matter', then The System will inexorably organise against marriage, until marriage is eliminated. Eliminated either explicitly, or de facto - hollowed-out and replaced; such that a solemn marriage contract becomes The Only legal contract that can be unilaterally broken, at will, without sanctions.

The same with all sexual preferences. If it is explicitly said that there is 'nothing wrong' with something which goes against Christian sexual morality - then it will be (has already been) encouraged, propagandised and enforced - while Christian morality is discouraged, demonised, and persecuted.

There is no neutrality; never believe that there is.

When there are two alternatives one is always better than the other. 


*If you don't get the reference, search for it with "Seinfeld". One of the funniest, best-structured, sitcom episodes - ever. 

In theory I certainly do believe in spiritual power (and want to exercise it); but I find it impossible consistently to believe it in practice (I lapse from that belief frequently); and this is a classic example of the mortal condition.

We can choose what we believe, and endorse; but we cannot always stick to that belief at all times. Therefore, what we are choosing is what we repent.

(In this instance, I repent my lapses from knowing - and behaving in light of that knowledge - that spiritual power is supreme.)

However, I reject the semi-technological idea of spiritual power that I quite often see among Christians - which seems to have it that the best way to influence the world is along the lines that to effect change one should organise prayer, especially mass prayer, to achieve specific material ends.

This I would regard as a materialist strategy. Material strategies - such as habits of prayer, or rituals - may assist the spiritual, probably have done, as some kind of generalisation, in some eras and situations; but there is no causal connection at the specific level - and nowadays (in our context) this reduces the spiritual to the material, reduces spirituality to a mechanism.

But if, instead, we regard spiritual power as of vast power, vast scope, capable of massive effects - but genuinely spiritual; then we can see that it is not really a 'power' at all. Power might be defined in terms of imposing our will; and this is not allowed, not possible, unless and until our will is wholly-aligned with creation.

For most people - this alignment is only sporadic and short-lived. During these times we can, I believe, indeed participate in God's work of creation; and therefore exercise real spiritual power. However, that which we most 'want' is not necessarily or usually that which is aligned with unfolding creation.

In a nutshell; only when we want Good are we personally able to exert spiritual power; but in those circumstances we can.

Therefore if we 'want' more spiritual power; we first must come to want what is Good.

I find that hardly anybody has any conception of what is going-on, the times we are living in. There is a blindness to reality that is so nearly complete, that it might as well be total.

The only people who do seem to comprehend are the small minority of serious Christians; but the great majority of self-identified Christians in the mainstream churches are every bit as bad as the most fanatically Leftist atheist.

So we live in a totally divided world - a small minority of serious Christians and a mass majority of unserious Christians and mainstream materialists - and these two side cannot really connect because their basic assumptions are so vastly different, and there is no middle ground.

Anglican Unscripted is an excellent series that includes three serious Christians in the Anglican communion who discuss current issues - and here they address this divide that goes right through the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the USA, and the Roman Catholic Church and the major non-conformist Protestants.

In their polite and friendly way Kevin, George and Gavin are absolutely clear about the appalling, historically unmatched evil of our current situation in The West - and the utter incomprehension of the Bishops and bureaucrats, the media and the politicians, and the great bulk of 'normal' people...

That the medium is the message is true so far as it goes. The message is direct-knowing; so it is not the content that provides for that possibility. 

Direct-knowing requires participation; so when the medium encourages, requires participation - That is the aim...

Because what God most wants from us are these 'moments' of direct apprehension (sharing-in) truth, beauty, goodnesss. Each such moment is indelibly inscribed in reality... if an indelible thing was Not permanently fixed; but instead permanently present as a creative possibility. 

Passive, immersive, purely emotional or intellectual assent is useless (except as preparation). Without participative moments... well we may get marks for trying (if we are indeed trying - rather than merely pleasantly marking-time or avoiding misery) - but it would a kind of encouraging rejection rather than an accepted contribution. 

We must meet reality halfway, and join with it to make some new creation. And this happens in the realm of thinking, not of making. 

What then of the making, what of media? It should aim to meet us halfway; we should aim to meet it halfway... Any aim of manipulation or takeover on either side will invalidate the possibilities.  

This objective of mutual participation is not a kind of modesty or self-limitation, but a vaulting ambition; an insitence on taking life seriously. The preference for failure in a high goal over success in a lower. 

And, of course, a different criterion of success.   

Glenn Gould famously announced in 1964 that he was retiring from live performances to focus on recorded and broadcast music-making - and kept his vow for the next 18 years until he died.

This ceasing of public appearances created considerable international criticism and debate; since Gould was one of the most famous and successful solo pianists of his (or any) era; and no-one of his stature had ever previously done anything like this. But Gould had his reasons.

I too have, at times, made vows about retiring from activities - and stuck by them, mostly - but I, of course, did not announce my resolutions, nor would anyone have been interested if I had!


Probably the first was back when I was an Anatomy lecturer at Glasgow University, doing research on the human adrenal gland and its nerve supply; when I resolved not to apply for any more research grants. And I never did.

