Bruce Charlton's Notions

(For my previous discussions of prophecy follow this link...)

When it comes to prophecy, and taking into account the nature of most true prophecies; there is disagreement as to how this is (or may be) possible. 

Precognition

For some reason, many people seem to regard prophecy as a form of 'precognition' - which entails 'seeing the future'. The idea is that, in some sense, the future has already happened and can therefore be perceived. 

This would entail that - from here and now, and by common sense analysis - the future is determined, and free will/ agency is unreal. 

This is then 'explained' by positing weird stuff about Time; such that there is ultimately no such thing as time, the linear sequential time of our mortal lives in this world is an illusion; and from a divine or real perspective - everything that has happened, is happening or can ever happen, is actually simultaneous. 

This philosophical idea dates back at least to Plato, and is famously deployed by Boethius to 'explain' the paradox of God's omniscience and Man's agency. 

The question is whether this really is an explanation at all. 

It posits weird abstract properties of Time that are counter-intuitive and incomprehensible to ordinary people; leads to the innumerable 'time paradoxes' of science fiction; and purports to explain the specific observation of prophecy by such a vast metaphysical assumption that it explains everything - hence nothing. 

In essence; it purports to explain evidence with metaphysics - which is the wrong way around. Metaphysics comes first (or should come first); observations may be consistent with metaphysics, but can neither confirm nor refute it; and changes metaphysics should therefore not be used expediently as a convenient way of accounting for observations. 

We ought first to establish our metaphysics assumptions - on grounds of intuition and coherence - and then use these to explain observations. My metaphysical assumptions exclude precognition rooted in weird-Time. 

Therefore - explaining prophecy by precognition I regard as illegitimate, invalid, Not really-real.  

Karma

I use the term Karma for the idea that that is derived from understanding the consequences of present metaphysics, attitudes and actions. 

In other words; by knowing and understanding the present situation; it is possible to predict what these will (sooner or later) entail. 

Thus, we might prophesy that if Men believe X, then (sooner or later) this-kind-of-thing will come to pass; or if Men do Y, then these will be the effects. Or (as a metaphysical example) if many Men's fundamental understanding of reality excludes God and assumes that all of reality is material - then such and such a human society will (sooner or later) happen. 

Much valid prophecy seems to be of this kind. 

Destiny

The cause of destiny is that God wills some-thing, and (sooner or later) arranges divine creation so that it happens. 

The free agency of Men (and other Beings) may thwart God's will again and again; yet if God continues to provide opportunities for Men to choose to do God's will - then eventually some Man will make the right choice, and the thing will happen. 

*

We can see that the two valid explanations for prophecy - Karma and Destiny - have no problem about free will or human agency; because they do not state any particular time or date for the fulfillment of prophecy. 

But as soon as a prophecy is particular and exact; then we run up against the reality of agency, which may tend to thwart such specific prophecy.

Presumably, then; in principle exact prophecy can only be real insofar as it has nothing to do with free will or agency...

But in a living 'animistic' universe - consisting of Beings in relationships - this can never truly be the case; since everything that happens in divine creation must involve the choices of beings. 

I have developed the metaphysical assumption that reality consists of Beings in relationships; this is a version of the spontaneous ('animistic') assumptions of 'all' young children and (so far as is known) hunter-gatherers - including our ancestors. 

I assume that this is an essentially true way of understanding reality which is why it was and is innate, 'built-into' Men - by God. 

Beings are therefore regarded as the ultimate, fundamental, metaphysically primary units of reality; Beings that are alive, with attributes such as consciousness, and purpose.  

In other words: there are ultimately no 'things' (or, more exactly, no knowable things - because chaos is not knowable - it can only be a label for uncreated stuff, including the primordial background state). Ultimately; there is no 'it' - but only 'him' or 'her' (or some other linguistic term that refers to Beings). 

This seems to mean that the spiritual war of this world includes all Beings, not just us human Beings; but animals, plants, and features of what we refer to as the 'mineral' world - sea, sky, and aspects of the earth - and the earth herself. 

And as usual, as with humans, there are Beings within Beings - just as we contain innumerable cells that are beings - for instance the white blood cells which roam our blood and lymph, consuming germs and debris, that are very similar to amoebae. 

And we Men, as individual Beings, are also biologically (and spiritually) 'social animals', with a 'Beingness' of some kinds of human groups, that is difficult to conceptualize yet also traditionally regarded as true; and which seems to exist above the individual level.    

One among many aspects of this situation is that all Beings have an analogous choice to that of Men, of whether to accepts the salvation made possible by Jesus Christ. Whether, that is, to choose resurrection into Heaven.

