Bruce Charlton's Notions

We live in a world where there is a single, totalitarian and evil system - that has assimilated all major institutions, and controls both supply and demand sides of the economy. 

The System is global, and it is aligned with the agenda of Satan; and also The System is what keeps everyone alive. 

The measure of our situation (and what identifies these as the End Times) is that we cannot truly escape The System without dying. 

In such a situation, our inescapable duty can be described as System Distancing - so long as it is understood that this distancing is an essentially spiritual activity. We need to discern the evil of the system; identify its evil and sin, and thus repent our inevitable and unavoidable involvement both in and with The System. 

What about practical material aspects? What should we do?

What about reducing our engagement with the system - maybe even reducing our dependence on the system in one or more specific aspects? 

What about Boycotting this or that aspect of The System which is exceptionally-evil? 

What about setting-up or supporting less-evil new 'alternative' institutions - economic, media, political or whatever? 

One or all these may be spiritually beneficial for specific people in particular ways; so long as we realize that we are merely engaged in picking and choosing among evils; we are merely creating or supporting a lesser evil institutions in order to avoid supporting a greater evil one; our supposed 'alternatives' are merely part of the-same-thing; we are merely quantitatively reducing dependence in a few minor areas while remaining utterly dependent of The System. 

We are not in the slightest degree changing or even challenging The System. 

It may be that some specific actions are absolutely necessary for our own personal integrity; and at the extreme this may entail accepting death rather than doing certain things - but these are spiritual imperatives and we should not fool ourselves into supposing we are engaged in any kind of effective socio-political action. 

If we do fool ourselves, and imagine or advertise to other people that we are acting practically to oppose The System; we will be reducing a potentially spiritual activity to a merely material and ineffectual correlative. 

So, let us all do (as individuals and without waiting for anyone else's agreement) whatever is necessary to our personal spiritual integrity (and this will vary from one person to another); but let us set-aside any delusory or grandiose notions of pursuing some kind of incremental, piecemeal socio-political reform of the world government bureaucratic media complex.  

My impression is that there is a mismatch between the usual proofs and justifications of God, and the nature of God. 

(IMO) The main thing about God is that he is the creator, and that we live in a created reality. But modern people believe that creation is explained by physics - which makes God unnecessary.

But justifications and proofs of God (from Western Christians) are usually focused upon moral aspects - i.e. God is put forward as a guarantor of virtue; because modern Christianity has become almost wholly ethical. 

Thus creation is seen as a matter of physics, while God is seen as a matter of morality; and there is no easy way of getting from physics to morals. It just doesn't make 'common sense'. 

And if reality is explained by physics - then obviously there is no humanly-relevant purpose or meaning to reality. Reality is apparently all about cosmology, particle physics, relativity and quantum stuff... Reality is therefore explained-by forces, particles, waves, strings, proximate causes, statistics and things like that...

So God doesn't make common sense - to the modern mind. It is not so much that God has been falsified as that modern people just can't see the need or explanatory value of a God who is nearly always discussed in terms of ethics, morals, and virtues. 

The answer? I don't see any alternative but to restore God as Creator and to emphasize that we live in a creation which has purpose, meaning, and coheres by relationships (not physics). 

That is: Reality is coherent, and God as Creator is the source of that coherence. 

That coherent reality is primary because created and being-created - and scientific truth, aesthetic beauty, and virtue/ morals/ ethics are just convenient sub-divisions of creation. 

Some such metaphysical restructuring seems vital before modern Man can again know God. 

It is so hard to eradicate materialist ways of thinking! 

Discerning the 2020 Litmus Tests is not about resistance - which is a material thing; but repentance - which is a spiritual thing. 

After all, the Tests are just a part of The System which (although still, and always, any System is very incomplete) is already far more powerful and pervasive than anything in history. 

We never before even approached the actual, current situation of world-government and unified-mass-media. Never before has the multi-generational ruling class of Men been so strongly and on-average affiliated with the demonic agenda. 

And since all major institutions are assimilated (more or less) into The System; then any resistance will be 'me against the world'. 

Once this is realized; we can put aside prideful and grandiose fantasies of material resistance or 'opting-out'; and the focus our effort on spiritual discernment and repentance; on salvation and theosis; on learning from worldly experience to prepare for resurrected Heavenly life beyond biological death.  