My reason was that I had failed to get several grants in the previous year, yet wasted considerable time and energy (and morale) applying for them - until it became clear and undeniable that the adrenal was too 'unfashionable'. To get funding, I would need again to do 'neuroscience', as I had for my doctorate - when I had not failed at getting grants.

But I had some work I wanted to 'finish' on the adrenal; and did not want my research to be controlled by the grant-awarding authorities - so I made this resolution.  I would do the addrenal research as best I could without external funding - using whatever resources I could muster.

Clearly, by never getting any research funding, I paid a price in terms of career progression. But it was the correct decision for me - since it enabled the subject matter of my scholarship, and therefore my 'life', to be 'free' for a further couple of decades; while nearly all my colleagues and contemporaries became, what seemed to me, self-deluded technicians and project managers.


Another retiral (to use the Scottish term) was from laboratory work specifically, and empirical science more generally. This was not a strict rule, nor was it done on moral grounds; it was simply based upon the recognition that because I was merely adequate at laboratory work (and not very interested by it), I could and should focus instead upon theory - which was both my aptitude, and the mode of work in which I was most spontaneously motivated.

I did not stick to this completely - because in the middle 2000s I got so interested in 'scientometrics' (the numerical measurement of scientific work) that I did, and published, some statistical analyses. Much of the heavy statistical work was done by a computer scientist colleague, but I did some of my own - such as looking at trends in Nobel prizes and other awards.

But my concentration on theory was regarded as making me 'research inactive' in the eyes of the UK academic bureaucrats (despite a prolific publication record) because only empirical publication (of 'new' data) was regarded as 'real' (and because grant income was what defined 'real' research). Also, the scientometrics (which had had a pretty high impact) 'did not count', because it was outwith the official boundaries of the psychology category.

So, this retirement also took its toll on my career.


After I was sacked from editing Medical Hypotheses - on the specific technical grounds of my refusal to introduce Peer Review (albeit with a real background in issues of political correctness); I vowed not to participate in peer review in any fashion from that point.

This meant that I did not publish any peer reviewed articles, and I stopped peer reviewing for journals, grant applications and the like.

Building on this, I soon realised that all forms of voting were immoral - including in the many and various meetings of institutional life; so in recent years I vowed not to attend formal meetings or to be otherwise involved in voting; or, indeed, in surveys.

This resolution was quite difficult to stick-to, and had potential to cause serious trouble, but in the event it did not prove catastrophic - although it certainly would have done, sooner or later.


Looking back across these retirements - it is easy enough to see that they were all related to personal autonomy; and the fact that I did not acknowledge the authority of others to control my scholarship and research.

There was a price to pay, in terms of diminished resources and status (and income) but it was a worthwhile price for so long as I could retain my traditional academic autonomy.

But nowadays that autonomy has become institutionally impossible, and has in practice disappeared - at least among younger generations (there are probably a very small and diminishing number of old, employed, still-autonomous academics - living on borrowed time...).


Science, and all other forms of research and academic scholarship are - in their strategic elements - now wholly externally controlled by linked managerial and bureaucratic structures - so the 'job' of an academic or scholar is now merely concerned with the detailed implementation of already-prescribed agendas.

Partial retirements no longer suffice to maintain autonomy: the future belongs to the amateur outside of the system and independent of all funding, salary, status, honours, terms and conditions.

To the amateur; or to nobody.

What finally cured me of any notion of progress in philosophy as a thought-tradition was reading a history of philosophy from a philosopher that I respect; and who has argued well in favour of the potential for philosophy to be the kind of subject that does exhibit progress.

The book is: Alasdair MacIntyre. God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.

To me, in contrast, the book showed nothing but the zig-zags of academic fashion.

On the other hand, my own personal and self-validated philosophy has indeed progressed - from incoherent harmfulness to something much better.

So, solid experience confirms that philosophy is objective and progress is possible for an individuals during his lifespan. But not at the group level and across generations.

This explains why real philosophy has often returned to the primary sources (e.g. reading texts by Plato and Aristotle - or at least translations) - because the subject of philosophy is one that is encompassed by the life of a Man, and is learned and developed during the life of one Man.

And therefore the subject of philosophy is an encounter between individual Men (often across the generations).

This explains why there is no agreed objective definition of philosophy - there is not even an agreed canon of valuable philosophers; because there is no valid extra-personal arbitrator - you or I must decide 'what is philosophy' for our-selves, and for our own actual purposes in the context of our own lives. And this definition may, probably will, change through a life - according to actual needs that 'philosophy' may address.

For instance, I have had some use for Plato and Aquinas; but none at all for Hume or Kant - because I have been sure (from secondary sources) that Hume and Kant's work is fundamentally metaphysically wrong, that they work from false - therefore evil - assumptions.

To the extent that studying them thoroughly is harmful - and that harm can be confirmed in those who have studied them and promote them - and why would I want to harm myself?

For me, philosophy has been therapeutic in the way that Wittgenstein claimed it should be - but failed to achieve in his own work. The therapy has come from showing that some of my assumptions were indeed assumptions, and were not 'evidence', were not conclusions. I only arrived at this situation in late 2012, I think - so for most of the time I read and thought-about philosophy (about 40 years) I was wrong, it was wrong, and it did more harm than good.