(Or not - and thus by default [whether actively or passively] to choose... something else.) 

I assume all Beings are - in their very different ways, due to their different qualities and degrees of consciousness - able to choose resurrection - or not. 

And this would apply to that Being which is 'the planet earth'. 

That there is indeed some such Being as 'planet earth', I am assuming on the basis that it seems to be spontaneous knowledge, and a feature of many cultures of many kinds through history. 

This earth will therefore - like you and me - at some point need to make an eternal commitment to Heaven - if the earth is to become immortal, everlasting... resurrected. 

And resurrection entails death; death is the only portal to eternal life of individual Beings. 

So, in order to become part of heavenly Life Eternal; the earth (as a Being) would first need to die; and must then choose - by an eternal commitment - to be resurrected. 

The death of the earth seems 'inevitable', given entropy; which seems to apply to all material stuff in this reality. And then, after death; will the earth choose to be resurrected? 

It seems to me that the earth will not have made this eternally-binding choice to 'discard' all sin and corruption and become everlasting; until after she actually has made this final commitment; because in this mortal and entropic material world, nothing is or can be eternal - including not our choices.

Our choices are open to change, to revision, until they are final choices; which happens only after death: when the spirit has separated from the (dead) body.  

In conclusion; we cannot know in advance whether the planet earth as a Being will, or will not, be part of Heaven; because that final choice has not yet been made by the Being that is Earth. 

This means that the question is still open; and we can be sure that Satan will be trying to influence the choice of Earth; such that she will reject Heaven; and by using broadly the same kind of methods that Satan uses against Men, to induce Men to reject Heaven.

How might this be working? Well, since the modern era (developing from circa 1500 in The West), and even more since the industrial revolution; Men have been set against Earth. Men's assumptions include that the Earth is Not a Being, that 'it' is dead, and can therefore be manipulated and explained as desired. 

The Earth is not even despised; but is regarded as outside of the drama of creation, because unalive. 

Atheists do this, Christians do this, modern environmentalists do this... 

Environmentalists - in particular - have reduced the living earth to an abstract concept called 'the environment'; which is broken down into a multitude of dead sub-concepts derived from science. 

Indeed - at present - the environment is in practice being reduced to mathematical models concerned with Carbon Dioxide; and everything else is ignored or subjugated to these models and their implications. 

In sum; there are many, many reasons why the planet earth might have developed the same kind of sinful, negative, sins that beset modern Man: I mean such sins as fear, resentment and despair. 

We might suppose that such negative attitudes could lead the modern (here-and-now) earth towards the same kind of attitudes to God, divine creation and Heaven as beset modern Men; and might lead to the same salvation-rejecting attitudes as are characteristic of so many modern Men. 

Indeed, it may be that when Christians (or anybody else - but I am addressing Christians in particular) make assumptions about what Will Happen to the planet earth; by acting as-if the earth had no say in the matter, they may be making matters worse! 

When Christians assume that the planet earth Will Be resurrected into the New Jerusalem - that Heaven Will Be on some version of this earth - are they actually taking-for-grated that the living-conscious earth will do exactly what human beings want earth to do, and thereby treating the earth as unalive, just 'a thing' which exists for the convenience of Men?

Just as if we were to assume that we knew for sure whether some particular human being would necessarily ultimately choose or reject salvation and resurrection; because that outcome is part of our own plans. 

To speak 'anthropomorphically' (which may not be far from the literal truth); when we think, speak and behave concerning the earth as an 'it' consisting of 'things' - the earth knows about this! and presumably does not like it, and may develop negative attitudes in consequence - and yet we continue and increase this way of not-relating to the earth. 

(How many of the troubles of Men with 'natural disasters' that we put down to 'bad luck' are actually a direct consequence of the way we regard the earth as a dead it and an unalive thing - and the same for Beings composing, and dwelling on, the earth? Some of the troubles, for sure.)

If we really dwell in this reality as Beings among Beings; then such matters are of fundamental importance: I mean recognizing the agency of other Beings, and recognizing that each Just Is responsible for his or her own salvation. 

It is so easy for us modern Men to fall-into the evil practice of regarding 'the universe' as a 'machine' - and this is wrong even when what is being-assumed is 'a machine for salvation'. 

We are not components in a mechanism, or elements in a determined-plan - and neither is the planet earth! 

We are all Beings, engaged in a free quest, located in a world which is engaged in spiritual war; a vital aspect of which is relationships. 

And one primary principle of such relationships is that we recognize each other as Beings - not as things. 

Conversely; it is a plank of the devil's program of damnation, that Men cease to do this; and instead habitually (and by conviction) regard 'the environment', animals, plants and other Men - as things instead of Beings.

