Bruce Charlton's Notions

Steven Smith just after being hit in the neck by a fast bowler

In cricket, the bowler should not be allowed to target the batsman's head. 

This really ought to be common sense, because a high speed hard leather cricket ball can cause severe, permanent, or even lethal damage. But a practice has grown-up which allows this to some extent in some forms of cricket; because it can be very exciting for the spectators. 

In the longer forms of the game, even a very fast bowler is allowed to bowl at the batsman's head or neck - so long as the ball bounces first. 

(Bowling that arrives above shoulder height has usually not been permitted in the one-day types of cricket, or has been strictly limited. But not for safety reasons but because when a ball is very high it is difficult to score from.)

The problem of this kind of delivery was highlighted when the Australian batsman Philip Hughes was killed in 2014 by a ball which struck his neck and broke an artery. Hughes died soon afterwards. 

But the damage of being hit in the head or face may be more subtle. 

Edited from an article by Jarrod Kimber:

There was a five-year period from September 2014 where [Steve] Smith averaged 96.2 against seam bowling (with a minimum of 1000 runs in that period). The next best was Kane Williamson, averaging 55.8. Smith was nearly double his nearest contemporary. 

He transformed from a part-time legspinner who Ricky Ponting didn't think could be a top-six player, into the greatest modern batter, and not even by a little bit; the runs he scored were incredible. Making a hundred every 2.1 Tests. His overall average in that period was 78.7. Eight scores over 150. The whole thing was crazy. 

[And then Jofra Archer hit him on the neck, and things changed...]

Since September 2019, Smith has averaged 40 in Tests, which in recent times is not terrible. It is only terrible for him because he was so much better than anyone else... 

Kimber does not mention even the possibility that being hit on the neck by Jofra Archer produced lasting physical damage, and was potentially the main factor in impairing Steve Smith's batting ability over the past two years - yet surely that is an obvious possibility?

After being struck, Smith was clearly dazed and had to retire for a while; and when he later returned to bat (which - medically speaking - he certainly should not have been allowed to do) he seemed functionally impaired in his behaviour. 

Smith then had prolonged concussion reported lasting several days, with measured mental impairment; and he had to miss the next Test match. Since then, he has 'never been the same'...

Since Smith continues to average about 40 runs per innings, which is good, we are not talking about a gross impairment. But compared with his almost superhuman abilities before that concussion; it could be that there was some subtle and lasting damage to nerves or brain, which has been sufficient to reduce his ability from incredible to just very good. 

There are also other examples of batters who were 'never the same again' after being hit in the head or neck by fast bowling - Jimmy Adams, captain of the West Indies, was hit in the face (causing broken bones) and went from being the top-rated Test Match batsman in the world to relative mediocrity. 

Cricket writers always attribute the lasting effect of being hit in the head/ neck to 'psychology'; to a loss of 'confidence', a failure of nerve; but that is not a legitimate inference when there is a possibility that there has been permanent physical damage. 

Maybe the degree of harm would not be noticeable in a normal person, or even a normally-competent batter - but at the very highest level of human physical attainment, among the very best sportsmen - even a little neural damage may be enough to take the edge off reaction times and/or coordination - to reduce ability from the very best to... just okay. 

In other words, I suspect that the amount and duration of damage to a batsman from being hit in the face or neck has been seriously underestimated - because the possibility of permanent neurological harm from this kind of injury has not even been considered. 

Of course, accidents will continue to happen. For instance, sometimes a batter gets hit on the head because he accidentally ducks into a waist high ball. But the potential for permanent physical harm can certainly be reduced by making it illegal to deliver the cricket ball to arrive above the shoulder. This would stop such bowling being used as a deliberate strategy. 

It must be acknowledged that such a change would have an effect of making an aspect of Test cricket less exciting. Some of the great and memorable 'duels' of Test Match cricket involved a fast bowler targeting the head, and the batter fighting him off. The 2019 Smith Archer duel was one of these. 

But, Roman gladiators fighting and killing each other were doubtless even more exciting... 

In the end, cricket ought to be a game of skill primarily; rather than a 'life or death' struggle not to be smashed in the face or on the neck by a hard leather sphere travelling at 90-plus mph. 

It is supposed to be an innately Good Thing to give money (or time and labour) To Charity - but no activity is intrinsically Good - and in a totalitarian evil world all charities are conformed to that evil. 

I used to keep searching around for a charity that was not operating in net-support of the global agenda of evil. I sometimes thought I had found one or a few. But over the years all of these have serially been revealed as merely less-evil than average - yet qualitatively still motivated by the prevalent evil motivations; for example as revealed by the 2020 Litmus Tests. 

This ought not to be surprising, because charities are institutions, and all institutions are now linked to the global bureaucracy by many links (e.g. legal, financial etc.). All bureaucracy is intrinsically evil; and the global bureaucracy is the primary instrument by which evil attitudes are encouraged, Big Lies are disseminated, and evil actions are implemented by rewards and sanctions. 

(...Because although no action is intrinsically Good - in practice some actions - such as the classic sins - are strongly-likely to induce evil. As so often the situation is asymmetrical. On the side of Good motivations are primary; but Good may be opposed by many things; including, but not restricted to, motivations. For instance the beauty of some aspect of divine creation may be destroyed, and this destruction may be done without the motivation to destroy divine creation - and yet such destruction is still an evil.) 

