Bruce Charlton's Notions

Trust is a proximate matter. 

There are those who say they 'trust the science' but what they are proximately doing is trusting the mass media, and government officials. They know nothing of the ultimate that is 'science'.

Indeed, even professional and credentialled 'scientists' are not 'science' - since scientist (for several decades) is just a job; a job in which you are not evaluated by truth-seeking or exact truthfulness; and where all the modern incentives are in the direction of (deniable) exaggeration, hype, spin, selective distortion; money-making ability ('grantmanship'), careerism and conformity to bureaucracy. 

Or, if you are a Christian - who actually do you trust? The church in an ultimate sense... yes, but proximately there is massive and deep disagreement between churches, subdivisions of churches, even within your chosen church's sub-division; and between that church now, and in the past... 

And your exposure to any teaching of the past comes via understanding the communications of the present - indeed via a few very specific conduits who are not, themselves, 'the church'.

Reflection will show that you actually-have, your-self, already-chosen from among many various available 'church' possibilities - even as you claim (to yourself, probably to others) that you are 'simply obeying the teachings of the church'.  

And the same applies (mutatis mutandis) to those who shelter behind an assertion of mere-obedience to the authority of tradition, the Bible, theology, or Any Other external authority. 

(On top of all this is the - surely undeniable by now? - gross corruption of the churches - their assimilation to the mainstream secular agenda - such as (any one of, because one will suffice to corruopt) birdemic-healthism, antiracism, climate change, the sexual revolution, open-borders mass migration and egalitarianism. Mere obedience to any church that is thus corrupt, and has therefore substantially joined the side of The Enemy, is surely liable to lead to damnation more often than salvation?)

What these times are asking of Christians seems to be an acknowledgment of this actual fact of our personal discernment; demanding we cease to shelter-behind the evasion of personal responsibility that is an assertion of 'obedience' to a 'church' who you, personally, have in fact either selected, or else selectively-accepted.  

Again: To assert passive obedience to an authority which you deny having personally selected, is a dishonest evasion. 

...Hence, it should be needless to say: UnChristian.

I suspect that the main benefit of these times, and especially this annus horribilis of 2020; would be if the events awaken those who are sleepwalking to self-chosen damnation. These are those who can (perhaps) be saved, those for whom 'events' might be significant.

(Whereas those who have consciously and deliberately chosen evil are beyond such stimuli.)

So we are experiencing what might be termed a Great Clarification - when that which was covert has become overt; when the 'conspiracy theories' are coming out-of-hiding, displaying themselves proudly and nakedly, exposing their alliances, and shouting their formerly secret agendas of destruction.  

I am not saying that those who still sleep are blameless; because to remain asleep now is cupable. Sleeping through the Great Clarification takes some doing! And it does not happen unless people are determined Not-to Awake. 

They fear to awaken, because of dreading what they will find. 

To recognise that the ruling-class, the Global Establishment (politics, government, law, education, the mass media) are all One System, a monobloc; and that unitary System is so very grossly-dishonest, and  acts as if dedicated to the destruction of civilization, is indeed a terrifying prospect. 

The contrast between official reality and experienced, observed, common-sense reality has widened as never before.  

It seems to me that only strong faith in the loving, personal God known by Christians, and the prospect of resurrected eternal life through following Jesus Christ; could even potentially overcome such massive cause for fear.

Lacking which, it is unsurprising (although still culpable) that so many choose to dream the Big Lie; to live by faith in the Global Establishment (including, as it does, the mainstream self-identified Christian churches) - rather than in light of their direct and personal knowledge of God, and the guidance of the Holy Ghost. 

This is time for the sleepers to wake. 

I am reading On the banks of Plum Creek - which is part of the Little House on the Prairie (so-far, wonderful) series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - and the main character mentioned that she expected her reward for being a Good Christian was to become a beautiful angel. 

This idea much appealed to her, and was a strong incentive for 'good' thought and behaviour.

I have encountered similar ideas many times over the years - I mean the idea that the aim of a Christian life was to become 'an angel'. 

I personally think this is true-enough; since I regard 'angel' as a 'job-description' for messenger, intermediary; and therefore a resurrected man or woman might well be an angel. (The other type of angel is a pre-mortal, never-incarnated spirit.)

However, for mainstream Christians - whether Protestant, like Laura Ingall's Wilder's heroine; or any type of Catholic (Western or Eastern) - angels are a separate creation from Man, essentially spiritual beings (who cannot and do not ressurect) - so that Men cannot become angels; and especially not after resurrection into Heaven.

At least; that is what priests and theologians of mainstream Christianity have been saying for most of the past 2000 years... 

Yet, this popular/ lay/ naive Christian belief persists - apparently naturally and spontaneously - since I doubt whether anybody has been officially taught that mortal Men can look-forward to becoming angels.   

Here is a situation where many actual Christians over the centuries, including many (apparently) Good Christians, have held a heretical belief. 

And if you are like me, you may agree that those uncounted 'ignorant' folk may well have been closer to the truth than Establishment opinion - despite flying in the teeth of official doctrine as expressed by informed and educated opinion.   

The above quote “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” comes from a Philip K Dick essay; but PKD himself was not happy about that definition - and it is frequently refuted so in his own fiction and the Exegesis. 

It is being refuted on a daily basis in 2020. 

To define reality in terms of 'experience' is a pragmatic definition; the idea that reality will bite whoever denies it, and reward whoever honours it. 

But this, in the end (if you pursue it), this principle can be seen to reduce to "reality is whatever is expedient". What 'works' cannot atheoretically be distinguished from 'what is expedient'. Always a causal path must be inferred. 

And Expediency is, substantially, a matter of power. 

Furthermore, the assumption is that when reality bites, we will know it is reality. But this is obviously not the case in a world where government, education, major corporations and the mass media are all speaking from the same script. 

When reality is-biting, it may be denied that this is a bite, the pain can be attributed to some other cause; because there are no 'facts' without interpretation. 

Interpretation can deny the factuality of a fact in one direction; or make a lie, or an abstraction, into 'a fact' in the other direction - and people cannot usually tell the difference (nor do they care to try)

Power can make almost anything expedient, at least in the short term; for example believing that men and women can change sex. 

This is made true, according to pragmatic definitions, because those who sustain it are rewarded and those who deny it are punished. And that kind of in-your-face reality doesn't go away - at least not in the medium term of years and decades.

And power can - much more easily - make almost anything inexpedient - therefore 'un-true'; even when some-thing is supported by (for example) a century's worth of uncontradicted scientific evidence - such as class or racial differences in 'g' (general intelligence, measured by IQ). 

Many things that happened and are real - real according to science, personal experience and common sense - have been made to go away by the combined efforts of education, government, laws and the mass media.

So power can make anything true and anything untrue by PKD's definition - if we define truth according to our practical, everyday experience of things. 

This is because there are no facts without theories - and no theories without assumptions. 

And assumptions can be smuggled into culture, and minds, either by false arguments or by covertly concealing them in political communications, laws and workplace regulations, news stories, TV dramas, movies etc. CS Lewis called this Bulverism, and it happens all the time, deliberately and strategically - at many levels, and with many twists. 