Making Men into things, and he/ she into 'it'; is the malign intent behind such core evil-strategies as bureaucracy, totalitarianism, transhumanism, 'Artificial Intelligence', the transagenda, and the incremental and coercive computerization and digitalization of Life. 

Beings are not necessarily-determined, nor are they random. Instead; Beings have natures (dispositions), and purposes, can learn, make choices - and until they have made eternal choices, their fate cannot be known in advance.

To think and talk otherwise, is choosing to become a component part of the agenda of evil. 

Note added: On re-reading the above, I find it rather unsatisfactorily expressed; and I think this is because I am preaching something I cannot practice - although I want to! For instance, I found several examples (which I needed to edit out) in which I had used 'it/ its' about the planet earth! Nonetheless; this merely emphasizes how deep and pervasive is this 'objectivizing' and dead-ly way of thinking. It has even permeated what most adults (and indeed older children) regard as 'common sense' - so that it strikes most people as dumb or insane to acknowledge the livingness and consciousness of the universe and its true-components. I myself had to be driven to this conclusion (metaphorically 'kicking and screaming') via theoretical biology, and the attempt to define 'life', discuss the 'origins' of 'life', understand the nature of creativity - and indeed to map the proper boundaries of biology... All of which attempts I found to be impossible without the artificial drawing of boundaries that seemed too-obviously arbitrary. When confronted by the dilemma that - therefore - everything must either be alive, or else unalive. (In reductionist scientific terms; all of reality is either 'biology' or physics.) I felt intuitively compelled to assume the truth of the former - given that the idea that all of reality is ultimately physics (or maybe abstract mathematics), has underpinned the assumptions that have led Western Civilization to where we are now. That life consists in irreducible and primary Beings, arose from noticing the abstract - and again artificial - nature of any other conceptualization of biology/ life/ creation.  

This is very evident, on a daily basis: we have reached a point when deliberate evil destruction can work almost unimpeded, because most people have lost the ability to comprehend it. 

When there is no conceptual place for destructive evil; then - obviously! - such evil can't be recognized. 

This goes beyond a failure to recognize 'evil' in a general sense. 

Those who analyze - and try to explain and predict - politics, nearly always do so on the basis of self-interest; which is what they understand evil to be. 

They are keen to point the finger at politicians, parties, pressure groups, organizations who do evil in order to get power, make money, gain status, or indulge their personal desires for sex, drugs, or whatever.

This understanding of evil is one that sees it as pursuing private gain, rather than public good; and sometimes as immediate gain rather than long term benefit. Implicitly, by this view; leaders ought to be altruistic; and pursue long-term public good as their priority (even when, as usual, they can do better for themselves by doing otherwise).

But I am talking about the inability even to understand that there is an extreme kind of evil that is primarily destructive rather than self-seeking.

This I have called Sorathic evil (adapting the term from Rudolf Steiner). The point of Sorathic evil being that a spiteful desire to immiserate, harm, and destroy; is stronger than the selfish, self-interested urge.

Harm will be done by a Sorathic Being, even when the self-interested consequence is sub-optimal. Indeed, an individual Sorathic-dominated Being will harm himself, if this is expected to result in sufficient harm to those he hates*. 

My contention is that this kind of evil is currently very powerful and increasingly dominant in Western powers; and it is very effective for two reasons. 

1. Because it is much, much easier to destroy than to create; easier to break than to mend, to wreck than to build. 

2. Because people cannot understand it; Sorathic evil can operate undetected, unimpeded. 

This second reason - the 'invisibility' of Sorathic evil - is very important in its power. It means that a very obvious pattern of purposive destruction, breaking, wrecking is concealed - because it is broken down into a multitude of presumed self-interests. 

It also cripples opposition to those who wish to destroy, because opposition to destruction is always fragmented and fighting across multiple fronts - across many single-issues; whereas those who are doing the evil are continually opening-up new fronts. 

If we consider the Litmus Test issues: While sensible but uncomprehending people are laboriously building public resistance to 'the excesses" of birdemic measures, an antiracism crusade was introduced. When resistance to this latest insanity begins to accumulate, then the trans-agenda is wheeled forward, then the birdemic peck, then a climate emergency, then a war is started etc etc - in 'random' recombinations and cycles, without any obvious limit. 

Those leaders with the greatest power can keep-up this whack-a-mole game indefinitely, due to their control of The System of money/ law/ coercive force etc; and those who oppose specifics never can never get anywhere in stopping 'the game'. 

Even the rare successful specific resistances; leaves the basic power structure intact, and the Sorathic leadership in place. 