So charities are evil; and, since 2020, even 'church charities' - as is clear if you read the boastful lists of "good works" that churches claim to have done - many of these are actually evil-works, and an organization that does evil-works when claiming these to be good is on the side of evil.  

This is not a difficult discernment! 

...Yet people allow themselves to be confused (fatally) by what charities (and churches) used-to-be; rather than noticing the obviousness of what charities (and churches) actually are, here-and-now. 

Of course this is yet another personal loss from the possibilities of life. (That's what evil does when triumphant!) 

Much of human gratification used to come from working with people in good causes; and from the sense of solidarity which brings security. These are things that we are now called-upon to do-without - if we are to remain on the side of God, divine creation and Jesus Christ. 

With The System now under the thumb of Satan, and with the infection of evil spreading perceptibly; only that which is outwith The System may be Good - and the need for discernment never sleeps.

Of course, all sins and evil we may do may be cancelled by repentance - that is a great gift of Jesus Christ. But repentance requires that we repent! 

Which means we need to recognize evil, and recognize evil as evil - then reject it as such.  

The continual difficulty is that we all must engage-with evil in the Systems of this world if we are not to die - now including charities, now including church charities. 

Therefore - to stay alive while avoiding self-chosen damnation, we need to avoid being seduced into cozy assumptions that any organization or activity is intrinsically Good. 

There will be some Good in any institution - but we personally can only do net-Good via a charity when we recognize that 'the institution itself' - in its bureaucratic character - is motivated by evil. 

There is a truly Romantic spirit which I value supremely when I find it; which is seldom, including very rare instances in myself. 

We are, apparently, trapped by deep habits, fears and a kind of sheer incompetence; and therefore find it extremely (sometimes impossibly) difficult to be what we most desire to be; to express what we most desire to express. 

The true Romanticism can be found only seldom - for example in some of William Blake's aphorisms and short lyrics, but not in his long poems or most of the rest of his oeuvre. 

By the strictest standards; I cannot find Romanticism realized anywhere in Coleridge, although Coleridge knew it, understood it, and sought it; and much the same applies to Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield and CS Lewis. All wrote about it, with great insight and value; but did not themselves embody it in their writings. 

But writing about Romanticism - including that 'writing about' which is the use of allegory (as with Blake's prophetic works, or some of Barfield's and CSL's stories) - is not the thing itself. 

What is meant is being referred-to, but the actuality is not embodied in the writing.

What I am saying is that nearly all writers, in their writing, keep a distance from actual Romanticism: the distance of scholarship, allegory, facetiousness or irony. 

Yet True Romanticism can be found in writings; sometimes in obscure authors like William Arkle; but supremely in JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings - which is, I think, why this work holds its unique and elevated position. 

Tolkien, here and there - but more often than anybody I know - gives expression to the fullest and truest Romanticism; and in a way that is highly accessible, and easier to appreciate than any other. 

This was only possible because Tolkien was himself a Romantic, but then again so were CS Lewis, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams - yet none of these managed to get past the barriers to its expression in the way that Tolkien did. 

What I mean by Romanticism, and how it is nearly always blocked, can be seen in The Notion Club Papers (NCPs). In broad terms, this incomplete and posthumously published novel represents an Inklings-based group that is able to break through the crust of convention and constraint to achieve a fully expressed Romanticism.

The NCPs begins with superficial and facetious interaction between its members; a jokey and cynical conversational style of a kind familiar to any English person of the professional classes. This is one type of defensiveness, and it absolutely blocks Romanticism. 

Another defensiveness is of conventional values - such as 'scholarship' or 'science' when these are regarded in a consensus fashion. Such conversation serves to suppress individual discernment and creation by a kind of implicit threat related to pointing out its transgression from the group norms; norms that provide coherence and power. 

The idea is that group members should fear going beyond the group-approved forms and content, and the fear is of being singled out, stripped of status, and scapegoated, ridiculed, demonized. Such external control may be done with a light touch, ambiguously and deniably; but the message is transmitted nonetheless - and there are few who resist it and none who are unaware of the implications. 

So fear is one reason; but also people just don't know how. 

Some people are drawn to Romanticism, and are aware that indirect references to the Romantic are not enough - but instead only succeed in emoting. Instead of Romanticism there are just strong and merely-subjective feelings.

The truly Romantic must be transcendent, must embody the divinely creative - directly apprehended; whereas emotions and feelings as-such are merely animal responses to the environment or to inner body states. To rant and rave - to free associate or let-rip - is not of any transcendental value. 

Thus the literature of the Beats, Hippies, Sixties Counterculture and New Age is almost wholly worthless from a truly Romantic perspective of written-expression. It may be based upon an accurate diagnosis of the problem, but is profoundly wrong in assuming that liberating the id or collective unconscious is a solution. 

To try and suppress human consciousness, delete the self or ego; and assimilate to the un-conscious or 'liberate' the 'instinctive' is not to solve the problem of alienation of Men. It is merely to crave oblivion - to aspire to cease being a Man - to regress Man towards the animal.   

It is easy to say what Not to do, to describe the pitfalls in various direction; but there is no formula for what to do instead - which is why it is so rarely achieved. 

Nonetheless, the matter can be illustrated, and it has been illustrated in the Notion Club Papers. What happens at times through the accounts of the Notion Club; is that the conversation is able to escape from facetious joking, or mere description, and attain a truly Romantic level that transcends all the pitfalls. We are actually shown what this would be like. 