...Yet, it so happens that this is also the most effective possible form of material resistance - since God can work-through a repentant, God-aligned Man. 

But resistance is not why we do it; thus we should not 'plan' our resistance; but follow as intuition suggests. 

The right means will lead to the right ends - even when we do not know how this will happen, and do not know those ends. 

The intention is that we repent our inevitable, unavoidable participation in evil because we are on the side of God, Good and divine creation. 

That is difficult enough, it is enough for salvation...

And repentance may be a great deal more than 'enough', with God's help - when such is possible. 

The Litmus Tests of serious Christianity* I described in 2020 certainly seem to work in practice; yet it is a striking and obvious fact that none of the tests have anything to do with Christianity as such, but are instead 'about' the dominant socio-political issues of recent years and especially the past year. 

How is it that secular tests - directed at such ephemeral matters of 'policy' - can have such a role in identifying a real Christian?

Identifying, that is, a self-identified Christian who is on the side of God in the ongoing global spiritual war, one has not (yet!) been seduced to working on the side of Satan? 

Firstly (something obvious that - yet - several people failed to notice) is that the tests apply only to self-identified Christians. 

Someone who passed all the Litmus Tests yet is Not self-identified as a Christian remains... Not a Christian. 

The Litmus Tests are Not directed at Not-Christians.  

So, to return to the main point; why do the Litmus Tests work so well?

The simple answer is that these are tests of spiritual discernment, applied at points where spiritual discernment is currently vital.  

We live in a world where there is a de facto world government that dominate all bureaucratic political and social institutions (including church leadership) and the mass/ social media. These are the agents of a supernatural demonic agenda directed against God, The Good and divine creation. 

Therefore - since The System is evil, and well all depend-upon and interact-with The System - unless Christians have sufficient discernment to identify and spiritually reject the official and pervasive agenda of evil - Christians will-have-been recruited to the side of the devil... As a simple matter of fact, and whether they know it or not.

Although repentance has infinite power; a Christian must first repent - and when a Christian has failed to identify sin as such, he will not repent. And not to repent is to embrace damnation.  

Therefore discernment is mandatory for salvation. 

Nowadays; anyone who is unconscious or passive about what he believes, is believing what The System tells him, will thus believe that evil is Good - and will not repent: will choose damnation.

And That is why the 2020 Litmus Tests are indeed valid - for 2020 and still; despite their secular-materialist content.  

*To remind you; the 2020 Litmus Tests are about attitudes to the birdemic, antiracism (e.g. MLB), and 'climate change'; with a running-through theme of the sexual revolution especially the currently dominant themes such as the trans agenda. 

The 'raising of Lazarus' was indeed a miraculous resurrection; as is made clear by the text of the Fourth Gospel. 

Yet it was incomplete; by contrast with the Heavenly life eternal that Jesus made possible by his own death and resurrection; since Lazarus remained on earth for some time after the death of Jesus. 

After telling Martha what he was about to do; Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus but into his previous mortal body. 

By contrast - after Jesus's ascension - Men are resurrected into 'new' bodies, and any remains of their mortal bodies are left behind on earth. 

And Lazarus remained on earth after being resurrected, and looked-after Jesus's mother - at least until some time (not recorded) after he wrote the Fourth Gospel (Chapters 1-20 inclusive); when he may have ascended to Heaven.

(Unless, as some have always suggested in various 'legends' or 'folklore'; the author of the Fourth Gospel remains on earth as an immortal agent of Christ's mission, to the present day.)

By contrast; those deceased mortal Men who now choose to follow Jesus will be resurrected directly into Heaven.   

What happened to Lazarus was therefore only a partial and incomplete form of what Jesus made possible for Mankind. 

This is to be expected since at the time Lazarus was resurrected, Jesus had not died and ascended to Heaven. And the ascended Jesus is necessary for Men to attain resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

The Fourth Gospel, throughout, tell us that Jesus offers us resurrected 'life everlasting' or 'eternal' if we 'believe-on' and 'follow' Jesus - after the death of our bodies. 

In some way Jesus will lead those who choose to accept his offer to resurrected Heavenly life (as the Good Shepherd leads his flock) - but the presence of the ascended Jesus is absolutely necessary for this.