Anyway; if reality cannot be defined pragmatically; then what is real reality; how can we define it? 

We first need to assume and acknowledge that reality is really real - we cannot define reality from a place of being agnostic about its existence! The only people who can coherently discuss the nature of reality, are those who acknowledge it is. 

We also need to acknowledge that we inhabit a creation. Only if life overall has a reason, purpose, meaning; can we talk in terms of reality - as a term contrasting with not-reality.

The we have to introduce God into the discussion: God the creator. A personal God (not an abstract deity) has to be the creator, if there is to be a reality that Men can know.

Indeed, for men to know - Men must also share in the same divinity as God the Creator. (Which, for Christians, is a fact.)

In conclusion, PKD was writing for a mixed audience of mostly atheists and 'agnostics' (de facto atheists); and was trying to discuss reality in a way that included this audience. But - as we know from the Exegesis - PKD was a theist (a Christian), and he knew from his personal spiritual experience, that materialism, the denial of God and the spirit, could not discern reality. 

PKD knew that Man relies upon God (a truthful and loving deity, outside of creation) if Man is to know reality - and this is a theme of much of his best work. For instance; In Ubik, Runciter is 'God', outside 'the world; trying to communicate with Man (inside the delusory and hostile world of cryogenic half-life) by means of signs - and providing help to awake to reality with the substance Ubik. 

At his best and deepest - Philip K Dick knew what everybody in 2020 ought to recognise. Without God Man cannot know reality - cannot distinguish reality from demonically-induced delusions, human manipulations, or from wishful-thinking.

And even with God, we still must make the right choices. God-without (the creator) gets us half-way to reality; God-within-us (present because we are children of God) is needed to get us the rest of the way. 

If you want a pop singer (or any kind of singer) with a very good voice - it may be that sacrifices must be made in terms of the... overall package. Sometimes the old phrase that "only a mother could love that face" (or whatever), springs to mind.

Of course there are some attractive singers who are very good singers (Debbie Harry from Blondie, for instance) - but good voices are rare enough that there is usually a trade-off between looks and voice. 

Typically, of course, pop singers are marketed on the basis of looks rather than vocal flair - and steps are taken during the recording process to cover-up the deficiencies. But when the vocalist is chosen by a musically-talented instrumentalists or composer; he is likely to choose a musically-talented singer. 

The gifted composer and synthesiser virtuoso Vince Clarke exemplifies this with his picks; about whom we can say they are all very good singers, and also that you could tell they were going-to be good, even before they opened their mouths:  

Note: Much the same applies in opera. My choice of probably the two greatest singers of the late 20th century would be Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti - and they certainly weren't picked on the basis of their looks:

Regular readers will know that I like to share astoundingly good musical performances here from time to time - this is one. 

I mention it not only as a great performance by a great conductor of a great orchestra of a Mozart masterwork - but because this symphony is only about 18 minutes long. 

So, if you have never sat down and really listened with concentration all through a symphony (which is a daunting prospect, outside the concert hall) - then this might be an ideal start; not least because it is such an immediately likeable piece of music.

I have always appreciated Karl Bohm as a conductor of Mozart, which was why I sought out one of his recordings. Initially I intended having this music as 'background' while I was writing - I know the Haffner Symphony pretty well. But as soon as this particular performance began, it grabbed my attention - gripped and held it. I was entranced. 

There is a lot here that deserves comment. Above all - because it is most important - is the phrasing of the melodic components. For example, the way the first violins carry the main melody throughout is so sinuous, so wonderfully-shaped, it seems to draw me from one note to another. 

And this is also happening all through the orchestra (if you switch attention to some of the inner lines, or the bass), while being held together in chords that have a delicate and beautiful musical-colouration from the various combinations of instruments (especially the winds) - which Bohm and the great Berlin band balance so delicately. 

Delicately yes, always - yet this is a symphony of wide dynamic contrasts, swelling and subsiding from loud to soft - extremely, and often. These volume changes are, like the melody, done in a smooth and always-connected way; so that when there is a sudden loud chord it feels as if it is an extremely rapid volume increase (instead of being a sudden and disconnected blast). All of which helps to hold the piece of music together - horizontally (through-time) as well as vertically (between simultaneous notes). 

Just a brief aside: this symphony and performance shows how important the bassoons are to an orchestra. They are nearly-always present, doing a vital job in articulating the bass line, giving it 'corners', in a fashion of which the double bass alone is incapable - but here we are more aware of the bassoons than usual!

One thing about a truly great performance, is that it combines what are usually regarded as opposites. Consider the rhythm. This is a very 'rhythmic' performance, with a strong forward movement; but this is not achieved by hammering out a strong beat - instead it is done by a bouncing, springing rhythm. Much as with the melodies; there is an ebb and flow of the rhythms, that shape-into and out-from what went before; rather like a heart-beat that accelerates and decelerates as needed. 

As with any great conductor; Bohm is showing us (teaching us) things about Mozart that we didn't know before, and could not be expressed otherwise than in performance. As I say, I have heard this symphony many times; but I was all through, again and again, being surprised (in a delightful way!) by what was happening, what Bohm was doing. 

The ensemble, the playing-together, is outstanding. Even a top-notch orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic in 1959 plays better on particular days, for particular conductors. This gives a clarity to the loudest or fastest passages - which can so easily degenrate into fuzzy, indistinguishable blocks. 

The individual instruments (or sections) are distinguishable, at the same time as they blend, the individual notes are separated even as they flow...  this is another of those 'impossible' opposites which a great performance achieves. 

You may wonder why such a fuss is made of conductors. This performance shows why. A great conductor (and these are as rare as other kinds of greatness) plays the orchestra much as a great concert pianist plays his instrument. But the instrument of a symphony orchestra is far more complex than a piano; which means that a good band is even more important, and even harder to achieve, than a good Steinway. 

Furthermore; the potential complexity of the best symphonic music itself, and thus the number of factors at work in performing such music on that most complex instrument which is an orchestra; raises the musical difficulty to a very high level indeed. 

So, the great conductor needs to be a great musician - a master of musical understanding and execution - to a degree that is only exceeded by the great composer.   

One final thing - if you do listen. The thing that makes a symphony 'a symphony' is the 'development' of themes. So a symphony is not just a series of tunes - one after the other (like many overtures); but (often) just a couple of tunes, which are 'played-with', varied and combined. 

This is especially evident in the first (Allegro) movement. What to look-out-for is the way that the simple themes are 'stated' then transformed - fragments of melody are taken and recombined, overlapped, passed around the orchestra etc. 

Elements of the original tune may be used as countermelodies (counterpoint) to other elements. There are changes of key (up and up, or down and down); new chords generated; and the general effect is of increasing musical richness and sophistication as the movement proceeds. 

In some symphonies this development process may go on a long time and become rather hard to understand; but in this short and concentrated work there is just enough to make the point. 

This year we have seen the death of Christopher Tolkien and Walter Hooper (March 27, 1931 – December 7, 2020) - who were our primary links to those great men JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. 