But in the end, a few specific bits of philosophy (including from people not recognised by academia as 'philosophers') has been greatly valuable - life-saving - living as I do in a culture for which the mainstream philosophy is so massively harmful, so powerfully inculcated, and so deeply embedded.

This post originated in a comment at Bonald's Throne and Altar blog. 

I'm about 100 pages into this re-read, and it so far confirms my original impression that this is the best of the biographies of, and books about, Glenn Gould that I've seen (although several of them are very good).

For me, there is no doubt that Gould is something more than one of the great pianists: Bazzana states that after Gould's first professional recital aged fifteen, his father got a letter from a stranger reporting that her young adult son had been present; and said that although the son had never previously believed in 'a hereafter and a life eternal' - having heard Gould play, the son reported: "Now I know".

Bazzana puts it well:  

For all the uncritical idolatry in Gould's reception, those who profess to hear 'something' in his playing are not crazy; often, in fact, they are hearing precisely what Gould intended to communicate. He considered his performances to be not just readings of pieces of music but documents of his world view... He thought that artists had a 'moral mission' and that art had enormous potential for the betterment of human life; as a performer he aimed not only to play well but to do good. The unity of theory and practice does come across in his recordings...

I picked all this up for myself from listening to Gould playing Bach, on a tinny record player, in the solitude of a freezing cold and sordid flat in 1978; at a time when I had not heard a single good word about Gould (the British Establishment critics loathed him); but instead a mass of falsehoods and misrepresentations that implied he couldn't really play (he cheated by having his piano adapted to lighten the action, the recordings of fugues were faked-together from separately played voices etc.).

It is easy to be distracted by the supreme pianistic technique, and the powerful musical intelligence; but what sets Gould apart from any other musician of the recorded era is the spiritual quality; and this is a consequence of Gould's deeply contemplative and Romantic personality, and the ecstatic concentration of his playing which lift it from performance to co-creation.

In fact, I would nowadays characterise what is going-on in terms of Final Participation and Primary Thinking. What we have - in material terms - is at the level of (mere) communication: a recording of a performance, and that recording created in a studio by piecing together of several or many performances - I then listen on imperfect devices, with all my incapacities and preconceptions... and at the end of the day it seems impossible to be sure that what I experience has anything to do with Bach or with Gould.

Thus considered, it seems a trivial or delusional activity; and something which 'we shouldn't take too seriously'; and yet, that has not been my experience over a span of more than forty years.

The way I would prefer to characterise it is in terms Not of communication by of direct knowing. When I am really experiencing the music (in that state termed ecstasy); at that time Bach, Gould, other people, and myself are all - as actual living Beings, here-and-now, experiencing the same 'thinking' - in real time. If it is real knowing, then it is an experience to which we all contribute, actively.

It is an act of creating; going on within the primary ongoing context of divine creation. And presumably all such experiences shape the thinking.

I do Not regard the real music as an unchanging Platonic ideal outside of space and time - that we might take from a library and replay; instead I think that this music exists in the consciousnesses of actual Beings, in their living thinking; and the shared experiences of this thinking.

What makes specifically Gould's Bach (sometimes) real, and my experience of it as real, is that the music was written, performed and listened-to in this state of ecstasy. Only if and when 'we' are all experiencing this ecstatic state (which is Primary Thinking) does direct knowing 'happen'.

The 'communications', the musical score, the piano, recording media, the sound reproduction... all these are acting something like pointers to the real thing - or perhaps something more. As methods for inducing states of intuitive sympathetic resonance between the minds involved (Bach's, Gould's mine etc.).

I suppose this applies to all communications and media; including conversations and social interactions as well as arts. They are ideally (although seldom in practice) means to that end of direct co-creative thinking.

There is, of course, no strict numerical and chronological division of life - but if we are talking about an approximately threescore and ten year lifespan (and anything beyond merely an extension of old age); then we could reasonably follow CG Jung and divide it into quarters; then we get four periods of about 18 years each.

This would mean that old age began at about 54 years old.

That seems about right to me.


This four-part division is - of course - somewhat circularly-defined; in the sense that it is partly based on observation and partly based on what ought to be. In other words, childhood and development not only do, but ought to continue to about 18-21 (childhood lasts longer for men than women) - and it would not be a good thing for it to end much earlier or much later than that.

Perhaps the least obvious is the idea that adulthood is divided at about 36 years old (between something like 'young adult' and 'middle age') - and this can only easily be seen among creative people such as artists, authors and research scientists, because mid-thirties is about the time when there is a transition between learning the craft or profession and beginning to contribute in an original way.

It is the division between master-ing and being a Master.

Even among 'precocious' creative people, who begin to make contributions in their twenties; the very best work usually comes between the middle thirties and middle fifties. For instance, Einstein made major scientific contributions in his middle twenties; but General Relativity was the achievement of his middle thirties. 