And what is the Sorathic nature of these Litmus Test interventions? 

Simply that - at the highest level - they need to be understood as destructive in their ultimate purpose. 

So that while the birdemic indeed gave some national politicians totalitarian power, and made uncountable trillions of dollars for various parties; its real purpose was destruction: destruction of many kinds and at multiple levels - of social cohesion, the money system, economics, trade, transport... 

And ultimately the destruction of Men's souls; by a system of totalitarian/ bureaucratic materialism with the aimed-at effect that Men choose to disbelieve/ reject Heaven and (implicitly) to embrace some version of Hell. 

Because when Men agree to live by fear, resentment and despair; they have already rejected God, divine creation, and resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

The same principle applies to all the other major policies of evil. 

Everywhere in modern culture where there are institutions has been brought within 

And that spiritual basis of motivation is exactly why most people cannot understand Sorathic evil. 

At a materialistic level, Sorathic evil makes no sense. Indeed it is not even conceivable - because the built-in assumption is that all 'evil' just-is a kind of short-termist self-interest. 

That is how motivations are understood; so a primary motivation to destroy is simply incomprehensible. 

Despite that we are all capable of spitefulness, and it is all around us - and people will even admit to it and boast of it; nonetheless our own spitefulness is typically denied, or subject to self-blinding - and that of others explained-away in terms of self-interest that everyone understands.  

Sorathic evil therefore seems 'irrational', bizarre, far-fetched; incomprehensible - therefore invisible. 

The idea that there might really and truly be a group of people (perhaps of demonic beings controlling people) who have (for instance) deliberately planned and incrementally implemented a world war, and then are now doing all in their power to escalate it as widely and as fast as possible... 

The idea that such people would be delighted if (when?) such a conflict became the ultimate conflagration of tens of millions, of cites, that the good earth be poisoned...

And the idea that this mass destruction would be done for its own sake... 

Not for power/ money/ status or from lustful desires; but done exactly because more-and-more of their primary Litmus Test policies means increasingly massive destruction, starving, fighting, maiming/ disease/ poisoning, killing...

The idea that (for instance) an state of total - no-holds-barred - world war might be for its engineers an end in itself - and not merely a means to some other end...

Such concepts are apparently beyond the scope of comprehension. They seem just silly, impossible, they 'make no sense'. 

And that incomprehension is, proximately, exactly how and why such evils happen, and continue to happen. 

But the reason people cannot understand is deeper, and lethal. It is ultimately a failure to understand evil at all; which comes from a failure to acknowledge the reality of this world - the ultimate nature and purpose of our lives in divine creation. 

Such a deep deficit in understanding is not fixable by any conceivable actual external pressure; each must do it for himself, or it won't be done. 

*Note added: The current problem seems partly to be an inability - or inner resistance - to imagining Sorathic evil. Yet, external observation suggests that almost everybody is prone to this, to some extent. What seems to be required, therefore, is that people look within themselves and reflect on their own propensity to the most negative of evil impulses. Only then may they be convinced of the reality and power of Sorathic evil, and able to recognize its fingerprints all over the Western world today. 

Divine Friendship: An aggregation of Arkle's analects. 

Edited by Jon Flint. Independently published on Amazon Kindle, 2023. 77 pages. 

Current price: 77 pence Sterling; 1 US dollar 

Jon Flint, who was a friend and collaborator of the author, has edited a short collection of William Arkle's writings on the subject of Divine Friendship; which was probably Arkle's core theme - the understanding of which can be a key to Arkle's larger philosophical ideas.

Arkle is one of a handful of authors that I regard as of primary importance in developing my attitudes and understandings of life and reality. But I am the first to acknowledge that it is difficult to grasp his meaning and significance. 

Arkle's major work was A Geography of Consciousness, 1974; republished 2019 - to which I contributed a new introduction. But GoC is a tough read in parts, with its analogies from physical science and strategy of building-up the argument from basic assumptions. 

The Great Gift of 1977 is much more accessible, with its paintings and poems; yet such is its richness of ideas and images that they are perhaps difficult to navigate and synthesize. 

Jon Flint takes the different approach of collecting a variety of forms of communication, spanning more than two decades of Arkle's later life - all focusing on the same theme.

This theme is that God the creator most desires from us his children that (eventually) we might grow-up to become mature 'friends' that can share in the divine work of creation. 

Simple to state, but easy to misunderstand! - not least because 'friend' has become such an enfeebled concept in this era of social media, and yet the English language offers no alternative better substitute.  

The collection begins with a verbal transcription taken from an informal live lecture, so we can get an idea of Arkle's conversational style; and of how he explained things person to person. 