Christopher Tolkien was, of course, JRR's youngest son; and from early childhood there was a special bond between them. The relationship between Walter Hooper and CS Lewis was very different - they first knew each other by correspondence; but the amount of time they spent together was only a matter of weeks, and too-swiftly terminated by the death of Lewis - before Hooper could take up a job as his secretary. 

What set Hooper apart from other Lewis scholars was his intense and sustained interest in every aspect of Lewis's life. My favourite of the books Hooper edited were Lewis's early diaries (All My Road Before Me), the Companion and Guide, and the three volumes of collected Letters. These all display Hooper's insatiable curiosity.

For example, if Lewis mentioned somebody in his letters, Hooper would not only identify them, and track down some information about them - he would often arrange to visit and speak with them (or, if they had died, with their relatives or friends). 

Hooper is therefore the reason why Lewis's biography is known with a richer and and more detailed context than almost anybody else I have read (perhaps only Ralph Waldo Emerson, among authors I know, has been studied in similar detail; and he had a century's 'start' on Lewis.). To read Hooper's editions of the diaries or letters is therefore an immersive experience: you can really believe you were there!

And this, I presume, is exactly why Hooper spent more than 50 years on his multi-faceted work as a literary executor, editor and introducer; because by doing so he could imaginatively be present all through his hero's life.

We whose lives are shaped by their works; are therefore extremely fortunate that both Lewis and Tolkien, in their different ways, were exceptionally well-served by two younger men who so lovingly curated their legacy. 

Just a reminder to myself and all of us; that chronic fear is a sin - because it means that we are failing to trust in God. 

Yet of course it is a sin to which most Christians are prone - and sometimes we react to realistic pessimism about the future with fear. 

And there are many grounds for realistic pessimism about the future in 2020. 

Fear happens. 

But when it does we should not excuse or defend our fear; but should repent it. 

And we should not try to allay fear by trying to convicne ourselves that 'it won't happen'; but by reminding ourselves to trust in God.

And by recalling that this trust is solidly rational; because God is the creator, thus has an influences on every current and all possible future scenarios; and further because the creator loves us, individually, as his children. 

You know the arguments; you've engaged in them I'm sure... The left has it that everything is political, and all politics is moral - so that every issue about any decision, about how to do anything, becomes moralised...

Well, here and now - this year of 2020 - the left is correct. Every little thing is moral: truth is also moral, and beauty as well. 

So, let's not fall into the trap of finding ourselves arguing that such-and-such is not primarily moral. Of course that is true in terms of survival, thriving, and the rest of it. But none of that matters anymore - Mankind has decided that none of that matters. All that will happen when we say something else is more important than 'morality' is that we will come across as immoral, materialistic, money-grubbing etc. 

The left is correct - when pushed back and back, everything is indeed moral. Just that everything is moral in the opposite way that the left means.

Don't let the left have a monopoly on moral absolutism! Argue about morality and nothing else. 

The argument should be that when the left says moral, they mean anti-moral. Leftism is the primary, dominant, mainstream, systematic strategy of evil in 2020, and evil is oppositional to real values, true values, Christian values: 

Leftism just is oppositional to the values of God's creation - from roots to twigs.  

So, if we argue, let's argue about what is moral - not about what is most effective, efficient, reasonable, factual or anything else. 

In 2020 nobody cares about What Works. 

That's clear. The world is coming-down all around us, very obviously - it is being actively demolished, before our eyes, on the basis of Big Lies, on the basis of Moral Inversion... 

So, let's try and make sure that when it does come-down, at that moment we know what is virtue and what is evil. 

After all, that's minimally necessary for salvation. 

Because that is what all this is all about, ultimately. 

And ultimately might arrive quite soon. Be prepared. 

Rational and coherent people often comment on the incoherence of modern mainstream culture - perhaps expecting that this will lead to a recognition of error and reorganisation of priorities.  

But it never does. Oppositional-clashing continues and worsens. 

And very few recognise the underlying cause of all this incoherence.

Examples? 

On the one hand, in this Year of the Birdemic, mainstream modern culture has become mono-maniacally focused on health. Nothing in the world (human society, human culture, human survival) is more important than health; and every-thing must be sacrificed for (a little-bit) longer life for the extremely old and already-sick... 

On the other hand; the health services have been all-but destroyed. We have much, MUCH worse health care, and there is much less of it, than a year ago...

On the one hand; politicians are obsessed with increasing bureaucratic surveillance and control - which has reached unprecedented levels with the world living under house arrest, and almost everything banned (except for what is compulsory)... 

On the other hand; these same rulers have been encouraging riots, arson, violence; police told not to intervene, defunded, deleted... Gangsters, mobs and thug-rule are funded, defended and supported by the authorities. 

On the one hand; the Global Establishment strategy is to make every home a prison; stop mass travel - eliminate airlines, eliminate private cars; confine the masses within bicycle range of their residence - for limited, supervised 'exercise' periods... 

On the other hand that same Global Establishment want 'open borders'; fund and organise for vast tides of tens of millions of people ('refugees', 'asylum seekers', 'displaced persons') surging across the planet; mixing and stealing, raping and fighting; flooding already-crowded Western counties with immigrants and migrants; year upon year, with no control and no limit. 

On the one hand; They promote economic growth. The world economy is 'stimulated' with trillions of dollars. Vast sums are spent on improving transport 'infrastructure' with new motorways, faster railways, tunnels and bridges, space rockets and multiple-thousands of new satellites...

On the other hand; They have destroyed - what? - a third? A half? of the global economy by their 'lockdowns', massively inefficient birdemic restrictions, massively destructive racial and sex preferences, and endlessly growing bureaucratic red tape. The transport infrastructure is paralysed by pretend 'sustainable' projects. All businesses, corporations, institutions, organisations are in constant and escalating turmoil.

My point is that such gross, persisting, expanding incoherence and self-contradiction is not some kind of aberration or error - but is the very nature of mainstream modern public policy. 

Why? 

Quite simply because the underlying motivation of The Establishment is evil; and evil is oppositional. 

Evil is negative, not positive. 

Evil has no goal but the destruction of good, the inversion of values. It is not aiming at any alternative, stable, coherent plan for a 'better' world, or for any kind of 'civilization' or 'society'; it simply opposes God, creation and all-that-is-good - and it does so simultaneously, on many fronts.

The negativity and destructiveness of evil is disguised by lies. Satan is described as 'The Father of Lies' because lying and other forms of dishonesty - such as hype, spin, public relations, advertising, selective and distorted reporting, fake-news and monolithic news suppression, deletion of dissent, legalism, management-speak, empty rhetoric; and the proliferating sequential, rotating leftist ideologies such as socialism, feminism, antiracism, environmentalism, sexual and religious 'phobias'...etc. 

All are negative, oppositional, incoherent; all are based upon Untruthfulness: the inverson of Truth. 

And these systemic Big Lies are the necessary tools for motivating and excusing and explaining-away the underlying, strategic, progressive demonic agenda.

Incoherence and the clashing pursuit of incompatible goals is just business-as-usual for the architects and agents of evil...

Yet it is all invisible to most people, most of the time.  