When Lazarus was resurrected; Jesus was still a mortal Man on earth, so this 'completion' of the fullness of Resurrection was not possible; and indeed Lazarus also had other work yet to do on earth. 

The raising of Lazarus had many functions. 

First it showed, more than any other miracle, that Jesus was divine. It demonstrated visibly that Jesus was able to offer resurrection to those who loved him. 

It also enabled Lazarus to live-through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus; and be able to write the Fourth Gospel as an eye-witness account of the mission and teachings of Jesus.

The resurrected (but not yet ascended) Lazarus also had a pastoral role in looking-after Jesus's mother; and presumably the rest of his family; including Martha and  Mary (the Fourth Gospel tells us that Mary Magdelene was Jesus's wife and the sister of Lazarus). 

So, the raising of Lazarus is rightly at the centre of the Fourth Gospel: the most central text we have concerning Jesus Christ - our only primary and eye-witness source and by a wholly reliable witness*.

*Despite whatever - mostly minor - alterations the text has undergone since its writing; by insertion, omission, and from translation - which changes each of us can discern by sincere contemplation and with divine aid. For example, since I wrote Lazarus Writes a couple of years ago, while confident that Lazarus was resurrected, I have been intermittently concerned about the differences between what happened to Lazarus and what will happen to us. Concerned but not worried, because I knew there was an answer - but I had not yet reached it. The answer - given above - came to me this morning, and allayed all concern. Especially because it is so 'obvious' and simple an answer. The obvious is, I find, sometimes very difficult to discern - but sustained effort will get there. Although sometimes the 'answer' is discovering that the original question was ill-formed.  

I watched the first two series of The Mandalorian and thoroughly enjoyed it - at the level of a series of (nearly all) well-crafted and exciting individual adventures with a satisfying and deepening emotional arc. 

I didn't think it would 'work' having a lead character who wore a helmet that he 'never' removed; because I though that I would not be engaged by a blank-faced protagonist. But maybe the difference was that The Mandelorian's 'co-star' was the animated puppet 'Baby Yoda' who was so cute, and his behaviour so endlessly-fascinating, that I would be happy to watch him forever! 

The production values were superb - much like a Star Wars movie; The Mandelorian's space ship, in particular, was so rugged and beat-up that it seemed real, and was almost like a third member of the gang. 

For me, it was perhaps (along with the original trilogy and Rogue One) one of the best Star Wars Universe things that I have seen: time will tell. 

The cover of my teenage copy of Elidor

I have always been disappointed by Alan Garner's Elidor (1965); coming as it does between two of my very favourite children's fantasy books The Moon of Gomrath (1963) and The Owl Service (1967). Indeed, I simply did not enjoy Elidor when first I read it (aged 14 0r 15), or at subsequent attempts. 

Yet, Elidor has been the most well-known of Garner's four children's fantasies; being often taught in schools, and leading to a BBC TV series. So I thought I would give the book another try - this time in the audio version read by Jonathan Keeble. 

I can see why I was not much taken by the book, since it is structured more like a thriller than a fantasy. The fantasy elements are swamped by the detailed, realistic descriptions of physical and social life in Manchester and its suburbs - which are often grimy; replete with arguments, angst and stresses; and containing implied 'social commentary' (which are very likely the exact reasons why British school teachers appreciated this book above Garner's true fantasies).  

Furthermore the book starts slowly and with a miserable tone. Following a deal of childish bickering, the fantasy land of Elidor is briefly glimpsed and seems almost-wholly unpleasant and hazardous. Malbron - the only Elidorian man the children talk-with - is a callous and unsympathetic character, and we know hardly anything about him - or indeed Elidor. 

The early chapters set up the main interest of the book which is that four siblings have been given (against their will) the task of guarding four treasures of Elidor, needed to stop the land being destroyed. 

However; I felt that I did not know enough about Malebron to be confident that he was honest, or to care whether Elidor was a place worth saving at great risk to the children. 

The siblings return to modern Manchester with the treasures disguised as modern objects - and the best part of the book is the exciting middle section during which the children gradually realize that the treasures are hazardous (giving-off a strong and disruptive electromagnetic field).

The treasures are also attracting sinister warriors from Elidor - who are repeatedly trying to break-through to the modern world, and getting closer and closer... 