With respect to old age; the point is not merely that there is a decline in the quantity and quality of publicly recognised attainment in most people; but that there ought to be a change in emphasis away from extraversion to introversion; from this-worldly achievement towards next-worldly orientation.

A shift from duty to conscience. 


And this 'ought' applies to the individual, and has a cosmic and spiritual aspect.

In modern materialistic society, then the external perspective is the only one that is regarded as really-real; so old age is merely a time of declining productivity on the objective public side, and the struggle to delay (or at least deny) this decline on the subjective private side.

The notion that old age is - in some respects - like childhood, has considerable validity. Both are periods of mostly-dependency, in a materialist sense. Both are less worldly-active and more 'contemplative'.

Both childhood and old age should also be times when the self and the world are less sharply divided, and the world is more 'animistic', more a matter of beings than things... The night is more important,  dreams are more important, the spirit (and religion) is more important.

The not-here and not-now, the not-worldly/ un-worldly looms relatively larger. 


There is, however, a major difference in consciousness between childhood and old age.

The child is 'in' the world (albeit this dwindles through childhood), takes it for granted and has never been otherwise; but the old person has stood-outside the world, has worked upon the world - has grappled with the present moment - and then moved away from the world and the moment. The longer he lives, the more the old man's consciousness moves away-from the world.

In old age, memories of childhood take on a greater sharpness and spiritual power; in many respects childhood is re-experienced. But these are memories, so the experience is consciously known as such, when the child simply lived it.

The matter can be focused by a single word: death.

As soon as a child is fully conscious, he becomes aware of his own death as a pervasive possibility. All children spontaneously have theories of death and may develop rituals about death. Then death recedes from adult consciousness as the world grows.

Through old age, death returns to awareness: 'the dead' loom ever larger.


Old is age is 'about' death - the last phase of life is structured-by death; and therefore the quality of old age depends on how death is understood.

For the modern materialist humanist, this means 'coming to terms with' imminent extinction - trying to accept, or even desire, extinction.

For the Romantic Christian, however, 'coming to terms' with death means something very different; because death is not the end; but instead the necessary gateway to a positive transformation.

The task of old age may be learning about the nature of this transition, its possibilities, and how to 'manage' this transition.

In general, we stay alive for as long as there is something we need to (or ought to) accomplish - spiritually.

(So many modern people live so long mainly because they have chronically failed to accomplish even the basic minimum necessary during their mortal lives. They are kept alive in hope that - eventually - they will do what is required.) 

What is this spiritual thing - that we ought to accomplish - varies between individuals; so one task of old age may be to discern what it is that we should be doing. Probably, since mortal life is 'about learning', this could translate to: 'What we still need to learn'.


Since an old person has always experienced a lot; this purpose is likely to be something that they already 'know-about' in the sense they are aware of the facts; but a thing that they do not know.

Much of old age is about sifting-through memories and past impressions, things we already know-about, to discern what is important: to discover what we have 'missed' first-time-around. Often our priorities have been wrong, through our adult lives; and old age can be about re-ordering these priorities.


But what is vital is context! What is vital is to know why we need to do this. And the reason is because in old age we are preparing for what comes after death.

So old age should be less about the present - present concern often leading to an active quest for pleasure, or at least distraction - and more about the past and the future.  

It is failure to acknowledge the context of the life beyond biological death, that makes modern society utterly incapable of dealing with ageing... For modern Man there is Nothing Good about ageing - it is pure decline; just as death, for a materialist, is 100% loss of self, rather than a transition.


In old age, we may find that the inevitable negative development, the incapacities, may (properly understood) serve to keep us focused upon our necessary task. For example, the problem of not being able to concentrate on reading in the same old way, a reduced ability to 'fill' our minds with new information, may encourage us to spend more time on thinking about the information we have already accumulated.

If we follow-up the negative constraints of our own particular, personal experience of ageing, understand and go with them rather than fighting them; the ratio of thinking/inputting may thereby increase in a valuable fashion... which is probably something that we should have done much earlier.

In a stylish and insightful essay; Francis Berger introduces and explores this English translation of a characteristic Hungarian expression.

Something that used to puzzle me as an atheist was why Christians seemed to reject the goal of maximum happiness in this mortal life while asserting that the goal ought-to-be maximum happiness in the after-life.

It seemed to me that if happiness was the goal, then proximate happiness - the sure and certain happiness of here-and-now, today and tomorrow, was preferable than the uncertain (and perhaps non-existent) happiness after death.

At any rate, I couldn't understand why if attaining happiness in Heaven and avoiding suffering in Hell was the legitimate goal of a Christian; then why was it that happiness in mortal life was regarded with such indifference?


There seemed to me to be a double standard at work with respect to happiness. Was happiness a good things, or not? If it was - then why was uncertain later happiness to be given a higher priority than sure and immediate happiness?

I assumed that what was going-on was some kind of concealed politically-motivated manipulation, designed to encourage sacrifice: for example, to make the working classes accept their miserable lot in life, or to encourage soldiers to risk death.


What I did not recognise was that this was a very modern and utopian argument. To Men of the past it was obvious - so obvious that it seldom was stated - that mortal life was intrinsically a tragic thing.