Then there follow relevant excerpts from four of his books, the two mentioned above, plus Equations of Being; and including the entirety of his self-published pamphlet God: the Player Friend (1992); which, until now, has been almost impossible to obtain.

A further 'angle' is provided by extracts from Arkle's personal correspondence to the editor Jon Flint, written from 1986-1999. I found these very valuable - indeed, Jon Flint has previously allowed me to read a much larger selection from this correspondence; which is so good that I have read it at least four times through, already! 

I hope that, at some point, this more-complete correspondence between Arkle and Flint might be published in its own right; but in the meantime Arkle's admirers will welcome this 'taster'; and indeed the volume as a whole. 

Nowhere else could you obtain so much spiritual nourishment for less than the price of a bar of chocolate!

Last year I posted a meditation on the philosophical issues raised by glove puppet Hartley Hare's antics in the Pipkins children's TV show of the 1970s, and The Sooty Show during the 1990s. The knotty issues were further clarified by WmJas Tychonievich. 

These reference the question of who is morally responsible for the behaviour of a naughty glove puppet called Michael, when that puppet is being controlled by another (naughty) glove puppet called Hartley Hare? 

In the episode, Michael's behaviour was blamed on Hartley. But at a deeper level we could say that both puppets were worked by puppeteer Nigel Plaskitt - was he then responsible?

Yet Nigel the puppeteer was under the direction of a man called Michael - who told him what to do, including to be make the puppets be naughty. And Michael was following a script written by someone else; and all of these professionals were hired by a Producer; who was himself an employee of a TV company... and so on. 

In a world of puppets - who is the real Puppet Master? 

To paraphrase the archetypal Vicar's sermon: "And then I thought - life's like that!"  

Who is morally responsible for the escalating evil that happens in the world; in an ultra-complex and bureaucratic system that is specifically designed to conceal and deny responsibility? 

Because, in addition to the layers and networks of people telling other people what to do, and themselves choosing whether or not to obey such instructions; we also have voting, committee procedures, precedents, computer (or otherwise automated)-decision-making - and many other ways of denying individual responsibility, or eliminating it. 

And, for Christians, there is a further and invisible - but far more powerful - top-layer of supernatural evil Beings - Satan and the demons...

Given all this; how can we possibly discover where strategies, policies, and specific orders actually come-from? 

The answer is that we can't, even in principle - and even assuming access a breadth and depth of knowledge which we are, in practice, forbidden and blocked. 

So what then? Does this (as so many people seem to believe, get us all 'off the hook'? 

Does it mean that we are all puppets living in a puppet show; "so that" nobody is responsible for anything? 

And that the world Just Is; so, because we cannot discover the source of evil, to confront and oppose it; we "therefore" may as well give-up on futile agonizing about morality; and get on with doing the evil that apparently must be done?

We need to step-back and examine the assumptions on which such seemingly-inescapable evil expediency is based. 

We need to be able to understand that in material terms the bottom-line is that we are indeed puppets living in a puppet show - and there is no point in pretending otherwise. But it is these 'material terms' that are at the root of the paradox. 

In other words; if we restrict our analysis of the problem to the assumptions of mainstream modern materialism; then Of Course nobody is responsible for anything. 

After all; the assumption of materialism is that everything is either caused by something else or random; so it does not matter how far back we chase responsibility, we can never find it - since we have already assumed it does not exist.

Modern society delights in such toils of pseudo-complexity! Rulers use it to get themselves off-the-hook for evil policies by claiming, correctly enough - within these materialist assumptions, that they were "just obeying orders"; and that those who gave the order ought to bear responsibility... 

Only for those who gave that order to claim that they themselves were merely following orders... 

And the masses too-often delight in such arguments - because ultra-complexity seems to exempt everybody from responsibility - as if everybody is merely obeying orders and doing what has to be done; in a single, vast, interconnected closed cycle; with neither beginning nor end.  

Thus the endless chase to locate responsibility begins - until terminated by the decision to make a convenient scapegoat who is arbitrarily declared to be The One To Blame - then everyone can pretend that something valuable has been achieved. 

In this sense, the above stuff about glove puppets and bureaucracy is just a red herring, a distraction from the fact that The Problem is that we are thinking from underlying assumptions that already deny the possibility of moral responsibility.   

But understood in spiritual and Christian terms - we are all (to some significant, albeit incomplete) divine Beings,; we are children of God the Creator; and can/ must/ do actually choose to "ally or defy God". 

I mean that we can, must, and do pick sides in the war between God and evil; between divine creation and those who oppose it. 

We do not need to know where evil comes-from nor its complex interactions; only that we are, our-selves, moral Beings.