After the slow pace and detailed descriptions of the main book; the ending is abrupt, feels incomplete, and is emotionally unsatisfying. 

Furthermore - it is so complete a plot re-set, as to leave the children in their modern world without any record or residue of their experiences: apparently the modern world is completely unchanged by its period communication with Elidor. 

So, the retrospective reframing of the Elidor narrative - looking back from its ending - is that its only purpose was to save a land we barely know; and that the process has been futile from a modern perspective.

Everything that happened 'might as well' have been a dream or a delusion (as some of the siblings tend to believe, about halfway through the story)...

And this was, unfortunately, Garner's own retrospective reframing (in Boneland some half century later) of his first two novels (Weirdstone of Brinsigamen and Moon of Gomrath) - as nothing more than dream-delusions of one of the child protagonists. As I remarked in my review - this is anti-fantasy, being subversive of fantasy - as evidenced by its rejection of eucatastrophe. 

The actual ending of Elidor comes across as cynical, pretentious, and indeed aggressive. 

This is very interesting to me in contrast with Garner's previous Moon of Gomrath; which ends with the liberation of the Old Magic into the modern world, and the implication that things will never be the same again - that, indeed, the modern world is just about to be transformed (for the better, it is implied) by a resurgence of enchantment and a renewed contact between Man, nature and the spiritual powers. 

My best guess would be that Garner underwent some kind of profound disillusionment between the writing of Gomrath and Elidor - which left him increasingly bitter and resentful (which is how he generally strikes me, as a person). 

But this is speculation; what is clear from the texts is that Garner lost his youthful optimism and decided to explore and evoke downbeat pessimism and despair in his later fiction, lectures and essays. 

My evaluation of Elidor is that overall it fails structurally as a novel and as a fantasy; and fails to establish credible characters and motivations in relation to Elidor. On the plus side, it is genuinely tense and exciting through the middle section and until near the end - which section, after all, includes most of the book.  

One of the most profound distinctions (so-called 'polarities') forced upon us by these times, is the stark choice between each person making his own inner-discernments about the truth of reality; or else a willing and willed embrace of what we know to be a world of lies and manipulations, emanating from the institutions of The Global Establishment. 

There is really very little, and diminishing, middle ground between my-self and the World Government. There used to be many more-or-less independent and autonomous institutions - such as churches, professions, trades unions, city and regional government, and many and various media... all kinds of 'sources of evaluation' from groups who were substantially separate from each other, and from the increasingly-unified and mandatory narrative of today. 

But all of these middle institutions ('civil society') - which used to stand between the individual and the 'official world' - have either been destroyed or assimilated by the single, global, bureaucratic-media complex. 

The one-permitted system of evaluation today is leftist, atheist-materialist in its assumptions - and more-and-more obviously evil overall and by intent. Hence the compulsory 'truth' is based-on lies; and dishonest and manipulative in all its significant operations. 

So - here we are. Each of us confronted by the stark choice of believing in our own, personal, individual and perhaps unique evaluations; or else yielding (by choice) to a world of lies and evil. 

It used to be assumed that anyone who was in a minority of one concerning what he believed was 'by definition' insane. Now - when the whole world has gone mad and will die to retain its delusions - the only sane people are in a minority of one. 

Everyone has this choice to make, and everyone in practice has-made their choice. Do you stand alone as a unit of discernment? 

Or do you voluntarily (because it is always a choice) surrender to and believe - that is live-by the discernments of - the world: when this ruled is ruled by Satan; and all who conform to worldly-evaluations are in service of evil? 

To refuse individual discernment in 2021 is to make the choice of damnation. 

To be in the situation of 'me against the world' is certainly Not 'to be a Christian'; but it has become the necessary prerequisite. 

We modern Western intellectuals think a lot about human groupings on a large scale - 'society', nations, civilizations, Mankind... Indeed, over the past couple of centuries, this way of thinking has become very widespread, trending towards universal. 

But what does God think about such abstract entities? 

Not much, I strongly suspect. As our Father; God would regard such matters as means to an end. 

More exactly, other than the family and other rare connections based on genuine inter-personal love; God would regard society/ nations/ civilizations as (more or less fluid, more or less arbitrary) collections of individual immortal souls. 