The NCPs begin with the club responding to a story by Ramer - and for some pages the response is merely superficial - full of 'joshing' - mostly good natured, sometimes rather pointed. Some characters (such as Lowdham) adopt a cynical attitude, repeatedly trying to bring the conversation 'down to earth' in an irritating fashion.

It later emerges that this is a defensive posture by Lowdham who is (fearfully) attempting to hold-back an almost-overwhelmingly powerful Romanticism in himself; but at first he is the worst representative among an unserious tendency in the group. 

At the other extreme is Jeremy, who is always earnest and never even tries to be witty; indeed he seems to be regarded as something of the butt of group (to be 'shot at' with barbed quips; as being younger, and seemingly more naively enthusiastic). Yet he is in reality the conscience of the Notion Club. 

Jeremy goes on to say some of the most profound and important things in the NCPs; and (surprisingly) joins-up with the rambunctious Lowdham to make a complementary team; who whole-heartedly seek to experience the fullest possible Romantic contact with providence and the divine.  

It takes several pages of merely scholarly and jocular talk; but the NCP discussion becomes more serious rather suddenly when Guildford says the word 'Incarnation' as his suggested 'method' for space (and indeed time) travel. 

Although the intended meaning of the word incarnation is never given a satisfactory explanation in the NCPs, it can be inferred from usage and context that what it partly means is a kind of reincarnation involving mind-to-mind connection - whereby a modern person has (or develops) the ability to experience events in the past that were experienced by his hereditary ancestors. 

Hereditary - but not by a genetic mechanism, but really more a matter of spiritual ancestry: the sharing of a spiritual orientation across (perhaps) very-many generations. 

Specific heredity emerges later in the NCPs when Lowdham and Jeremy become - for a while - 'possessed' by former identities of men in Numenor during the lead-up-to and events of that lands cataclysmic (literally world changing) drowning. 

They become able to speak the Numenorean languages, and re-enact some of the ancient events - and in doing so they apparently create a 'cannel' by which the actual Numenorean storm breaks-through into modern England to wreak considerable havoc. 

This carefully-prepared direct mind-to-mind human connection - which has an implicitly general and providential aspect, never explained in the surviving fragments of the NCPs - is an actual expression of Romanticism in the text.  

But in this early stage of the NCPs the main Romantic protagonist is Ramer; who has - it gradually emerges - succeeded in travelling both in space and time; but without any reference to either incarnation or reincarnation. Instead Ramer seems to have developed a way of attuning his mind to non-organic 'things' - such as a meteorite. 

Ramer was eventually able to re-experience the 'life' of this meteorite from its remote origins buried in some remote celestial object, through its journey through space and the eventual burning entry through earth's atmosphere. 

It seems that by Incarnation, Tolkien may intend also to include this implicit 'animism'; a living universe whereby there are no 'things' but only 'beings' - and whereby 'inorganic'/ mineral entities are possessed of memory and consciousness of a type.

This is an aspect of Romanticism that recalls the consciousness of ancient tribal Man and the early childhood of every Man; and it recurs whenever the perspective reaches its strongest expression. 

Thus Ramer can commune-with (and participate-in the consciousness of) a rock; much as Lowdham is able to do with his remote Numenorean ancestor -- and also his more recent Anglo-Saxon ancestors of Mercia; which 'inheritance' is the posited mechanism by which he spontaneously knew this language. 

(It seems, from multiple comments in his letters and private conversation, that this spontaneously knowledge of Mercian Old English also applied to Tolkien himself.) 

(Note: There are many other examples of such 'animism' - communing with living, conscious realities in non-human animals, plants and minerals - all-through The Lord of the Rings.) 

It is by this means of fiction - but fiction-presented-as-real - that JRR Tolkien was able to express True Romanticism. How he did this is ultimately a matter of genius - coming from the divine creativity innate in all Men to some degree; and Tolkien in this particular fashion. 

If Tolkien had not himself regarded his fictions as really-real, and been writing from the heart; then there would have been nothing real for him to communicate. 

But Tolkien also achieved this rare literary feat by his careful and rigorous techniques of framing the fictions in a quasi historical fashion (for the NCPs by means of the Foreword; in LotR by the Prologue and Appendices), of creating a fictive-sense of depth by reference to untold stories and hinted back-histories; and in the Notion Club Papers by a gradual ascent from the mundane chit-chat at the beginning to the fullness of sincere, unguarded, heart-felt Romantic interaction among club members in later passages. 

I see a lot of complaints (from both sides of the issues) against divisive rhetoric from those in power: the kind of rhetoric that demonizes those who oppose and disagree. 

This seems to be escalating over time; with any-and-all those who oppose whatever-is-today's mainstream plans of the birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate-warmism, trans-agenda... whatever; declared to be terroristic, conspiratorial, evil-motivated etc.

This is done to justify ever more extreme sanctions; and to compel spiritual compliance with the agenda of evil*.  

But - as so often - the Left are not wrong concerning the reality of division, demonism and strategic evil.

The division is real, but the Left are practicing that value-inversion which is characteristic of the most extreme version of genuine evil. 

The most extreme submission to evil is that which inverts Good and evil. Thus virtue and vice, beauty and ugliness, truth and lies, harmony and chaos are all swapped and relabeled. 