We need only recognize evil, take personal responsibility for the evil we do (whatever its ultimate cause may be), then spiritually reject that evil - and instead align ourselves with Good. 

No matter how complicated the world is (and it is, in truth, far more complicated than the largest and most bloated bureaucracies); we should not allow ourselves to become confused by it - because such confusion is itself a tool of evil.

Exactly because we inhabit a creation, made for our ultimate benefit by God our Father; whatever really matters and is necessary to our salvation and spiritual development, is always simple, and always do-able. 

I use the term 'entropy' to describe a very fundamental concept that emerges from an insight - or rather experience - of Mankind emerging as self-awareness begins to develop.

This insight-experience that dates back at least to the Ancient Greeks when (it seems to me) it was that which led to the very first philosophy - which was concerned with change versus stasis, movement v stillness, the temporary v the everlasting, chaos v order, the earthly v the divine, illusion v truth etc... In all these dualities, the first term corresponds with what I am terming entropy. 

To feel the truth of this realization is rather heavy mass that presses down upon all awareness and thinking. This insight can be described as experiencing the Weight of Entropy: in other words the realization that everything we know and know-of in this world will change and be lost; that  - in this world, and for all particular entities - death has the upper hand over life. 

Not everybody seems to have had this experience*, and (it seems) many of those who have had the insight choose to ignore and try not to think about it, or to deny its validity. 

But for those who have felt the Weight of Entropy, it has the ring of a profound intuitive truth. 

It is a metaphysical assumption hence cannot be proved, but it is consistent with everything in our experience - and nothing has been found in this material world (e.g. by 'science') that escapes entropy. 

Yet, the very fact that we can experience and recognize the Weight of Entropy in its fullness implies some kind of contrastive possibility; is a kind of proof that it cannot be the whole story, and is not inevitable in some kind of a cosmic sense. 

My understanding is that we are Beings who experience, think, and know from creation; from our innate experience of being-part-of creation. 

As original Beings, before divine creation; insofar as we had consciousness our awareness would have been of isolation in a universe of chaos (other Beings seeming like aspects of chaos, because they were behaving as such) - except we would not have regarded it as chaos, only as what is.

It is our inclusion in divine creation - and our experience of loving (cooperating with) other Beings, that gives us the basis of something alive and purposive, from which we can experience the workings of entropy dragging-us-down. 

And it is also that inclusion within divine creation that provides the awareness of at least a theoretical possibility of escaping - eternally - from entropy.

In other words; to feel the Weight of Entropy is usually a horrible and chilling experience - and it will remain so if we stop at that point (as so many people have, in the modern West). 

However, if we fully acknowledge the Weight of Entropy - instead of trying (and failing) not to think about it by distraction, intoxication, dishonesty etc; then we 'stay with it' and learn from it; we can go through entropy to the other side: which is awareness of divine creation.   

Note: A similar and related experience of 'weight' is that of sin - the insight that (for all the Good in the world, and that it is what many people, apparently, most desire) there is a sense in which sin is cumulative in a way that Good is not; and that corruption is an insidious influence that requires conscious and recurrent (if not continuous) resistance. But such an insight is perhaps restricted to some but not all cultures; whereas I suspect that the Weight of Entropy may occur to individuals in any kind of society. 

* When I read an ancient, or merely old, writer - I feel that I can sometimes recognize whether or not he has had this experience; when present, it seems like mind calling-to-mind across the ages and between vastly different circumstances. 

It has become really difficult, in practice impossible, to discuss moral questions in the public domain with any degree of precision and honesty. 

On the one hand, the mainstream modern materialist (MMM) position (which is politically-core-leftist among all global institutions; and Western nations and groups of nations, parties, major corporations and powerful/ wealthy/ influential groupings, including thus who are supposedly 'opposition)...

This MMM position has now become so nihilistic that any positive and coherent proposition that contradicts it is instantly and effortlessly (by formula, and under centralized control as well as through infiltration) distorted, selected-from, pulled-to-pieces, and used to project malign motivations and nature to any individual or group displaying any degree of opposition from the core agenda. 

A single remark or image (even from an obscure individual) that strays from the approved narrative; may, at any time (even many years later), be subjected to this open-ended defamatory interpretation until it becomes depicted as an urgent global menace; and its author someone who must be ruined, if not killed. 

All this from a single, decontextualized, sentence or picture...

On the other hand; those who rightly and necessarily resist such demonic destructiveness, are - by our sound-bite culture with its tiny attention span, and ultra-simplified thought procedures - drawn-into making grossly simplified and generalized statements of truth, that (of course, like any such statement) can immediately be seen to have many exceptions, grey areas and imprecisions. 