For the ancients; all that we value, absolutely everything - goodness, beauty, family, our-selves - would be lost in time; would be changed, corrupted, would die and be lost altogether.

Suffering and sadness was a simple fact; and was unavoidable. The Good News of Jesus was that this suffering and sdaness need not be inevitable and forever - there was something better... if we wanted it.


The modern attitude, that I used to have, was implicitly that mortal life was naturally (or, if not, then potentially, achievably) a kind of utopia; and that the suffering and miseries were actively caused by choices of Men.

In other words, with modern utopianism there was a denial of what had previously been regarded as the immovable fact of the sad, transitoriness, bitterness of mortal life.

So Christians, by their focus on the hypothetical after-life, are seen by 'moderns' as choosing Not to make real mortal life good (or better); whereas atheists are seen as focusing their best efforts on the place where they could achieve the most good: the material actuality of of daily existence.


So the Good News of Jesus, that we can have an eternal life in Heaven, is regarded by typical modern people (such as my former self) as a distraction from the proper business of living: which is the progressive, Leftist project of alleviating mortal life by means of changing the structure of society.

It is assumed that the proper implementation of a socialist-type society can (and should) abolish the ancient, fundamental tragedy of the transience of mortal life. 

Some speculations over at Albion Awakening. Excerpt:

I really can't see where Brexit gets its strength in a material sense; therefore I infer that it is operating mostly in a spiritual sense.

If I am right, and I may not be! - this is good news in many ways; in that it may not be possible for the Establishment to thwart Brexit, since they are up against superior forces. If I am correct; then angelic spiritual forces are doing, and will continue to do, the 'heavy lifting' to extract Britain from the EU.

But on the other side, although spiritual powers could create a situation or set-up; it is the multitude of individual people of Britain who make the choices; and unless they are actively in favour of a better (more spiritual, Christian) future for Britain, then the future will not be better - but will continue to get worse in much the same way as-if we had remained in the EU.

So, we British may be gifted with a better situation, however, it is up to us to make something Good of it.

Few have yet noticed the sinister resurgence of those who revere the name of Saruman.

I became aware of the problem some years ago when a shiny black pillar was erected near to my place of work, and I realised it was a coded reference (a 'dog whistle' as it were) to the Tower of Orthanc. All easily deniable, of course - indeed the pillar was topped by a signpost - yet the dark sympathies were obvious to the sensitive eye, trained by years of being the unacknowledged victim of microaggressions.

We all know that Saruman was the Worst Person Ever; but to hear these cultists, he was a man 'ahead of his time', with 'some good ideas'. 'At least he was aiming in the right direction', they will say - pleading that the man was 'misunderstood'.

That, at least, is as far as they will go in public; but in private it's another matter. There is, indeed a covert Neo-Orthanc party; meeting in shady corners of the internet and seedy corners of our universities. Here, in what they imagine to be 'private', some of the more extremist (or perhaps just more honest?) will exchange their real feelings about their hero.

For these fanatics, Saruman's only 'fault' was that he happened to be on the losing side; and was defeated by an unsavoury coalition of tree giants and reactionaries. But so far as his visionary politics goes? Well, that they believe was wholly A Good Thing.

They will cite his 'advanced' ideas on destroying the 'Nordic' peoples, such as the Rider of Rohan, and replacing them with his mixed Master Race of the Urak Hai - who blended (according to these misguided but dangerous cultists) 'the best' qualities of Dunlander Men and Orcs. Hence the symbolism of the severed White Hand and the cloak of 'many colours'...

Although wanting to cleanse the world of militaristic pale males is - obviously! - laudable; eugenics is an absolutely unacceptable method.

But evil is evil. Saruman employed a nondiverse workforce due to his antidwarfism and dwarfophobic hiring practices; and imposed a glass ceiling on trolls. He practiced unsustainable forestry. He polluted the Isen with the extinction of several rare beetle species. And Isengard had By Far the largest Carbon Footprint of the Third Age.  


If you have been unaware of all this, then I am sorry to disturb your peace of mind; but it is necessary to know what is going-on if we are to resist, and hopefully, defeat it.

Once you realise, you will see the signs everywhere, crudely disguised - not only (albeit most explicitly) white-ish hands in various positions and poses; but black shiny long things, things with shifting colours, endless visual references to their hero's hat (pointy triangular things), or his soothing seductive voice (soothing, seductive things)...


The reason I raise this is that me and some mates have started to organise riots and beatings of people we suppose to be in some way connected with the Neo-Orthanc tendency. We have a cool name - Antisa - and there seems to be no shortage of money to pay for our costumes, bike lock batons and coach rides to city centres.

Some foreign guy with a funny accent always foots the bill and is very encouraging - although the single red eye in the centre of his head is disconcerting until you get used to it.

Don't worry about getting into trouble: Antisa all wear masks or headscarves (I told you it was cool!) and nobody ever makes us take them off.

Nor will you be ignored; the mass media are always there before we are, and they are always on our side and can relied upon to conceal any (rare) instances when brothers or sisters get over-enthusiastic or indiscriminate in a good cause.