Why? Simply because nearly the whole world has forgotten, denies or hates God; therefore has zero basis from which to discern incoherence; or recognise the negativity and destructiveness of the simultaneous-opposing trends which characterise 2020. 

Unless you yourself love God, creation and the Good - then you will never perceive that behind the oppositions and incoherences lies a single purpose, a single comprehensive plan. 

Nothing that ever happens will ever enlighten you to the core, fundamental reality of 2020: 

The plan to reduce divine creation to demonic chaos. 

William Arkle (edited for clarity from a privately recorded lecture):

My way of understanding something of ourselves and of our presence here in creation; is to attempt (from everything I know, and feel, and experience) to put myself where I feel the creator to be. 

I feel that's not a silly thing to try to do, because a part of that understanding is that our creator - our source of being - has given each of us a divine spark, a little bit of his own substance, that is the basis of our reality. 

And therefore within us is this alive, absolute reality of the creator's own being. 

So within us is this principle which is 'on the creator's wavelenth'. And because it is on the creator's wavelength it is able to move up alongside the creator, or into the being-nature of the creator... to the point that it is capable of doing such a thing. 

Much as, in our human life on earth, some of our friends - and even our children - can some-times get close to us...

The vital question of whether I can understand reality by means of an intuitive identification with God the creator, hinges upon our understanding of the nature of God and of our relationship to God. 

If a traditional monotheist (or 'tri-monotheist' Nicene-creed-like) perspective is adopted of an 'omni-God' (or a Supergod) - then the gulf between creator and Man is infinite and incomprehensible; so any  attempt to identify with God is futile, and indeed blasphemous (since it cannot work, but brings God down to our level). 

We cannot but submit to God's will - as it is reported to us by Authority. And we cannot, by knoweldge of God's real nature, discern whether God's will truly is as reported. 

But if the creator is seen as Our Father (or Heavenly Parents) in a real and literal sense - as understood, for instance, in Mormon theology and in a a close-reading of the Fourth Gospel regarded as the primary scripture; then understanding by identification makes sense.

(Albeit understanding is bound to be incomplete due to our relatively vastly lower cognitive capacity - analogous to a child's understanding of his parents.)

Once one has determined that an intuitive identification with God is possible, it naturally becomes a major aim of life; a thing which probably becomes the most important thing in life for understanding the nature of this reality, and our role in it. 

To know God intuitively is then something to which we would naturally dedicate our best and sustained efforts; offering - as it does - a way of discriminating the truly Godly from wordly impersonations, errors and lies.  

Something - therefore - we need now, more than ever.

One of the most painful - although, it turns-out necessary - trends through my life, has been the leaching of magic, of enchantment, from all institutions, and almost all places. 

This is the familiar 'public world' of materialist assumptions: that the world is made of 'things'; that subjective mind (consciousness) is separate and thoughts are epiphenomenal; that Beings are ultimately mere artefacts of the 'laws' of physics and statistical chance...

Although the theme of modern life becoming disenchanted goes back a long way, to the first Romantics around 1800; and the sociologist Max Weber defined it as characteristic of modernity more than a century ago. And it was also Weber who also named the Iron Cage of bureaucracy, which has been the primary mechanism by which enchantment has been destroyed. 

For me, the disenchantment of universities was probably the most painful of these trends; since I had grown-up the son of a 'professor' (consultant/ senior lecturer in dentistry) and known from an early age that this was a known world I felt organically a part-of. I was an insider. 

Right into the 1990s, there was a residuum of magic about academia - albeit a thin and dwindling stream compared with the height of the middle ages. 

But it was evident - here and there, again and again; and I valued that magic despite that hardly any of my colleagues noticed it, and even fewer liked it. Indeed, as an atheist, I depended on that enchantment at a deep level; for a sense of meaning and purpose in life, larger than myself.

The process of diminishing enchantment was partly driven by the evil destructiveness of bureaucracy (whose 'reforms' were always based upon lies and denied, unexamined false assumptions) - but also, underlying, by the long-term trend that Men were progressively less and less susceptible to enchantment. 

Magic, gradually, ceased to work. 

This can be seen everywhere - indeed, even in the world of magic itself: I mean the 'esoteric' societies of ritual magic that grew up from the late 19th century. 

In the late 19th century people were claiming all kind of magical manifestations; the rituals seemed objectively effective, indeed potentially dangerous - hence they were kept secret. But by the 1980s or 90s nobody was even claiming this, thus there seemed no need for secrecy; and the activities of magical societies were hard to distinguish from group psychotherapy, artsy 'happenings', or ritual pageantry. 

For most people, nearly all the time; Magic just doesn't work anymore. 

The old systems and symbolisms (alchemy, astrology, numerology, ritual objects and actions...) - are left looking more like bureaucratic flow-charts. People can still learn about the history of magical stuff, and intended correlations; but it is clear that objects and actions no longer animate people. 

The objectivity that linked magical things and doings with predictable real world effects has gone. Such correlations have become merely theoretical - or else reduced to (transient) feelings.  

The human mind seems to have become more and more resistant to magic. 

And not only among Westerners. The 19th century Amerindians 'needed' to introduce peyote in order to attain the mystical states that had previously arisen spontaneously. However, peyote is a mild, slow-acting psychedelic; requiring additional supportive group immersion and ritual actions. 

But among Westerners the psychedelic drugs of the 1960s were relatively a 'necessary' chemical sledgehammer of ultra-potent, or mega-dose, brain impairment agents; such extreme measure needed in order to create some warped simulacrum of the 'larger consciousness' that most people could experience naturally earlier in human history. 

Psychedelics are a last gasp of the idea that spiritual experience should come from outside, be objective and irresistible, should overwhelm the mind... and, of course, psychedelics have overall proved to be not merely a failure as 'entheogens', but actively counter-productive.

Cause and effect have worked together - and by now I find that the disenchantment of public life and my compelled withdrawal of reliance upon it has been an advantage - a necessity; as the whole organisational world moves ever deeper into more explicit evil. 

Anyone now mentally-dependent on any kind of institution is drawn into supporting the agenda of Satanic evil which has swept the world in 2020. 

Enchantment of our social world is now an illusion rather than an insight - albeit a flimsy and ineffectual illusion in a world where all institutions are permanently convulsed by externally-bureaucratic-media-imposed transformations, driven by global Establishment priorities (birdemic, climate change, antiracism, sexual revolution...). 

Here and now any magic must come from within - and modern institutions have no 'within'; they are permeable and hollow; the imperatives of The System sweep through them unopposed and uncontradicted - they are mere subsections of The One System.

This is related to an increased awareness of synchronicity as a 'mechanism' of enchantment. Synchronicity as the basis of a way of life was the core message of the 1993 bestselling New Age 'novel' The Celestine Prophecy; and this is indirect evidence that there are no longer effective magical 'systems'.

Magic is now something that unpredictably happens-to us - our job being to recognise and understand it when it happens. 

But mainly; our 'job' is to create the frame of mind (frame of Being) in which synchronicities happen more often, more powerfully and meaningfully; become 'normal', and link-together towards Good ends. 

Because - although this is seldom recognised - synchronicity entails a loving creator God. Acknowledgment and understanding of synchronicity takes us most of the way to Christianity!