The false claim of mainstream modern materialists (but not adhered-to in practice) is that reality consists of an infinite number of special cases - each to be considered 'on its own merits' (implicitly, in terms of a utilitarian emotivist 'morality' that seeks above all to ensure 'rights' or avoid 'hurt' to those 'minorities' who are deemed members of approved victim-groups). 

For the MMM; By Far the greatest danger to its supreme values such as social justice, human rights, and to alleviate suffering; comes-from traditionalist religious people who treat everyone as exactly the same, and apply to them crude general rules inherited from a benighted past that was characterized by class and caste distinctions, slavery, sexism, racism, imperialism... and so forth. 

Thus - although the traditional Christian side is mostly-correct and the MMM almost-entirely wrong (indeed value-inverted); in the actual public context such debates appear (to the mass of people) the evil fanatics of the dominating demonic left seem to be more nuances and accurate than their 'traditionalist' Christian opponents - who are (so far as can be seen) fanatically advocating obsolete and simplistic solutions to complicated questions. 

In reality, traditionalist Christians nearly-always recognize the need for nuance and exceptions, and draw a distinction between sinner and sin, what is Christianly right and what is legally mandatory - and many other modifiers to the standardized application of rules to categories.

But nonetheless, they do regard it as necessary that a good and valid society operates on the basis of clear and simple principles that can be taught widely and easily understood... 

Necessary exceptions, valid occasions for turning a blind-eye, and mercies - then ought to be exercised at the point of specific enforcement (not principle); by the Christian judgment of those responsible for the implementations of such principle. 

Yet at a deep and ultimate level, there is indeed a problem with the way that traditional Christianity has conceptualized morality in terms of laws, doctrines, statements; and many Christians do indeed regard these simple generalizations as the bottom-line.  

In other words, they regard divine morality as consisting of simple principles that dictate what everybody should do, and not. 

In effect, traditional Christianity envisages the true and good universe of reality as structured and ruled by such general categories and principles; with individual people and circumstances fitting naturally within such categories - except for a few individual exceptions (maybe more apparent than real, maybe more a matter of the limits to our knowledge than truly anomalous) that should be dealt-with by the minimum of pragmatic or expedient adjustments. 

In sum: categories and rules come first; and actual individual instances are fitted-within these. 

Such an idea of reality is (in the West) mostly deep-rooted and derived-from in the assumptions of early Greek philosophy, and concepts of law derived from convergence of the Law of the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament, and from the Laws of the Roman Empire (through its various developments).  

Yet, in the end, these are assumptions; ought to be known as such, and tested by each of us for validity. 

We need to ask ourselves whether it is necessarily correct that the universe is ultimately structured and functions in terms of categories and laws with exceptions?

Or whether, instead (as I personally believe), ultimate reality consists of individual Beings (living, conscious, purpose beings) that can, for particular purposes, be collected into categories and their functioning be understood in terms of types-of-relationships...

Whether, in other words, it seems intuitively and bottom-line true that specifics should come first because they are primary; and it is generalities that are secondary, pragmatic, derived... 

Such a world-view is unfamiliar, and most of us have little experience of thinking in such a way - except within our families (insofar as they are loving and close families). In such families we know that each member is primarily an unique individual rather than a category, and we recognize that our simple rules-of-thumb by which we manage family life must be rooted in this reality; and therefore must differ as individuals are different, and change as the individuals change. 

However, even if this is recognized as ultimately true; it does seems unlikely to the point of impossibility that such ways of doing can be scaled-up from the family to society at large - to nations and the world - at least, this seems vastly implausible with the world as it now is. 

But if that genuinely is the reality (i.e. individual Beings in relationships), then it is not surprising that public discourse between the leftist-atheist-demonic mainstream and the demonized Christian traditionalists, should have an air of unreality; and be experienced as fundamentally unsatisfactory. 

While the orthodox Christians are clearly the better side, and the mainstream is extremely evil to the point of value-inversion - nonetheless, the moral system of advocates of traditional Christian (and other religions) is indeed unsatisfactory at root...

Unsatisfactory not merely at the superficial level of simplistic fanaticism into-which the media and officialdom artificially distort them; but also unsatisfactory at the deepest level of being-based-on assumptions that (if we make the effort to identify and evaluate them) we may intuitively feel driven to reject - and reject in exactly those situations we know best and most deeply and are most motivated by love. 

People through history have wanted God to be everything, to encompass every-thing; but that cannot be so for Christians. 

For Christians God must be partial, because creation has a direction. 

(God is also 'partial' by another meaning of the word; in that the Christian God has preferences.) 