Remember: when it comes to Neo-Orthancs, they are everywhere and they are evil; and anyone who hates them is therefore, by definition, Good.

Loyalty - a two-way loyalty - used to be the major organising principle of society and (therefore or because?) pretty-much the strongest of all ethical principles.

Loyalty was the glue of the ancient warrior societies, the churches, and the guilds. Individuals were loyal to their group; the group was what sustained the individual. And this was very strong indeed. Of course it was sometimes broken, on both sides; but it was very strong - as I say, it was perhaps the strongest of all societal glues.


This was an imperfect, and intrinsically alienated, life of the individual; since it entailed a self-subordination to the group. The institution inevitably treated the individual as, more-or-less, a typical and identical group-member.

A priest was first and foremost a priest - so far as the church was concerned; much the same with a doctor or lawyer with respect to his profession; or with a merchant or mercer with respect to his guild. The individual strove to become the group norm; and if he did - then he would be protected and sustained by the group.  


But institutional loyalty has been declining for several decades, is now very weak, and seems to be getting weaker. The process seems inexorable and irreversible - such that no group seems able to hold-out against it - and no lasting new institutions can be built based-on loyalty.

Indeed, experience suggests that it is nowadays foolish to rely on institutional loyalty (foolish for institutions, foolish for members of institutions) and a waste of time to try and rehabilitate it once it has begun to crumble.

Of course loyalty does not disappear all-at-once - but the signs of decline are obvious, and when they appear (which, for most institutions, they did some decades ago) then it seems unstoppable.


Does this lead to individualism in the current context? No It Does Not. It instead leads to greater uniformity.

Instead of being regarded as a partial individual, a group-member in an institution - an archetypal priest, doctor or merchant, among his peers... Instead of this, the modern person is merely a global unit.

He is not even a national unit - an Englishman - but just one interchangeable unit among seven billion others, all equally due to identical treatment by the Single International All-Pervasive Bureaucracy.

The modern citizen-of-the-world is theoretically supposed to be loyal to the global state, and to all other citizens and their interests -indifferently, impartially; and in return the global community is supposed to be loyal to the individual - look after him. But this vast and open-ended loyalty is impossible: it simply Does Not Exist; so loyalty is dead.  


At the visible and material level, the decline in loyalty has been caused by Leftism - which has encouraged disloyalty to all traditional institutions (especially family and church). But the Left is itself equally - or more - prone to the disloyalty it foments; and by itself systematic disloyalty would have destroyed the Left before it could damage everything else...

Unless, that is, the Leftist ethic of disloyalty was pushing at an opening-door; and that was the already-existing inner decline of loyalty as a motivator.

Indeed, I believe this to be the case; albeit not with declining loyalty as the primary driver, but with declining loyalty as a consequence of the rising in strength of a conviction that inner, personal, intuitive conviction ought to be the bottom line ethic.


This is the Romantic impulse - which I regard as a transformation of consciousness, from within - and it became evident from the middle 1700s in Western and Central Europe; spreading-out from there to much (but not all) of the world.

However, and this is vital, Romanticism/ individual intuition can only be an organising principle when within a Christian framework; and it must be the kind of Christian framework that thoroughly understands that we are all divine children: i.e. that God is literally within each person and that each person is a literally a sibling of all others.

Without this kind of Christianity; Romanticism will-be/ has-been taken by Leftism, made materialistic, and become merely a force for social disintegration.


Only in a Christian metaphysical, fundamental, over-arching context can the Romantic impulse (which is there, anyway, whether we like it or loathe it) - even in theory - become a force for Good.

Only when Christianity builds on the Romantic impulse can it be a powerful individual motivator.

But then (if it could happen) we may be able to re-build society on a better basis than by self-subordination to institutions. 

I'm engaged in the melancholy task of sifting an accumulation of my old papers; and throwing-out as much as possible.

The thing is, my Filing System is that - when I've decided something must be kept, I put it in a box.

When that box is full, I put the newer papers in another box.

After more than thirty years, I have a series of boxes in roughly chronological order (except when I later stuffed some papers into an earleir box) - each representing a phase of my professional life; each containing mostly-disposable stuff such as photocopies of academic papers, background reading and drafts for long-completed writing project - but as well as the disposable, also things I still want to keep; such as copies of my own magazine, journal and newspaper publications.

In sum, I need to sort-through every last piece of paper.

I find it a wrench even to discard material I haven't looked-at for thirty years - for example, material related to my long-abandoned MD research on neuroendocrinology of psychiatric disorders, MA research on Scottish author Alasdair Gray, or the papers from 1989-94 relating to the function of the human adrenal gland.

Some stuff I am pleased to be rid of: bad scientific papers by dishonest authors; nasty reviews of my books that I had kept 'for the record'; detritus of dull conferences...the turgid tedium that is 99% of academia...

I have been, since the mid 1980s, a pretty prolific writer; and there are some things I had completely forgotten I had written. An article for Living Marxism magazine!* Some-things in the NHS manager's journal (presumably done for money?). An amusing column about 'pinch-me words' for the British Journal of General Practice (provoking the wistful obervation that I used to be a pretty adept comic columnist). These were retained.    