Thus a modern Christian - at his most Christian - would experience life as a continuous-web of synchronicity. Quite naturally so - because a life of meaning and purpose would be full of positive and striking 'coincidental' happenings; one leading onto another. 

Our mortal life is sustained because of our need to learn - to learn for the resurrected life to come; and sychronicity is a kind of learning-opportunity. 

Thus synchronicity is not a code - not a system of objective correlatives, like the old magical system; but a natural aspect of a Christian life in this 2020 world where all meaning must come from God and from the divine within; because pretty much all of external life has become evil, meaningless and purposeless. 

2020 Magic just is Christian; not institutional. 

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The answer is related to the fact that The System is evil (by its strategic, top-down, demonic nature); and evil is defined as oppositional to God and creation; and because the fact that The System is oppositional means that The System is always changing; always becoming more extreme. 

The modern System is more fully evil, more fully negative, spiteful, resentful (Sorathic) than in the past, which means that it does not even pretend to be leading towards a stable utopia (as was the case early socialists and communists, early feminists or antiracists). 

Instead, The System (now firmly in-place since the global totalitarian coup of early 2020) it is continually 'fighting-against' some-thing or another (currently mainly the birdemic, 'racism', 'climate change'; and both Christian and biologically-functional sexuality). 

And there are always new things for The System to fight - because ultimately it will fight any-thing that is Good (true, beautiful or virtuous - or indeed any-entity that is alive and conscious hence exemplifies divine creation). 

(The ultimate goal of evil is chaos - the elimination of love, the war of each against all - and the destruction of all that is divinely-created.) 

Always oppositional means always changing - changing, worsening, not by accident but by design; thus when The System is winning (as in 2020) it is rapidly becoming more-extreme on a timescale of weeks. 

It is this increasing extremity that enables The System to be effective in its work of surveillance and control; despite that The System is all-the-time undermining its own efficiency by the same means it pursues evil. 

Thus, due to poor quality manpower and bad design, The System is very bad at achieving anything near to 100 percent reliability and validity in its work of omni-surveillance and micro-control of human behaviour. 

But, when the power and scope of The System are expanding week-by-week; and when opposition to The System from the masses crumbles week-by-week - then The System is always Good Enough to achieve its purpose. 

So The System, never bothers to wait for its new systemic surveillance and control systems to be fully implemented nor to achieve effectiveness - but is always and frequently introducing new and ever-more-severe systems of surveillance and control. 

Punishments for non-compliance - including punishments disguised as rewards for compliance (as with loss of 'privileges' required for basic physical and social survival) are escalated again and again; too fast to comprehend or even know about accurately. 

The individual only knows that he lives, more and more, only at the grace and favour of The System; which has an ever-increasing arsenal of methods for detecting 'wrong-doing' (i.e. fulfilling basic human needs and Christian duties); and an ever-increasingly severe armoury of punishments. 

Currently these scale up to long term solitary confinement, de facto compulsory injections with some-thing deemed necessary by The System; and having unconstrained (and unpunished) mob violence set upon us by The System. 

But next month, or the month after, these will surely be superseded by more extreme measures; because The System is always changing, always becoming more extreme...

We live only at the grace and favour of The System; The System gets larger, more pervasive and more powerful every few weeks - so its extent now and in the future is not known. And this grace and favour can be withdrawn at any moment; for good reason or bad - or none at all.  

Evil is dynamic and insatiable - what was unnoticed a few months ago, here-and-now stands-out from the ever-more-wicked average like a beacon, shining brighter and brighter, more and more obviously. 

We cannot for long hide any Christian living, any goodness of any kind, under a bushel; when the fires of evil are burning away all that stands around us and that bushel stands-out ever-more starkly from the always-worsening devastation.   

This is how a ramshackle System, full of holes and corruptions, less and less capable; is nonetheless able effectively to control more-and-more of the whole world with each passing month.

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I have written before about the fact that mainstream modern culture has no distinctive role for the elderly; and that all the old people held-up for admiration by the mass media are simply continuing to do what young people do as a matter of course - such as looking young, doing strenous physical activities, being very active (lots of sex, holidays and socialising - pre 2020).

In the end, however, for modern culture; old people are merely second-rate/ fake young people.  

The idea - and indeed the actuality - of old people as wiser then young, has disappeared. Modern 'exemplary' old people are Not wiser - unless 'wisdom' consists in pretending to be young; by ever-increasing usage of plastic surgery, cosmetics and drugs (lots of drugs!).

Modern old people are a failure! At present, especially in 2020, they are often much worse than the young in their cowardly and credulous embrace of the totalitarian Healthist agenda that (in reality) aims to imprison and (eventually) kill them.

Why are old people such a failure? The brief and truthful answer is Solzhenitsyn's phrase that They Have Forgotten God. Modern Old People are mostly Godless children of the fifties and sixties - even/ especially when they self-identify as Christian. 

This is significant, because one of the main roles of old gage - and the potential source of that wisdom associated with old age, is retrospective re-evaluation. 

When one is a Christian, retrospective re-evaluation happens almost spontaneously - which is why wisdom became stereotypical. 

What happens is that the past becomes as important as the present; and indeed looms larger in the attention of the elderly. Old people remember the events of their early life more often and more vividly than they remember the events of yesterday or last week. 

I don't mean due to the memory loss of dementia - although that is a pathological exaggeration of the natural phenomenon. I mean in terms of spontaneous attention and concern. 

The elderly find themselves going-over the events of earlier life in a way that is far more focused and concerned than they have ever previously experienced. What is then supposed to happen, is that these events are considered with Christian discernment.

Here, as in many places, we see that the purpose of this mortal life is Christian - and when one is Not a Christian it follows that mortal life is drained of purpose - as so many billions of people are experiencing at present.

What happens when we re-evaluate our earlier life from a Christian perspective; is that events and periods we regarded as being 'good times' often turn-out to be bad. 

For example, successful hedonism was enjoyable at the time; but we can now see that 'happiness' was merely pleasure - and often represented successful selfish short-termism. 

Periods of social success, high status, triumph - we now recognise were often bad for us; and ended by reinforcing the worst aspects of ourselves; generating pride, entitlement, passivity and other vices.

We may see that these supposedly 'happy' periods led to habits and attitudes, choices and decisions, that led to misery and alienation in the longer-term. Or led to harm done to other people - of which we were (selfishly) unaware at the time. 

On the plus side; we find that some of periods of 'ordinary' everyday experience, for example family life, which seemed at the time dull, mundane, constricting; were in truth the best and most important things we ever did!

That (then un-noticed) time, sitting or walking alone - looking at a view, or 'just thinking' - was actually of great and lasting importance! Part of our Golden Thread.

Superficially, 'nothing was happening' - yet now we find such events rising to the surface of awareness - and their magical transcendence is revealed for the first time. 

But none of this work of discernment and re-evaluation is possible unless we are Christian, and understand our mortal lives in terms of our choice to follow Jesus to resurrected life in Heaven. 

So it turns-out that one of the real functions of old age has been lost along with theism in general, and Christian faith in particular. 