The division is real because the world is divided between those on the side of God, divine creation and The Good - and those who are on the side which opposes these. And these sides are indeed getting ever further apart   

So one thing the Leftist Totalitarian Establishment are absolutely 100 percent correct about is that this is a divided world. This is a major (perhaps The major) fact of these times. 

And the Establishment are also correct to demonize one of the sides of this division; because one of the sides is quite literally in service to actual demons. 

And the division is widening, with no grey area between the sides; exactly because evil is feeding-off itself and becoming more evil. 

So the Globalist Leftist Establishment are quite correct in their formal characterization of the situation in the world today - they are right to demonize one of the sides; and the 'only' big thing they get wrong is which side is which: which side is Good, and which side is demonic! 

And the only people who are completely wrong are 'moderate', decent, sensible folk who deny the reality of value division, deny the separation of Good and evil sides; and who preach for de-escalation of rhetoric, polite manners, compromise and reconciliation! 

Those who refuse to choose Good or evil sides, by denying that there are sides; by denying that there truly is purposive evil in this mortal world!

These are the self-blinded and the zombie-minded who have incrementally sleepwalked themselves into demonic servitude; and who are by-now so corrupted that they have not even noticed the fact!

*Note added. Of course I do not approve of the threatening aspect of the divisive rhetoric, directed at me and others on the side of God - but it is to be expected when the world is ruled by actively-evil beings. Such persons will naturally compound the primary evil of value-inversion with (as many as possible) further evils of untruthfulness, spite, sadism, fear-mongering, resentment-fomenting, despair-encouraging etc. 

The Great Reset/ Agenda 2020 is the totalitarian Global Establishment strategy for a world of omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

Almost certainly, this was never a realistic possibility (at least not in the medium term of more than a few years); due to lack of motivated and competent personnel and the decline in technological efficiency and effectiveness. 

Also, the active resistance to the post 2020 measures - although late and modest - has still been sufficient to halt or somewhat roll-back the intended stepwise implementation of social separation, confinement, dehumanization and mass drugging. 

But whatever the reasons - The Great Reset looks less and less possible with every passing week. The Black Iron Prison Planet has started crumbling before it was even half-built. 

Instead the birdemic (and other leftist) measures are generating a cumulative chaos that seems to be approaching the positive feedback state of accelerating and irreversible global collapse - of a kind and on a scale qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, unprecedented in world history (unless we take Noah's Flood literally).

In other words, I see a confirmation of my (modest) prediction that Ahrimanic/ bureaucratic type of 'lawful' and semi-constructive evil will inevitably and unstoppably lead-on to purely negative Sorathic/ spiteful evil; that the vision of convergence onto centralized global control will give way to a world of dissipative chaos - of endemic violence, rampant disease and starvation. 

This will happen if (when) the highest level of the totalitarian System switches from overall trying to control everything, towards seeding chaos; from trying to construct a System of total oppression, towards trying to net-destroy The System. 

Instead of a world of slaves manipulated by a handful of masters; they will start to desire and implement a world of torment inflicted by a handful of torturers. 

So long as evil rules this mortal world, control-to-chaos seems like an inevitable 'progression' - because evil is not static but feeds-upon itself. 

This innate degeneration towards greater evil can only be countered by those who want Good - which means those who love God, and have taken the side of divine creation. 

Good can only come from good-motivations; so that those who desire merely to resist control and smash The System - and whose motivations for doing-so are anything-other-than God/ The Good/ Divine Creation - will only be swapping a lesser for a greater form of evil.

This because they are not truly resisting evil; but are instead motivated by resisting constraints upon their own short-term pleasures. 

Good outcomes can only come-from good motivations; yet no Man can calculate how much good our loving God can generate from Men who are on his side, and who serve the divine agenda. 

Therefore, no matter what the state of the world is, and what is may become; whatever the balance of control versus chaos; our path is crystal clear and blazingly obvious.

That path is to discern and to choose the side of Good; and to serve it as best we may - in both spirit and with will... 

And the plans, practicalities and needful actions will follow afterwards; in accordance with God's providence.  

One of the most significant - and almost-never asked - questions about real science is: where do the new good ideas come from? 

Anyone can 'generate' new but false hypotheses - but where do the new and true hypotheses come from?

This key question has been obscured by several generations of focusing on the supposed ability of 'scientific method' (there is no such thing) to disprove false ideas. 

In other words, the ways of explaining science posit a double-negative method of eliminating-false ideas. 

But even if there was a method for disproving false ideas (and the history of science, of actual major scientific breakthroughs) suggests that there is no such method) that would not serve to do anything at all to generate the true ideas - the ones that are either confirmed by further observations and/or not-rejected by further testing.  

This is because the explanations of the value and validity of science are typically derived from within the basic (metaphysical) assumptions of science-in-general (or else some specific branch of science). 

Whereas in the first place this is an intrinsically invalid way of validating! - because there is no way that scientific research done on the assumption that the assumptions of science are correct, could ever validate the assumptions under which the science was done! 

One cannot simultaneously assume that assumptions are true, and also test those assumptions! 

But - although not a valid way of reasoning - this way of discussing science using scientific assumptions can indeed provide a coherent pseudo-explanation of how it is that false ideas get rejected; yet it does not even begin to touch the primary problem of where not-false ('true') ideas might come-from... 