Obviously, I need to press-on - and not be distracted. But then I find scraps of evidence of how I developed ideas which I consider to be quite good; and these sometimes hold me up for a minute.

...Such as a sheet of paper summarising the nature of mania, dated 1998, and which was absorbed into my Psychiatry and the Human Condition book. I stalled on this, examined the notes; and was quite impressed at the line of reasoning... but it still has to go into the bin. Or, from about the same time, one side of A4 notes which were for a pro-atheist lecture I gave as one side of a debate, at the invitation of the local Christian Union: describing how there was no longer any need for Christianity. Was that really me?

This is the kind of stuff which would presumably be marvellous evidence for the biographer of some worthy genius like Coleridge or Tolkien - but not for me - so into the 'recyling bag' it all goes.

But not without a shrug of regret.


*Note: Although I have been an atheist, socialist and many other bad things - I never have been a Marxist of any kind, whether Living or not. But before I began blogging, I used to publish journalism all over the place, with whoever asked for something. The Living Marxism group were a pleasant bunch; and they are still going - producing the online magazine Spiked - and I'm still not sure what their covert agenda really is. Although I am sure that they have one, and nowadays it isn't mine.

From about fortyfive years of experience, since I read Lord of the Rings (LotR), I agree with Tolkien's opinion that fantasy is essentially a literary form.

After I read LotR, I tried to repeat or extend the experience by seeking in other art forms. At that time, there was not much material (that I could access, anyway) but I eagerly looked at such posters and pictures I could discover - including those by Tolkien himself.

But I found almost all of them unsatisfactory; and of those I did like (such as the work of Pauline Baynes) I would not say that they added to my experience of the books, or increased its depth - it was more a matter of taking the edge off my hunger. Tolkien's own pictures are often very good, but not in the sense of amplifying what he had done in the books. None of them looked like the real places (or people).

I have always found the musical side unsatisfactory too. My search began with medieval and folk music; and while I did develop a taste for these forms, I could never find anything which I felt fitted into the world of LotR - nothing that could have been perfomed in that world. Since then this has not changed. I never find that any musical setting genuinely fits the world of the book. Although I really enjoy Howard Shore's music from the movies (and own CDs of both the soundtrack and orchestral suite) - this is quite separate from my experience of the books. Certainly I cannot imagine Shore's music actually being sung or played in Middle Earth. The same applies to the way that songs are performed in audiobooks, and audio dramatisations adapting the novels; they may be good, but never 'fit'.

As for the matter of visual dramatic adaptation itself - again it is different. When Middle Earth is visually depicted in a movie or drama, the primary and specific fantasy element is closed-off rather than deepened. The LotR movies are about as good as movies can be - but there is a great gulf between fantasy in movies, and literary fantasy.

Literary fantasy is capable of much greater depth and active-power than movies - because reading a fantasy is (potentially) a collaboration, while watching an movie is (mostly) a passive and immersive experience. Now, clearly many people read novels as substitute movies; and want to be 'drawn in' and pulled along'; they call a desirable novel a 'page turner' and are desperate to reach the end and know what happened.

But the best novels, and the best fantasy, is much more than that; which is why we always want to re-read the best work, and engage with it/ think about it rather than 'lose ourselves' in it. I am, of course, aware that there are many/ most people who never re-read - but there are many/ most people who simply 'consume' LotR; and at most have fantasies 'about' it, or 'based-on' it - rather than getting from it the special quality that fantasy offers. And there are people who have that kind of 'exploitative' relationship to all books.

The kind of ideal, active engagement I am talking of is almost sure to be personal and idiosyncratic; it can't be manufactured, and it must be based on a spontaneous affinity between the reader and the work (and its author). There are likely to be only a few books that evoke this kind of reading, for most readers - and the great bulk of our reading is on a lower level, and for lower motives.

But if we do have this relationship with a book - and I suppose it would be the ideal kind of relationship which both author and reader seek - then we perceive the basic unsatisfactoriness of other art forms, when it comes to the genre of fantasy.

David Icke has often emphasised the extent to which the evil Establishment use their control of information and communication to enforce a 'perception deception'. Clearly this is important enough that increasing efforts are expended on filtering and distorting the mass media and public discourse generally.

But on its own, this would be ineffective. For example, a large majority of Christianity's billion-plus strong rival monothesism who are utterly immune to the media and official sources of deception, when it comes to matters pertaining upon their own religion; and this applies even among those living in developed nations and deluged by the full forces of modern materialistic Leftist propaganda.

Yet the great majority of Christians, in these same nations, are ineducably gullible when it comes to mass media manipulation. No matter how often they are lied to, and then discover the lies; they stubbornly continue to believe what they are told by the mainstream sources of 'news', state propaganda, and mainstream 'educational' institutions.

What this shows us is that even when perceptions are almost fully controlled and coherent in their distortion; this has very little effect on someone whose assumptions are not receptive - while on the other hand, someone who is disposed to believe the kind of stuff being fed-them, will continue to believe no matter what their personal experience may be.