Restore Christianity, and we recover the value of old age.  

The present situation is that the world, and especially the rulers of the world, are extremely evil: more so than at any time in history, because their evil extends to the ultimate form of value-inversion. 

Up to now, the masses have been - passively, and for short-termist and selfish gains, unconstrained by their Godless hedonism - going-along-with this top-down imposition of evil. 

Consequently the masses are by-now also extremely evil; as is abundantly evident, apparently everywhere in the world, in 2020. 

So, is there a realistic possibility - starting from where we Actually are Now, that there could be a movement to fight this evil? 

It seems timely to ask this question because, as of two days ago - and for the first time in some decades; there does seem to be a powerful leader against-evil in the shape of the incumbent US president - who has made a strong statement of intent to fight the foundational Establishment evil of strategic, systematic untruthfulness, dishonesty and (ever Bigger) Big Lies. 

Is it conceivable that this might be the start of a genuine 'movement' against this modern, global evil of untruthfulness? - which (I have often argued) is perhaps the single underpinning and most-pervasive evil of the modern world. 

I feel that is so; this could be the start of something Good and Big.

And I am in no doubt about the rightness of the cause. 

However, the moral fact that untruthfulness really is an evil, an important and growing evil, and ought to be fought; is by-itself not sufficiently motivating. 

Experience tells us, without doubt, that to be effective in virtue; Men must have something to fight-for, as well as fight-against.  

At present, Men are (I think, implicitly when not explicitly) being asked to fight-for democracy; that is, a kind of voting; which I regard as itself intrinsically tending-to evil (since it denies personal responsibility - and personal responsibility is the only kind). 

In other words, I regard stealing an election as evil because it is dishonest; and not because it is 'undemocratic'. To fight against dishonesty but for democracy, is merely to exchange one evil motivation for another; and it would therefore be of little or no net value. 

Indeed, it may even lead to worse things. 

Other possibilities are equally unsuitable. For instance it would not be a good thing to fight-for US 'greatness' - since greatness is not a virtue; and the same applies to the varieties of peace, prosperity, comfort and convenience that might be proposed as positive goals. 

I am, of course, saying that, on the one hand, Men will only fight when motivated; and, on the other hand, I am clarifying that - for Christians - only Christian virtues are genuinely worth fighting-for

For this potential movement to fight the evil of untruthfulness, and for this fight really to work (and I really hope that it will work) requires that the movement very swiftly becomes Christianised in its core positive motivation/s and values - Christian both among the leadership, and among the masses (or some of them). 

I don't know if this will happen, but I do believe that it could happen. 

I believe that a window has been created where such a thing is possible - if the right people, and enough people in the right circumstances, Do The Right Thing. 

As always the responsibility lies with you and me - because nobody can know the consequences of their virtue. 

Indeed, we should not even be trying to guess the probabilities of me-doing-good leading to good outcomes! That is devil's work!

We can only do it right, right-now; and then see what happens - which itself further depends on what other-people do, which itself partly depends on what we ourselves have-done. 

In the end it is down to us each to Do Right - Right Now. 

My current understanding is that we have three main type of divine guidance available. 

They are not, I believe, identical in nature - but they are (always and necessarily) in profound and ultimate harmony; because of their shared committment to the goals of creation as motivated by love.

Actually to gain access to these forms of divine guidance (here, now, 2020) requires that we each make conscious decisions, and are spiritually active. 

...Because, while children and Men in the past (and perhaps other cultures still) may passively and unconsciously be guided (manipulated) by the divine; in our situation we need to to be conscious and active in our choosing our path through life. 

And, as the flip-side, if we are Not conscious and active in our spiritual choices; then (here, now, 2020) our committment to the divine will decline, and we will (sooner or later) almost certainly be induced to join the side of God's enemies. 

Such are these times.  

1. God - the creator

I think that the guidance of God the creator comes to us mainly via ongoing creation. In other words, God influences our lives by influencing the situation we inhabit, our circumstances, our environment. 

If we want to follow God's influence, we must therefore regard our world as a creation of God, and as having meaning and purpose for us as individuals - as continually being-arranged for our ultimate (eternal) benefit, by a loving and personal God. 

2. Jesus Christ - the Holy Ghost

My understanding of the Fourth Gospel is that it tells us explicitly that the Holy Ghost is the spirit of the ascended Jesus; by which he is avialble to all the people of the world for 'comfort' and guidance.

For this to happen, we need to be aware of the wise and loving continual presence of the Holy Ghost; and to open our minds to him, so that the Holy Ghost's thinking will arise in the stream of our thinking.  

3. God - within us

We are children of God, in the literal sense of being divinely-procreated by God (our Heavenly Parents) and of the being capable of developing and growing to be like God; of like 'kind', as was Jesus Christ. 

We are therefore immature gods/ godlings/ mini-gods now, already - and contain that-within-us which is in harmony with God's creation and purposes; albeit this guidance is only intermittently and incompletely effective (since it is not fully-developed). 

God-within-us is the reality behind the concept of conscience; and we know it by intuition - by 'introspection' (looking within' to our deepest nature (below or within the social conditioning and natural instincts); and this may occur in some kinds of prayer and meditation. 

All forms of divine guidance will agree each with the others; but not all may be discerned, or may be incompletely or distortedly discernible - so they may superficially appear to differ. 

But if deeper and more solid knowledge of individual kinds of guidance can be attained, then the unity of 'what to do' will emerge. 

We should recall and have trust in God that we are 'never left bereft' by God, Jesus, The Holy Ghost. That is - no matter what our situation - those who ask for help (spiritually) will always be given help, and a way-out.   

(The only truly-damned by circumstances, are those who will not ask for help.)

In these times of astonishingly rapid reductions in our 'physical', bodily, personal freedom - the matter of spiritual freedom becomes ever more important. 

Important not merely because the spiritual is the proper emphasis; but because (as 2020 has shown) without individual spiritual freedom then people cannot/ do-not care for their personal or societal physical freedom. 

Lacking spiritual freedom; people invert Good and evil; fail to notice when they are being physically enslaved, lack the inner conviction that sustains courage - and have become the passive dupes and servants of evil.

The Christian understanding is (or ought to be!) that our personal freedom is vital to God. 

In particular, we must be free to in order that we can choose to follow Jesus Christ to eternal resurrected life in Heaven. Heaven is not a default state - Heaven is 'opt-in'; therefore Men must truly be able to 'opt'. 

And we are.

It was one of the important insights of Mormon theology that incarnation - i.e. being embodied, having bodies - is an important aspect of human freedom. Or, better, human 'agency'; because 'agent' is the term for a self-motivated entity, and that self-motivation probably a clearer conceptualisation than freedom of what is required. 

The essence of freedom is agency, which is something like the 'ability-to-choose from one-self' - and freedom is not (as sometimes mistakenly supposed) a freedom-from compulsion, nor the availability of many options. It is this agency which makes Man also a god; because agency is a divine attribute.