What God would Not do is regard individual human souls as components of social-groupings; and therefore (working as creator) the world would be made such that the salvation and theosis of each living soul would not be determined by the social grouping in which it finds-itself. 

This; because the placing of human souls into specific human societies is not arbitrary, but something chosen with the utmost care by God; and the specific situation of each soul with respect to salvation and also theosis would be of the first concern of God. 

To put it differently; in His ongoing creative activity in the mortal world - God would be much more concerned that each soul retains the living possibility of salvation and theosis; than that a soul be happy, comfortable, peaceful, or gains such this-worldly gratifications. 

And further; God would be much more concerned with ensuring that each and every one of his children be maintained with all possibility of salvation and theosis; than that these individuals be coordinated such as optimally to maintain good societies, nations or civilizations - in the abstract and totalizing ways that we so often talk about societies, nations and civilizations. 

Most likely the social-groupings would be generated bottom up, much more as sums-of-their-parts; than as units in their own right. 

If I am correct; this suggests we (most of us) need to critique our own ways of thinking about society and other human groupings, in which we treat them almost as if they were 'the real thing' and God's proper concern.    

At the extreme - all human groupings might collapse, and Men die en masse; and yet God may continually be creating opportunities for every individual human to be saved by choosing Jesus as Lord; and for each soul to learn from experience in the way each soul most needs - and thereby develop spiritually toward greater divinity. 

This is perhaps going to be the great test of our times... 

We have an evil, global totalitarian System - encompassing and linking all the major social institutions. This global System is getting more and more aligned to the side of Satan with every passing month - with a mixture of tacit consent and active approval from (it seems) the majority of the population - and only a few spiritually-religious individuals in explicit opposition. 

Yet this evil System is also what keeps us alive. It is getting less and less capable of keeping us alive, as it gets more and more evil - nonetheless the The System is still what maintains us...

But, evil being evil, the Ahrimanic "lawful evil" that wants us all under micro-surveillance and total control; is giving-way to a wholly-negative, Sorathic, "chaotic evil" of each-against-all in short-termist, destruction.

And the great test is when we are in a situation of considering whether to defend the lesser against the greater evil... Should we do it? 

It seems rational to defend the lesser evil? (At least, to some extent.) But is it in practice corrupting? 

All 'viable' options are evil. People start-out recognizing that fact, but in the heat of battle or the routine of work; they 'forget' and become corrupted into supporting the lesser evil.  

Instead of fighting on the side of God and Good in the spiritual war; people find themselves fighting on the side of Ahriman against Sorath - embroiled in civil war among the demons.

That is the test of our times: to fight for Good instead of for the lesser of evils. 

It is the test of salvation.

The problem of pain/ suffering in the world is often regarded, by modern Western people, as a decisive argument against the reality of the loving Christian God*. 

...On the lines of - "a loving God would not allow such pain and suffering as we see in the world" - typically followed by an historic (or current) instance of (what is assumed to be) extreme and widspread suffering.

It is worth noting that this was not seen as a problem for the Christians (including converts) of the past - who had a great deal more of pain and suffering to contend with. 

Nonetheless, the important thing is to answer this for modern Western people. 

(The problem of pain is, in fact, properly, a sub-division of the problem of the existence of evil in a world ruled by a loving God; but modern secular people do not have any understanding of evil - and in practice tend to reduce evil to 'whatever causes suffering'.)

My own perspective on the problem of pain begins with my baseline metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality. These are not shared by most Christians; but they may be of help to those who are not convinced by more mainstream orthodox Christian explanations - such as CS Lewis's book The Problem of Pain.

To begin with I regard God to be my loving Father, and the creator of this reality; but I do not regard him as omnipotent. Indeed, I think that it is the habit of thinking in abstractions such as 'omnipotence' as a root error that leads to fallacies such as 'the problem of pain'. 

I regard my life, my continuing life, as being for the purpose of spiritual development (theosis): that is my life is about having experiences from which I am intended to learn. And pain is one of the experiences of my life. 

I think it is absolutely vital to regard this matter from an individual and specific point of view. 

If we instead asked what is the reason for pain and suffering in an abstract manner - which includes many possible kinds of pain, and includes all people (past, present and future) who are asserted to have suffered pain (either or both extremely or in large numbers) - then we have simply created an unanswerable question. 

The question is so badly formed as to have - in principle - no possible answer. 