Because, on the one hand there are an 'infinite' number of false ideas that might be proposed (and these might even be 'randomly generated' by a mechanical process of combination, extrapolation and interpolation of already-existing ideas. 

However, there is no imaginable way in which the one true idea could be found from among this infinite number of false ideas.

And even so this suggestion requires that already-exiting ideas already exist! Yet these need to have come from somewhere. So double-negative theories are often no more than kicking-the-can - leaving untouched the primary problem of where good ideas come from.

In other words; if a true idea is the needle, then there is a haystack of false ideas of limitlessly-vast size that would need to be searched in order to find that needle. 

Yet true ideas have-been found! 

Therefore, any hypothetical double-negative method of finding true ideas cannot suffice. 

What this argument tells us is that there must be a positive method for finding true ideas in science; and the history of science tells us that some of these true ideas have been substantially counter-intuitive, unnatural, non-obvious - as evidence by the fact that many decades, centuries or even millennia have elapsed before these true ideas were discovered.

Where does the needle come from? - or, if the good-idea needle is made up of component good ideas, then where did these components come-from? 

A valid and coherent positive answer to the question of where good scientific ideas come from also explains why such answers have been ruled-out; and the primary question buried by distracting and inadequate secondary theories of a double-negative type.   

The answer to where the good ideas come from is one that takes us out of science - as is indeed logically necessary - and into the realm of transcendental values: the realm of ultimate truth, beauty and virtue; but here (in science) with the emphasis on truth. 

And this is a spiritual-religious question: the matter of the nature of truth, beauty and virtue. We are not just asking about how Men can know transcendental truth when presented with it - which is a secondary question... 

What we are really asking is along the lines of: how can Men generate new transcendental truths? 

The generation of transcendental truth is necessary for science, but is not restricted to science; it encompasses all truths of all kinds. 

The origin of scientific truth is therefore seen to be a specific instance of the general matter of Man's capacity to discover any truth about any thing; when that truth is not already accessible and Man must create that truth. 

Creation! And with creation we have finally reached our destination; we have reached the bottom-line of explanation.

The discovery or invention of new and true ideas is a type of creation; and the matter of new good ideas in science can only be addressed within a framework in which creation is real, and also possible to Men.   

We arrive at an understanding of Men that must account for individual Men operating as genuine creators; in a sense that is associated with the attributes of a god. That is a generative source of creation, a source that does not depend entirely upon inputs for its output. A source that can make something new which is not merely caused by prior inputs...

Thus we arrive at a conceptualization of the creativity of real science as necessarily part of a theistic world view.  

Far from science being opposed to 'religion' or excluding 'god' - it turns-out that the reality of scientific discovery depends on the reality of god. 

Interesting, that - isn't it? And it suggests an immediate reason why real science has disappeared (to be replaced by bureaucracy) except as a rare, individual and amateur activity. 

As god has been deleted from public discourse - so has science... 

And so have all genuinely-creative human activities - as described by the term genius. (Whether in science, the arts, philosophy or anywhere.)

An age which genuinely, as a matter of assumption, denies god; is also necessarily an age that has destroyed its capacity for generating the new good ideas that are the basis of creative science; and indeed where real science of any kind is impossible; and indeed where real truth of any kind is impossible - and where real beauty and virtue are also impossible. 

(This is the nature of The System.) 

Truth is now lost... just like that needle, buried somewhere in the limitless haystack of error and falsehood. 

**

Note added: It took me a (worryingly?) long time to reach the above conclusion; having to un-learn so much conventional wisdom first. I eventually did so in course of writing my last significant scientific publication - although now I would take the argument even further in the same general direction. 

I have been pondering the nature of Time - mostly because I regard the ways that it is talked about (perhaps especially by religious writers) as wrong. 

I've been thinking about Time, on and off, for the past twenty years; but I have become aware that the root of the problem lies in trying to separate Time as a separate concept. 

Once Time has been detached from life and consciousness, then it become an unreal and misleading abstract model. 

Like all abstractions and models, Time is necessarily a partial and distorted description of reality - yet Time is often used as a fundamental metaphysical assumption in theology and philosophy - from-which is built systems of understanding. 

And when that happens (and it has been happening since the ancient Greeks) Time starts to seem very strange and counter-intuitive we get the familiar paradoxes and weird-nesses of Time... from Zeno's paradoxes, or Boethius's meditations on God's omniscience, onward.

My conclusion is that Time is not a separate or separable concept from its integration into Beings - into life and consciousness. Life and consciousness are 'process-like, dynamic phenomena - and therefore they necessarily include Time. 

Other elements in-which Time is included are creation and developmental evolution. Since I regard Being, life, consciousness, creation and development to be fundamental metaphysical concepts that explain reality; it can be seen that Time is itself so fundamental as to be inextricable - a part of the unfolding nature of reality. 

One aspect of Time - considered  is its 'irreversibility' or 'directionality' - this again is part of the fundamental concepts; and (apparently, at a common sense level) of the Christian religion, and the fact of Jesus Christ having been born at a particular historical location and having made a permanent and cosmic difference to reality. 

Therefore, if we start messing about with Time (and then believing our messings-about!), it leads to all kinds of deep (and ineradicable) problems - including with Christianity. So beware!