But agency is not categorical; it is a matter of degree. My understanding is that every-thing (i.e. every individual Being) has agency - including the 'mineral' and 'plant' worlds - because all things are beings; and agency is a part of being an individual and alive.  But the degree of agency in a tree is much less than in a child, and a child less than an adult Man

So, the purpose of creation is, in part, the development of agency. God wants more agency in creation, and especially in Men; because God wants Men (or, more exactly, some men) to become more divine, to be raised closer and closer to God's level of divinity and agency; so that Men may increasingly - and with greater individuality - participate in the world of creation.

My understanding is that incarnation is a concentration and boundedness of the spirit. The body, to a lesser or greater extent, is a concentration of our being, and the body is a (partial) boundary against our perception of the spiritual world.  

Before our life on earth, we were spirit beings; and on earth we attain a temporary incarnation of mortal life, our body being made of earthly and material things (which are prone to 'entropy'; hence are always changing). 

Even to be born in a body is itself a partial separation from the realm of the spirit - although as young children we are still spontaneously and naturally aware of the spirit realm. But as we develop and grow, we increasingly separate from the spiritual realm including the divine; until, typically with adolescence, we become fully separate from God and the spirit - and that point it requires our agency to re-acknowledge the reality of God and the spiritual.  

In other words, God wants us consciously to choose to believe in his reality - and not for this belief to be unconscious and unchosen. If we make this choice we are theists - God-believers - but not (yet) Christian; it is by the further choice to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection that we become Christian. 

This is why we must die to attain Heaven - the temporary mortal body must be replaced by a permanent Heavenly body. But it is this temporary mortal body that grants us the agency to make that permanent choice (and commitment) for God, divine creation and Heaven.

In our mortal incarnation we are uniquely 'located' in time and space; we have an unique experience (an unique experience that is continuously 'managed' by God through the continuity of creation); we are in a world of continual change (indeed, an entropic world of net decay, disease, degeneration - tending towards death). 

Thus our experience of mortal life is one of constant and unstoppable change - and this provides the continuously-varying experiences from which we can learn.  This learning is why some of us live as mortals for extended periods; while other individuals, who do not need this learning, experience relatively brief lives - and die after conception, in the womb, or soon after birth. 

When this mortal learning is (Christianly) orientated towards our eternal resurrected life; this constitutes that spiritual development that is variously termed theosis, sanctification, or deification; we are becoming more god-like (although this learning will not become permanent and fully effectual until after resurrection). 

In sum: this mortal body is derived from the earth; while our resurrected body is derived from Heaven. Our mortal body provides the freedom, or agency, required to choose Heaven; and our lived experience in this entropic world provides potentially valuable experiences that may enhance our agency in Heaven.

We are free to reject God, and beyond that - having accepted God to reject Jesus Christ. Or, to put it more exactly; it is necessaryfor Christians that we first actively choose to believe in the reality of God, and then actively choose to dwell eternally in Heaven. 

For Christians, the current rapid destruction of our physical freedom is therefore an experience; but the relevant experience is that which is from the exact perspective in time and space which we each - as individuals - inhabit. 

Loss of physical freedom does not reduce our agency; it simply provides experiences from which we need to learn. However, we cannot learn from these experiences unless we acknowledge and deploy our agency - which is itself a consequence of the divine within us. 

All of the time we are alive, we are being-confronted-by experiences which (for a Christian) need to be met by our personal agency. Our agency needs to be acknowledged and deployed; which means that we each need to take responsibility for our knowing and learning, and for our choices concerning God and Jesus Christ. 

I would hazard that a particular, general, lesson of these times, is related to this; in the sense that it is being made more-and-more difficult for a Christian to be unconscious and passive and remain Christian. 

It is becoming increasingly obvious that one who accepts external guidance is accepting the demonic (i.e spiritual powers that are anti-God, anti-creation) - since this external guidance is almost always (and more clearly) corrupted, and increasingly inverted in its values.  

My point here is that what we physically do in mortal life, about the events of 2020; need to be grounded in a conscious apprehension of our personal divine agency; which is itself the basis for discerning guidance from external divine agency - the Holy Ghost. 

The fact that we have physical bodies is an advantage. Yes, they make us vulnerable to physical intimidation; but they are also what enables us to be agents who can choose from-our-selves: from our True Selves. 

And that - whatever happens physically, and however we may choose to support or resist the various (better or worse - much and increasingly worse) powers of this world - our primary task is to learn from the exact situation in which we are placed - which situation is continually being shaped by God for our best learning in this mortal context.

Which is why we must remember to Trust in God, now more than ever; so that we are not afraid - and are able to retain our necessary focus on the spiritual. 

If we succeed in attaining a higher mode of consciousness, i.e. what I have variously termed primary thinking, direct-knowing, intuition or Final Participation - here I will call it Heart Thinking - that we strive- and hope-for; then what would be the implications? 

What might we expect?

Nothing that could 'happen to us in the world' can be of any help to our alienated condition. What happens must happen in us; and furthermore what happens must be a qualitative transformation - quantitative change in consciousness does not suffice. 

What needs to happen is a change in our basic relationship with The World (including other people).

This new and distinct way of being-in-the-world is heart-thinking

If an apprehension of new-ness is driven by heart modes of thinking; then new phenomenon (which we observe in The World) are Not perceived by those who do Not share this new heart-based mode of thinking. So, when higher consciousness does happen, it is scary - as well as exciting, because - being qualitatively distinct - it sets us apart. 

Nothing that is perceived by 'everyone' can be a part of the higher thinking. Objective and putatively 'paranormal' phenomena (such as UFOs or Crop Circles) cannot be a part of the new heart consciousness, precisely because they are observable by everyone. 

Anything which can be observed by everyone is Not what is needed. 

This means that heart-thinking, qualitatively higher modes of consciousness - must and will appear psychotic (delusional, hallucinatory) to those who do not share that new mode of thinking. 

In sum: qualitative heart-thinking implies that we will experience qualitatively distinct, non-'objective' phenomena - insights, clarifications, knowings; perceived only by those who are heart-thinkers (therefore perhaps only ourselves, so far as we know). 

Furthermore, it is the nature of this mortal life on earth that we can attain higher modes of thinking only relatively briefly and intermittently. 

Therefore, the heart-thinking phenomena (resulting from higher consciousness) are going to be imperceptible for most of the time. Imperceptible, even to those who are able to live in the higher mode of consciousness. 

In other words, when I am living in a lower mode of consciousness - when I am Not heart-thinking, which is going to be most of the time - then I cannot at that time know-by-experience what I know-by-experience at times when I Am heart-thinking.

And this, in turn, implies that I must choose to be guided by that which I have-known in my highest mode of consciousness - those times of intuitive heart-thinking.  

Therefore, I think this is the way that we need to proceed in tackling what may be the primary task of this era for Christians; which is to become heart-thinkers. In the first place, heart-thinking is done actively and by conscious choice; and it must be discerned from the other - more obvious and distracting - types of thinking. 

And then there is a further decision to regard heart-thinking as primary - despite that it isn't forced upon us (nor yielded-to passively, often unconsciously); as happens with the dominant modes of 'objective'/ universal sensory perceptions, the compelling and pervasive ideologies of public discourse, or our biological instincts. 