When we do not properly know what we are asking, we would not know whether or not we had answered it. 

We would not even know whether - or to what extent - the abstract persons actually did suffer pain - and we have no solid way of finding-out. Nor is there any way of measuring or adding-up pain.  

Another of my assumptions is that God is my loving parent, and as such I am one of a world of his children; each of whom is loved as an individual, and each of whom will have different experiences and things they need to learn from living. 

I cannot possibly know why 'other people' - whether as individuals or as categories - experienced what seems to be pain or suffering. 

Because the truth of the matter is that there are going to be literally billions of true-explanations for why pain and suffering happened on (?trillions) of occasions. 

(Yet people who ask such questions seem to expect a snappy answer - in a few sentences!)

The proper question is: What about my own pain? And perhaps also the pain of that handful of people who I love and about whom I have great knowledge? 

Can I know why I suffer, and why those I love suffer?

Yes, I believe this can be known. It can be discovered in the ways that individual Christians may learn about God and his hopes and plans; by means of reflection and prayer.  

This may not be easy - since typically we are confused, distracted, and our motivations are often muddled or base. But insofar as we are able to clarify and purify our seeking of an answer - we can receive one. 

This answer will be a direct-communication from God understood by a single act of comprehension; which means that it will not depend on language - which means that it will not be fully or un-distortedly state-able in words. 

Even less will that wordless understanding be communicable to other people. 

None of which matters. 

What we need is a personal understanding of specific instances of pain and suffering in ourselves and other specific beloved persons. If we receive such knowledge directly, and understanding it as such - our question has been answered. 

And that is the answer to 'the problem of pain' - when the question has been properly understood and conceptualized. 

*I have frequent occasion to reflect on this matter since I suffer from frequent and prolonged episodes of that purest of severe pain disorders: migraine. I call migraine 'pure' pain because the disease is (pretty much) 'just' pain, and can be extremely intense and last up to a few days; and the conditions may persist for many decades. The pain in migraine is not perceptibly 'functional' unlike most causes of pain. It doesn't seem to signify anything other than itself. Migraine therefore seems singularly 'pointless', almost like torture for its own sake - or the sake of being cruel. Hence migraine might (as much as almost anything) be expected to lead to inferences of the malevolence of some supernatural being.  

There have been three main ways of understanding human creativity.

The first was that the creative Man was a channel or conduit for the gods (e.g. muses), or God; that creativity was breathed-in (inspired) from the divine. 

It was the divine/ God/s who were creative - who were original, and Men were instruments of the divine. The divine created: Men were tools of creation.

A creative Man was therefore one attuned with the divine, and who had the skills and application necessary to accomplish what he was being 'told' to do.  

The second view was of the creative Man as an observer of realities, who 'copied' reality (with skill and diligence). The most-creative person was one who best held-up 'a mirror to nature'. 

Men were not truly creative (they did not originate); but some Men were good observers: honest, hard-working and skilled observers. 

The idea of a creator was Not to be 'original' - indeed Man could not, and should not try to, originate; because his job was to perceive and record existing reality. 

The Romantic idea of genius was that the genius should be original: should originate. That is, the genius should add-to already-existing reality, in new ways, unique to that person. 

That which the Romantic genius creates is assumed to come from the Man himself - and not 'merely' be  something that already-existed in the divine, or in nature.

This means that - in this particular respect - Man is a god: the genius is ascribed the same primary creative capacity as the prime creator/s*. 

So, to the Romantic understanding, Man can be a true creator, thus truly original. Yet - especially from the early 20th century - there arose the Modern consciousness; and with it the question of what direction this originality should assume: what were the proper constraints on it. 

For Modern Man, the idea of the genius in his creative capacity as a type of the divine became impossible to think at a general cultural level; because the divine was either ironized or excluded. Modernity was atheistic, materialistic - the spiritual was not real. 

Thus 'originality' became detached from the genius being an originator (because to modern consciousness the material world was everything); and was redefined in terms of clashing with what went before: as novelty, newness, shockingness. 

A false dichotomy thus arose between the direction of originality: should the genius create to please the 'audience', satisfy the 'public' - or else to please oneself (or - in practice - for a small group of those Men who appreciate newness and shock - the avant garde). 