In a nutshell; I think our understanding of Time ought to reflect how it is a part of these deep and spontaneous way of understanding - the understanding ought to 'work' in terms of what is common, normal, usual, solidly established. 

But how to explain some of the uncommon, unusual and controversial assertions that seem to be related to time - such as precognition, or accurate prediction. These are often said to reveal that the future already exists in some way. 

Yet such explanations are ruled-out if we regard Time is inextricably bound-up in the most basic metaphysical phenomena (life, consciousness, creation etc.). 

This means that we simply cannot be allowed to detach, abstract and model Time as a putative explanation for observations. 

Instead, I think we should focus on experiencing and knowing rather than time as possible explanations for phenomena such as precognition, or the apparent ability to live in the past. Better explanations can be devised when we have an expanded conceptualization of how it is we can know things, and in particular the possibility of directly sharing in the consciousness of other beings. 

If the world is regarded as consisting of beings, which are eternal; and that there are ways in which beings can think the same thoughts  then we have a way in which strange and unusual knowledge and experiences could in principle arise. 

For example, beings include those who are remote, and those who have died - and therefore with a tremendously wide range of knowledge and experiences (from current and past times, and in many places) that might potentially be shared by another-individual's consciousness. 

In other words; I think we should take a straightforward and commonsense view of Time - and eschew separating it and preforming abstract modelling of Time's supposed properties; and 'instead; adopt a greatly expanded understanding of the possibilities of human experience and knowing of a direct, unmediated, kind. 

Every person who - for a while - succeeds in thinking/ being outside of The System becomes (for that time) an instrument of divine providence.

The above is a sentence I wrote in the comments yesterday, a kind of credo for what I term Creative Providence; which was then highlighted and expanded by Francis Berger. 

Here is a bit more in the way of clarification...  

Creative Providence = the belief that all our personal acts which are in accordance with divine-will are taken-up by God into ongoing and eternal creation. 

Therefore, Creative Providence is a metaphysical perspective* that acknowledges both the validity and potential of our mortal life; and the supremacy for the divine and eternal. 

It is rooted in an understanding of divine creation as ongoing and developmental (rather than once-for-all and fixed); and participatory between God (primarily) and Men (secondarily, within primary creation). 

In contrast is Fatalism. Fatalism = the conviction that God's plans unroll indifferently to any-thing - positive or negative - that we might personally think or do. 

Fatalism is the common basis of most theorized traditional religions throughout history and still today (although it is now, apparently, seldom believed with conviction). 

Fatalism gives all value and significance to the divine and eternal; rendering our mortal lives irrelevant and futile. 

Planning = the conviction that my best future entails forming and sticking-to explicit strategies. This is the ruling assumption in the modern world. 

Planning does the opposite of Fatalism; by excluding (as false) the divine and eternal; and asserting that our lives are bounded by conception and death. 

Mortal life is all that is - for us. For us... but significant only during our lifespan and without intrinsic significance for others. 

Lacking intrinsic significance; the only significance of our mortal life is in terms of the consequences for other people's mortal lives - yet the lives of others also lack any intrinsic significance.

Therefore Planning shares with Fatalism the conviction that our mortal life is Irrelevant and Futile - but for Planning our life is I&F because it is all there is yet lacks intrinsic significance; rather than mortal life being irrelevant for Fatalism for the opposite reason: i.e. because only the divine and eternal really matter. 

I have come to the conclusion that only something-like the metaphysics of Creative Providence is able to 'do the job' of explaining why our mortal life is genuinely significant - and can therefore explain why there is any such thing as the mortal life of Men. 

Note: Metaphysics is the philosophy (and/or theology) concerned with describing the ultimate nature of reality. Metaphysics is not itself that ultimate reality - but is the description of it, a 'model' of ultimate reality. Therefore all metaphysics is necessarily partial and distorted hence false if taken literally. The truth is known only directly, unmediated, without language. But to communicate the truth about ultimate reality entails metaphysics; so it is the most profound type of description.

Something missed by casual readers of The Lord of the Rings (or ignored by 'sophisticated' ones!) is the 'editorial' apparatus that presents the book as based-upon an ancient manuscript; in other words, the claim that the book is real history. 

Why did Tolkien do this - especially considering that he had not done so in The Hobbit? 

Well, in the first place, it was not unusual for the early novelists to claim explicitly and non-ironically that their books were either real records of actual events, or based upon such accounts (e.g. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - if considered as a novel). Indeed, this was so common as to be almost normal up to the twentieth century. 

However, the practice had stopped before Tolkien began work on his Silmarillion legendarium with the unpublished (in his lifetime) Lost Tales commenced late in the 1914-18 War. These stories included a very elaborate feigned-historical framing and explanation of their provenance - that is, the links of how it was that these stories came into our world, into the hands of the modern reader. 

The practice had become very rare by the time Tolkien published Lord of the Rings - except in a self-conscious manner that was intended to be taken ironically or satirically (as with the tongue-in-cheek 'editorial' apparatus of Farmer Giles of Ham). 

Tolkien, by contrast, was not-at-all ironic, but indeed very serious and 'literal' in his within-text claim that LotR came from 'The Red Book of Westmarch', a strategy repeatedly pursued in the Prologue and Appendices that bracket the story; and this was later buttressed by the editorial introduction he included with The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. 

Furthermore, it is a significant part of the failure of The Silmarillion of 1977, that any attempt at framing was abandoned by Christopher Tolkien - a decision CRT soon regretted, and endeavored to 'undo' indirectly, by his History of Middle Earth.  