(When we are passive, unconscious, automatic, yielding, accepting, surrendering, submitting - when we are thinking in terms of expedience, pragmatism, being-sensible - then we are not the mode of heart-thinking.)

Following which, we need to be prepared to live-by the direct-knowing attained during heart-thinking (our insights, clarifications, knowings) - even through those times (which is most of the time) when we are unable to live in the mode of heart-thinking.

My idea here is that the Ahrimanic impulse - which is evil in its cold, rational, systematic manifestation - has over the past couple of centuries consumed the more traditional Luciferic ('devilish') evil of short-termist personal lust, pleasure and torment. And is now being-consumed, in his turn, by 'Sorath'. 

The archetypal Ahrimanic evil is epitomised by a manipulative bureaucrat who presides over a state or corporate PSYOPS/prison/death machine; while Luciferic evil would be characterised by proximate evil: for example those who personally beat, rape and torture helpless prisoners.  

The final turning-point of the Ahrimanic consumption of Lucifer was when the Luciferic revival of the 1960s ('sex & drugs & rock-n-roll') was captured by the state bureaucracy - leading to a pervasive and intrusive system of monitoring and control for political correctness. 

Modern leaders are primarily Ahrimanic - and often anonymous/ hidden/ personally-timid; while old-style leaders were often Luciferic gangsters and pirates who cultivated a reputation for recklessness and the enjoyment of inflicting cruelty.  Luciferic evil now operates at a low-level in The System - among the mooks, minions and henchmen; while the ruling architects of evil have an Ahrimanic nature.

The Luciferic values were condensed and operationalised into systemic and materialist form; their spontaneity and pleasure were drained-away. 'Free Love' and open-ended promiscuity became compulsory sensitivity-training, and the threat of harrasment prosecutions. Spontaneity ("Turn-on, Tune-in, Drop-out") was incrementaly transformed into a world of proliferating committees, laws, guidelines and procedures; checklists, forms and feedback... 

But from about 2000; there was a further move towards the purest, most absolutely negative form of evil - which could be named Sorathic (adapting this from Rudolf Steiner's identification of Sorath as the most extremely evil of beings). 

Sorthic evil is neither about pleasure nor about control; it tends towards the purely destructive.

If Luciferic evil is motivated by short-teremist pleasure; while Ahrimanic evil is motivated by God-denial, spiritual blindness and reductionism towards a meaningless world of mechanical procedures; then the Sorathic impulse is driven by negative impulses - primarily fear, resentment and hatred.

Sorathic evil will therefore tend to destroy both the lustful pleasures of Lucuferic evil, and the complex functional bureaucracies of Ahrimanic evil. 

This is the Sorathic world we inhabit in 2020. 

A world in which the Luciferic lusts of sex/ drugs and the rock-and-roll lifestyle are forbidden and punished; and also a world in which the global system is being disabled and destroyed - even as its Ahrimanic architects have successfully accomplished a silent global coup, and are trying to perfect it into the grandiose schemes of The Great Reset/ Agenda 2030. 

In 2020 we observe all modern institutions, corporations and every kind of bureaucracy as rapidly declining in efficiency and effectiveness - under pressure from an ever-increasing culture of fear, victimology, entitlement and resentment. 

Sorath divides Mankind into more-and-more, smaller-and-smaller, self-identified victim groups; each resentful-of and pitted-against each other. The aim is eventually for each person to feel alone, consumed by feelings of thwarted entitlement, and hatred of the world; and living in permanent fear of a whole world of other people, each of whom resents and hates the solo-victim just as he hates them. 

And then - eventually - Sorath's intent is that everyone, without exception, should die in fear and despair.

Thus we see that Sorath takes Luciferic and Ahrimanic and pits the one against the other, to weaken and destroy both. Whatever gives pleasure is thwarted. Whatever has been created, and is complex or functional, is reduced to chaos. 

Chaos is indeed the key term. Ultimately, Sorath is driven by resentment directed against God and all of His works; and resentment of Man as a loving creating-being and all of his works. Sorath wants to reduce creation back to a primal state of chaos. 

And then - when all else has been destroyed - to destroy himself as a act of spite against the God who created him. 

Such is Sorath's fantasy. 

Note: JRR Tolkien depicted Sorath in his Silmarillion legendarium under the name of Morgoth. 

It is a little known (and much disputed) "fact" that Tolkien's first idea for the famous 'eucatastrophe' of the Hobbit - that unexpected turn in the Battle of the Five Armies, when all seems lost until the sharp-eyed hobbit sees their salvation coming - was that the phrase shouted by Bilbo would be: "The Beagles! The Beagles! The Beagles are coming!"

For some reason, nothing is said in The Annotated Hobbit, or The History of the Hobbit, about whatever strange sequence of events eventually led to Eagles being substituted for Beagles; but there can be few readers who are not disappointed by the change. 

The mental vision of a vast and magnificent pack of hunting Beagles, sweeping down the valley leading to the Lonely Mountain, there to destroy and devour the goblin army, is one that cannot really be compensated for by mere birds.

Perhaps Tolkien simply left-off the letter B by accident - or failed to read his own spidery handwriting; and then the error was copied in further drafts, and unnoticed by the proof readers and typesetters? Probably we shall never know. 

But - strangely - this same error propagated itself (or was propagated, deliberately) throughout Tolkien's other work; and the major role which Beagles were supposed to have in the entire Legendarium was - bizarrely! - eventually usurped by Big Birds of Prey. 

(I personally suspect that a hostile conspiracy was at work; perhaps related to the Anti-Blood-Sports lobby, which was even then active in England...)

Therefore, in the unfinished Lost Road and Notion Club Papers novels - the phrase The Beagle of the Lord of the West! was intended to recur throughout. This was to be uttered when a character looked up at the evening sky and saw great wide spans of cloud that looked... exactly like two enormous ears of a Beagle, spread across the heavens; a warning from the Great Beagle of Eru to repent before it was too late. 

But sadly that, too, was (apparently) altered to Eagle in the published versions - as was Pippin's hearing of the phrase being shouted in the battle outside the Black Gate of Mordor, when he thinks he might be hallucinating what had happened in Bilbo's story. But it is in fact Gandalf who, looking north, sees a great pack of dogs sweeping down upon the hosts of Sauron; and again calls in a mighty voice: The Beagles are coming!*

And after the One Ring has been destroyed, it was upon the backs of the three greatest of these Beagles that Gandalf was intended to rescue Frodo and Sam from the impending lava of Mount Doom. 

Surely a nobler and more satisfying eucatastrophic climax than the implausible notion of birds carrying men and hobbits in their claws!

One can only shake one's head sadly, at what might have been... 

*Note: It is most regrettable that, having made this error, Tolkien seemingly chose to 'double-down' on it, by using the flight of Eagles liberally as a narrative device; thus creating the notorious 'plot-hole' of Lord of the Rings - whereby (obviously!) an Eagle should have been used to fly into Mordor and drop the One Ring into the Crack of Doom. 

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog, I argue that Tolkien's great insight about the 'eucatastrophe' in Fantasy literature; was in fact a late life discovery - and one that went against-the-grain of his own natural tendency as a writer.