This led to the idea of popular art that pandering to the masses; versus elite art that was 'art for art's sake', and was indifferent to shocking the bourgeoisie (indeed enjoyed doing this).

The assumption that the genius was therefore a Man who was in opposition to the masses - either working alone or supported only by a small and enlightened 'audience' of open-minded radicals. 

This was a false dichotomy because it excluded the divine and necessarily understood the purpose of genius in purely this-worldly terms.

The true direction of genius is Not a choice between pandering to the public or pleasing oneself; but whether to create in harmony with already-existing-and-ongoing divine-creation; or else in conflict with God. 

In other words: the choice was between being a good genius or an evil genius. The good genius creates in harmony with God's creation (which is the source of the good: which defines the good).

But the evil genius sets himself against divine creation - past, present and/or future. 

There are only two choices. Because not to be in harmony with divine creation is - of itself - to be a source of dis-harmony, of dissonance - to be working-against God's on-going creation. 

The twentieth century saw the decline of genius; and part of this was surely the profound misunderstanding of creativity that came from the exclusion of the divine from public discourse. 

This led to the false dichotomy of the popular versus personal/ elite creator - and this led to the phenomenon of the evil genius dominating the twentieth century; with more and more of the most influential geniuses from c. 1918 creating in disharmony with the divine: Picasso, James Joyce, Schoenberg and Stravinsky all fell into this category in their later work. 

Then, in the later twentieth century, genius became rarer and less gifted; first in the arts (where the evil genius first dominated) then in the science also (as science became less honest, increasingly externally-controlled, and used for increasingly evil purposes).  

So we have ended up in the 21st century with very few and marginalized geniuses of lesser stature. Why? Probably because genius originates in God's placement of potentially-genius souls in particular circumstances. 

When genius becomes predominantly evil, and when a single genius can have such massive cultural effects, then it is reasonable to assume that the gift of genius has been withdrawn from the Western, European-originated societies where it was previously most dominant and evident.  

When human creativity is being regularly used against divine creation; human creativity is withdrawn by God - as a form of a damage-limitation. 

This rapid collapse of Western creativity over recent decades has had the unfortunate consequence of reducing the possibility of The West - as a society - escaping from its downward self-imposed, spiral towards self-annihilation.

Yet if the West was more creative, if there were more and greater geniuses; these would almost-certainly not be used to solve of social problems; but instead be used in ways that would increase our problems and accelerate our collapse into evil even more rapidly.  

*And, since the genius is a Man - this understanding also implies that Men generically have a nature previously only ascribed to the divine. This further implies that because Men are 'gods' there are many gods. By my understanding, this further implies not just polytheism - in the sense of multiple creative-originators. There is only one primary creative source of our reality, of the creation in which we dwell; whom we term God. But if the reality of Romantic genius is accepted; then this implies a pluralistic universe of many divine-creative-agents who have co-existed with God, eternally - since this neatly explains why originative creativity is possible to many entities. Why (to use Tolkien's term) Man is truly a subcreator.   

The Z Man is apparently a decent, intelligent and well-informed man who is trying to understand the modern world, one piece at a time, but without the necessary basis in a coherent world view (i.e. Christianity). 

He is great at describing the pieces of the jigsaw, I don't know of anyone better; but cannot put the pieces together - because he has made the prior assumption that there is no Big Picture (i.e. he believes that reality has no over-arching purpose or meaning). 

His latest post (read the whole thing) is a really excellent micro-dissection of the phenomenon of false information in all of public discourse; which has created the situation where "The only thing modern man can know about his sources of information is they are wrong". 

Here is a taste:

Modern man is now awash in both misinformation and disinformation, in addition to false information. Misinformation is deliberately inaccurate information, which is intended to deceive. Disinformation is deliberately inaccurate information, but from an institution like the state or the media. Of course, false information is information that is inaccurate due to bad data or logic. 

Compounding this is the current campaign against misinformation and disinformation. The first thing you should notice is the people most responsible for the tsunami of disinformation are claiming to be at war with disinformation. Unless this results in mass suicide by media and entertainment, it means they are lying... 

There is no such thing as a disinformation expert, outside of the institutions promulgating disinformation. One cannot be an expert at doing something unless you are actually doing that thing. 

Note also how the primary sources of both misinformation and disinformation talk about this phenomenon as if they are the victims of it. The managerial class is the single source for the flood of false information... 