Note: Verlyn Flieger has written an excellent account of Tolkien's lifelong wrestling with the matter of framing his stories - Interrupted Music, 2005.)

So why was it so important for Tolkien to frame his stories by serious attempts to explain how they came down to modern readers - against the trend of 20th century fiction? 

I think the answer is simply that he wanted to create an imaginative bridge that explained why these stories were not-just-entertainment, not just 'escapism; but were intended to be 'relevant': of serious concern to modern readers. 

This was especially important to Tolkien because he eschewed the usual means of making imagined world relevant - which is allegory. 

Tolkien's world was not meant to be allegorical, and he reacted quite aggressively against those who said it was; but real in-it-own-terms. Yet without any framing and linking between the stories and ourselves this detailed, autonomous, not-allegorical world-building might make the stories feel simply irrelevant... 

By providing a feigned history to bridge between the stories and ourselves, Tolkien created a single imaginative conception of the stories as forming part of our living world - hence obviously of relevance and serious concern to modern readers.

It seems pretty clear to me that Tolkien did not want to admit that he was doing this! - and indeed (e.g. in the preface to the second edition of LotR) he sometimes denied that his stories had any 'purpose' except to entertain people who happened to share his taste for such things. 

But this is to ignore the great efforts he made to frame and link LotR. These went far beyond parody, satire or the merely fictively-sophisticated. 

Indeed, setting aside defensiveness; the truth of the matter was apparent in Tolkien's own - passionate, and non-ironic - practice of referencing his own work in commenting on everyday life; e.g. labelling the attacks on trees (e.g. by chain-saws) as orcish, or modern bureaucracy as the work of Saruman. 

And even developing (post LotR) Galadriel as more and more an echo of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom he was religiously devoted. This linkage would be merely blasphemous unless it were underpinned by a very serious and real imaginative link between his sub-created world and God's creation as known by modern people. 

In other words, Tolkien wrote and lived-by a belief in the potential reality of the imagined: and the actual reality of his own imagined world. 

Tolkien did not, however, theorize the reality of imagination.  

So we can see that for Tolkien it was vitally important the seriously imagined worlds were regarded as really-real - despite that, at another and theological level, he denied this very assertion. 

According to available biographical data, and confirmed by the brilliant analysis by RJ Reilly in his Romantic Religion; Tolkien was apparently unaware of his friend Owen Barfield's extensive and rigorous philosophical work that coherently theorized the reality and truth of imagination. 

Of course; Barfield was working from a metaphysical basis that Tolkien's orthodox, traditional Catholicism did not share. 

But we, looking back, can now perceive that Barfield explained the reality of Tolkien's profound intuitions regarding his own world; and why it is that an imagined provenance for The Lord of the Rings was so important to Tolkien - and so effective for some of those most serious of his readers who regard the Prologue and Appendices as a vital part of the effect made by the whole book.  

Spiritual progress is possible - but it may be almost invisible to others in terms of behavioural change; especially when judged by the highest standards of behaviour.

This, I think, it part of what Jesus meant when he said he had come to save 'sinners'. He mostly meant that he had come to save (those who would 'follow' him) from death and loss of the self; but he also meant that those saved from death would always be breakers of God's laws. 

(I understand this 'breaking of law' to mean that we behave in ways that conflict with the divine motivations of God's creation, in which we all dwell. Any verbal description of 'laws' is necessarily a partial and distorted model for explaining disharmony with creation.) 

And that it was part of being-saved to know that we personally are a breaker of God's laws - and in a situation where the breaking of any single divine law at any time (no matter how apparently 'trivial') is 'just as bad' as breaking many of God's laws most of the time. 

(In other words, there can be no salvation by perfect adherence to God's laws; because not only is it impossible in practice - but also in theory; because the belief that it is possible to live in full accordance with God's laws is itself a breaking of God's laws!) 

Therefore true, significant spiritual progress should not be measured - Is Not measured, by God - in terms of quantitative adherence to the degree of behavioural compliance with divine laws. It is measured in terms of our knowing what God wants of us, and therefore knowing when (nearly all the time!) we do not live up to this. 

Since what is wanted is not at the behavioural level; we cannot monitor spiritual progress by perceptual means. Which also means that it is extremely rare that we can monitor the spiritual progress of others (although such monitoring can, to some extent, be done for those persons we love and know best.)

In other words we must (must) be able to monitor our own spiritual progress and to do so by the standards and in the way that accords with what God wants. 

This is possible because we are all Sons of God. Which means that we all have in us something of the divine.

The situation can be 'modeled' by stating that there is in each of us a real self that is also divine, and which therefore knows what is in-accordance-with God's ongoing creation; and what is not. 

So - it is spiritual progress to know that we each have a real and divine self; and it is further spiritual progress to be able to discern the evaluations of our own real and divine self. 

Even more progress comes from the choice that inevitably arises when we discern that our own choices and actions are going-against the laws of God/ the harmony of divine creation: the progress comes from our choosing to take the side of God and creation as our highest aspiration. 

It is certain that we will Not be able to put this discernment into action - we cannot align all of our behaviours with God's laws and God's creation: in other words we are always going to be lapsing-into sin, again and again; and we will be unable to prevent this. 