Adherents of Christianity's great rival know (correctly) that Western rulers are fundamentally hostile to their religion and will not believe otherwise (no matter what information they are fed); whereas Western Christians simply cannot believe (no matter how much experience and evidence confirms it) that the Establishment are servants of evil and engaged in the strategic destruction of Christianity.

Neither group learns from experience (including from perceptions) because the vital factor is how experience is understood; and that depends on the assumptions in-light-of-which the perceptual data are interpreted. 

In sum, the Perception Deception strategy only works in The West because we have been set-up with a set of fundamental assumptions (ie. a metaphysical system) which leads us inevitably to be deceived in the ways that the Establishment wishes.

These fundamental assumptions include the whole ideology variously-named as materialism, positivism, reductionism, scientism and the like - it is that atheist, this-worldly, anti-spiritual - and Leftist - set of assumptions that have been built incrementally since the 17th century, and upon which the entirety of public life operates - even for (nearly all) would-be serious Christians.

Therefore, Christian belief tends to be a shallow and encapsulated assertion - and all of the main business of everyday social and working life operates on entirely unrelated secular-materialist-Leftist principles; and in practice it is the SML principles that are given priority and Christianity which gets fitted into them (or rejected).

My conclusion is that many/ most people are prone to neglect the most important reason why our society is so deeply corrupt and evil, and so blindly complacent to that fact and consequences. Even if (which is not going to happen) we had a balanced media and functionally-orientated institutions; we would still be on track to physical and spiritual annihilation; because our deepest convictions about the nature of reality are false.

But nobody, not even from the churches, is going to encourage you to examine your false and fatal metaphysical assumptions; if you want to become immune to evil manipulation, you will have to do this for yourself. 

I don't vote - and I have not participated in any vote for about a decade, whether that vote be an election or in a small meeting. The reason? I regard voting as intrinsically immoral and illegitimate.

So, what would happen if, like me, great masses of people stopped voting - in particular in national elections, even in referendums like Brexit? First and most obvious, in the short-term - the elections etc. would be decided by those who did vote, without reference to those who did not...

But what would happen then. From experience, and by what I understand of people, the matter would not stop there; because a deliberate refusal to vote - when the decision is made on moral grounds - has many knock-on effects.

I found that when I stopped voting, my fundamental attitudes about all sorts of things changed. It was a Red Pill experience that kept growing. By not-voting I found that all decisions made by voting were de-legitimised, had authority removed from them, seemed arbitrary and irresponsible.

Not-voting dispelled the black-magical confusion of being required to regard - in advance of the outcome - whatever derives from voting as correct, just and moral. Despite that there is no responsibility for this outcome.

I realised from not-voting that voting exists primarily as a psychological manipulation; as a way of getting masses of people 'on board' with the agenda imposed upon them. A key way of neutralising dissent. A displacement of responsibility from any individual to a 'system' - and also a displacement of responsibility from the rulers to the ruled.

Clearly, voting is not for the good of the individual doing the voting - it must therefore be for the good of the people arranging the votes - the bureaucracy.

My experience and inference suggests is that the long-term effect of many people not-voting would probably be a significant degree of awakening to important realities. In short, mass not-voting would quite likely make the world ungovernable by the current Establishment.

Whether this would be a good or bad thing depends entirely on what came to replace Them; on whether the new rulers and their system were better or worse than the current.

But the psychological consequences of principled not-voting would surely be revolutionary.

This ought to be answerable from personal experience, from basic and innate human knowledge - especially by reference to what we know of thinking from young childhood; and before 'socety had imposed its Models upon us, before society wrongly-described what are fundamental categories in terms of superfical, current, narrow, evanescent hypotheses...

To a child, thoughts are real - they are readable by some other people, and regardless of of location. As a child, my thinking might be being-shared with my parents, for example, while I was having those thoughts - even when my parents were out of sight and earshot.

The sharing of thinking was therefore direct, instant, with no detectable link - thinking was not a communication, but two (or more) minds thinking the same thoughts at the same time. 

If I know something, everybody else knows it too - I cannot keep knowledge to myself. If I knew where something was hidden, so did other people - and they could find it; even if I had not told them.  

Many things can think, maybe everything can think. You need to be careful what you think about things, because they will know of it, and might respond with hostility. Likewise if you are attracted to something or somebody - that new girl at school - she will know, everybody will know, you like them; as soon as you like them. If you have a dream about her, she will know that too.


Thinking of somebody or some-entity would tend to draw the attention of that being. If I awoke in the night and thought of the owl, the owl would know this, and start hooting. As I was aware of him, he was aware of me.

The owl knew that I heard his hooting, and directed it at me. He knew I was scared by the sound, and might come up to the window to get closer, and hoot louder... To escape, I had to stop thinking about the owl, block-out the hooting, think of something else.

Thoughts were like wishes, therefore, To fear the death of a person, or the occurrence of an event, was to invite that to happen. This is what happens in dreams - after all.

That is what thinking is, what thinking does: Thinking is causal.


These properties of thinking are spontaneously known.

If we find thinking hard to explain - then that is a limitation of our explanatory models.