What the managerial class is doing is a firehose of falsehoods with the stamp of authority. Put another way, the new phase of the misinformation/disinformation tsunami is the managerial state crying out in pain as it strikes the society over which it rules. 

Note added by BGC: 

The 'complete' Big Picture in this instance is quite simply the Spiritual War; specifically Satan's agenda, and the fact that Jesus called the devil Father of Lies.

God's creation is the source of truth; naturally, therefore, that which opposes creation opposes truth.  

Therefore, as the side of evil becomes more more-and-more dominant in the world, deliberate falsehood increases. 

An excellent post from Francis Berger about the cultural changes in attitudes to death and what happens afterwards. It really is valuable to 'read the whole thing' but here is a snippet:

Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire until the approximately the early stages of the Enlightenment, the spiritual orientation of the West was indivisible from Christianity. The Christian consciousness of death was a radical expansion of the pagan consciousness of death that preceded it. Though pagan religions also adhered to belief in souls and the afterlife, these beliefs were qualitatively much different from the Christian belief and faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ as exemplified by St. Paul's declaration in Philippians 1:21 that, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." 

This declaration emerges from the deep, inner, spiritual understanding in the non-existence of death - in the comprehension of death as the way leading to life, in which the life of sin is crucified, and the path to eternity is opened. It stems from the comprehension that we must die in order to reborn; that the essence of life is the transition from lesser being to higher being in which death serves a necessary conduit. As such, death is not simply and purely an evil, it is also a good. The orientation driving this consciousness recognizes the primacy of the spiritual over the primacy of the worldly and commits to the comprehension that the end of the worldly does not mark the end of the spiritual. 

With the advent of modernity, this consciousness was slowly superseded by a purely external, material, and temporal comprehension of death that perceived no gain at all at the end of life. Within this consciousness, St. Paul's declaration faded and was replaced by something akin to, "For to me, to live is World and to die is loss."

*

I would add that my understanding is that this historical change in social belief systems was paralleled by - and indeed ultimately driven by - a decline in (especially) Western Man's spontaneous perception of the continuing presence of the dead in this worldly life. People perceived the dead among the living - it needed no 'proof'. 

Part of returning to a belief that (as FB puts it) death is not simply and solely an evil, it is also a good is to develop an awareness (but Not a 'perception') of the continued presence of the dead, active in our living lives  - but this time by our conscious choice rather than spontaneously. 

This is a very amusing, enjoyable and skilful electronic dance mix version of the Third Movement (Presto agitato) of Beethoven's 14th Sonata (the 'Moonlight'). 

I am particularly impressed by the continual inventiveness, the really danceable quality - and the exciting ending. 

If you want a comparison with the original - there are many on YouTube, but they all seem too fast to me. 

H/T - My son, for discovering this.

It was a year ago that I noticed that the global totalitarian coup had-happened; with the excuse of the birdemic - but clearly never caused by it. 

I had been expecting something of the kind for a few months; but I had supposed the fake-rationale would be some 'climate emergency' rather than a supposed-germ. 

So... It was a bit less than a year ago that we in the UK began a three-week 'lockdown' - just to 'flatten the curve' and spread the load of cases...

Yet, of course (because this was a coup, not a disease); restrictions/ compulsions on life have never been removed and are still increasing - and this will continue. 

And, of course, a year down the line; still, almost nobody has noticed the coup. 

Everything has changed; yet, for the mass majority of the population; nothing has been learned. 

One can perceive this indestructible obliviousness in all kinds of human interaction. And if people have not noticed yet, they never will notice. 

The World is willingly, indeed aggressively, participating in a system of unconstrained lies and delusions, with no understanding and no end in sight (except, sooner or later, collapse and mega-death). 

These are the plain facts of our situation: now, as then. 

Therefore, there is no point is talking about "what can be done", practically, to reverse or even ameliorate the situation - because the magnitude of scale and profound depth of the global situation itself is utterly invisible and denied.

(Including by nearly-all of those who affect to address 'the crisis', when they are merely quibbling about sub-micro-issues.)

What has happened in the past year dwarfs in scope anything that has happened in human history: thus our main difficulty is in sheerly acknowledging and comprehending it.  

Happy Birthday Birdemic.