We may align perfectly with God for a moment or two; so we can know what this is like and can choose  - can want it.  

We will always - soon - lapse back into behaviours that fall-away from this known-ideal. 

But it is genuine spiritual progress to be able to discern from our real self; to distinguish the real self from the many fake selves that fit-in with the demands of this mortal world; and to make that recurring choice For God.

So do not despair! 

Spiritual progress is possible even for the worst back-slider (and we are all back-sliders - without any exceptions). 

Judge your-self as you are judged by God; not as you are judged by Men. 

Old readers will know of my aversion to the official New Year defined as 1st January; which is defined in terms of what it is not (not astronomical, not seasonal and not Christian) rather than what it is - which is to say arbitrarily numerical... 

This means the Year is not truly new, but only demonic-fake-'New'. 

So, the New Year and its 'celebration' is almost-certainly Satan-spawned - as what else could it be? When we are induced to celebrate the arbitrary, it is only one step away from celebrating the actively-evil.  

Thus your cheerful and social Happy New Year! greetings with neighbours are approximately spiritually-equivalent to a Nazi salute or the clenched fist of Communism... 

(...You're welcome...)

But this is the day one of the calendar-year; and my understanding is that the demons are very keen on arbitrary numerology - on the special significance of certain arbitrary numbers (i.e. fakely-significant numbers); being super-especially fond of decimals, decades, centuries - and the metric system generally, including SI units ("Systeme International" - French, wouldn't you know). 

The lower-ranked (bureaucratic, 'Ahrimanic') demons love these systems because they are made-up by officials; and because of their abstract efficiency, and easily calculational inter-convertibility. 

SI units model the world as-if it was already the single totalitarian System that the Ahriminic demons day-dream about implementing and operating... 

The metric-SI system artificially-'unifies' the world - and achieves this abstract coherence by its indifference to the human.  

By contrast the Imperial System (feet and inches, furlongs and leagues etc) was originally based-on the human body and mind; and the usage of measures that are functionally appropriate to the actual task in hand. This was especially the case in its earlier, 'medieval' forms - e.g. when 'an acre' was the amount of land that could be ploughed in a day, locally. 

There are also sacred, 'magical' number and geometrical 'systems', apparently derived from Pythagorean-Platonic philosophy - and these are universal; but abstract, not human, not functionally-derived.

(See How the world is made: the story of creation according to sacred geometry, by John Michell, 2012.)   

But naturally, none of these genuine, good-aiming spiritualities are of interest to the demonic powers - except when they can be subverted and then inverted; because inversion is the basis of anti-Christian symbolism and ritual - just as inversion of values is the most advanced form of evil. 

It was, presumably, the middle-managers among the demons (as among humans) who chose to make 2020 the year for the global totalitarian coup. 

2020 is just the kind of meaningless but superficially-significant 'decimal' number which they like best, and which they believe brings them the best results. 

So - what about 2022? Anything special? 

I think not - not for the kind of Being that is engaged in the Ahrimanic programme. They are keen planners and 'strategists', and are explicitly aiming at 2030, the next decade - for the 'completion' of their current strategy of worldwide surveillance and control.  

But as of the approach to 2022; these mid-level demons have apparently lost control, and their plans are not happening to schedule. 

Why? Partly because the plans were based on falsehoods and could never have-worked. 

Partly because of unexpected resistance. 

But mostly because the 'Sorathic' demons of chaos, of sheer destruction and negation, are increasingly in control; and are using The System to inject chaos, destruction and negation into itself.

The Ahrimanic demons intended to use The System to rule the world post 2020... 

But the Sorathic demons want to use The System to destroy The System. 

There is no doubt that order is collapsing and chaos is increasing - locally and worldwide. 

Therefore: the most likely prediction for 2022 is... Accelerating chaos  

(...Which is actually a bit of a non-prediction - since the nature and location of chaos cannot - by definition - be predicted!) 

But this tsunami of dysfunction is not apparent to the Ahrimanic middle-managers, because they are incompetent and dishonest; self-blinded fools who live by self-serving lies - and they believe that their interests are best served by pretending to omniscience and omnipotence. 

When real knowledge and power are lacking, the adopt the Texas Sharpshooter tactic of claiming that whatever has-happened was exactly what they wanted to happen...

...All is on-track and on-schedule; tractor production continues to increase by hundreds of percent per year; and the bureaucratic utopia of own-nothing/ be-happy will be oven-ready for 2030 - all in accordance with plans... 

And this will be asserted, louder and louder, officially and by the mass media - until the world is engulfed by war and famine, disease and death, flame and flood...

At which point they will simply claim that they always meant to do that. 

Romantic Christians should not be misled by the collapse of the Ahrimanic-bureaucratic plans into assuming that this means the powers of Good are necessarily ascendant. 

The birdemic-peck narrative would indeed collapse because of Christian resistance - if such existed. But does it exist?

Good can only come of good (not from evil-motivations) - and unless there really is a Christian resurgence, then failures of evil planning will not imply a better overall outcome - not if those failure are due to ascendant chaos.  

All complex strategies and functionalities (both Good-motivated, and of evil-intent) that depend on organization, coordination and obedience will - sooner and sooner - be sabotaged by the waxing of Sorathic evil. 

Thus, the failure of evil-plans is not good news when they are being thwarted by evil-not-plans...

But only when evil-plans are thwarted by intentions on the side of Good.