If God is everything, and includes everything, there can be no direction to creation - and thus not point to creation. It Just Is. 

And therefore there can be no values, no morality - neither good nor evil, no truth or lies - things merely are what they are; always such and going nowhere else, because there is nowhere else to go (because God is always, always has been, everywhere possible). 

The Christian God, however, is going somewhere: creation is for reasons, for purposes; and embodies values. Creation has purpose - therefore is not complete, is partial. 

The question is why, then, do so many Christians through history (from very early) try to insist that God is time-lessly everything, complete, self sufficient etc? 

Why do they - by this insistence - paint themselves into a corner of contradictions from which they can only mistake by asserting bizarre paradoxes about Time and such? 

Potentially there are many reasons, no doubt; but two I would highlight are that - from one side - early Christian theologians from the Greek and Roman (pagan) traditions already brought with them a ruling abstract concept of deity defined in terms of properties, which they then applied to the personal Christian God. Such a deity was an eternal unity - and philosophical attention was primarily directed at explaining (apparent) change within this whole (e.g. explaining illusion within truth, movement within stasis, form within 'chaos' etc). 

And from the other - Hebrew - side of Christian history; there was imposed-on Christianity an idea of God as an incomprehensible absolutist monarch; who would not tolerate dissent or questioning, and who demanded propitiation. 

This God required, above all, obedience: service, worship, submission to His will. 

For 'mere' Men to assert that (or even discuss whether) this God was limited in any way (such as that God was partial, incomplete, had desires, of restricted power/ knowledge/ foresight) was felt as a terrible disrespect, a blasphemy - a terrifying act of (futile) defiance, inviting retribution.  

For such reasons; Christianity saddled itself with an unsustainable yet dogmatic concept of God as complete. But God is not complete, is partial - and only when God is understood thus does Christianity make human sense...

And human sense is what Christianity must make. 

That is the point of what Jesus said, and did! 

Note added: The above can also be understood in terms of the development of human consciousness; which occurs through each person's lifespan and also through history. In particular the relationship between the offspring (Man) and parent (God) as it changes through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and into mature adulthood. The idea of God as complete, and its implications for attitudes and behaviours, is analogous to the way a young child regards his parents - all powerful, all knowing etc. This attitude of primary-obedience to absolute authority is absolutely appropriate at that phase of development; and also of Men in ancient history in relation to God - indeed nothing else is possible is goodness is to prevail. But such an attitude to parents is neither appropriate nor good for the mature adult; who archetypally needs to move towards become something more like a loving and committed 'friend' of his mother and father - ideally living, working, raising a family alongside, and with, his parents; adults among adults. Likewise is such an attitude inappropriate and wrong for modern Christians in relation to deity. As for offspring and parents, so for Men and God - best possibilities and good relationships change with development; as Men become more conscious, more separated from the group, more potentially autonomous and free. 

Further note: It may not be clear why I am saying this stuff. The reason is that I believe that false, incoherent, metaphysics has been a major cause of the massive loss of Christian faith all over the West and for a long time. When the foundations are incoherent, the superstructure cannot be strong - even when people are not aware of the nature of the problem. The contradictions of ancient and traditional Christian theology and doctrines are, by now, mainstream and unavoidable. Christians typically either ignore them; or use complex, abstract, false, and (all too often) at-root anti-Christian arguments to dispose of them. These arguments are not convincing anybody; least of all those who deploy them, who reveal by their attitude, opinions, behaviours - that they do not believe what they assert sufficiently to be strongly motivated. All the major churches have become net anti-Christian. 

The genie of doubt, despair and nihilism is out of the bottle, and cannot be shoved back: the status quo ante (the previous state of affairs) cannot be restored because Men have changed irrevocably, just as an adolescent is irrevocably different from the child he once was. The only way out of painful and conflicted adolescence is forward into adulthood. Likewise, the only way out from cultural nihilism is through doubt and despair - and out the other side.  

Having had a short break from moderating comments - they are now restored. 

One doesn't become a Christian as a means to the end of enjoying a happier mortal life here on earth. Christianity is true, and that is the reason why we ought to believe it.

The psychological (as well as the cosmic/supernatural) benefits of Christianity are available only to those for whom it is reality.  

Yet, for someone who starts-out as a typical mainstream-modern atheist/ agnostic materialist - there are at least three immediate psychological benefits from being a Christian.

The background of mainstream modern materialism ("MMM") - which is explicitly taught us by public and official discourse in the mass media, education system, academia and science; and (especially) is assumed and implicit in the innumerable communications of state and corporate bureaucracy, law, and (above all) the mass media. 

MMM has it that there is no meaning or purpose to reality - and the universe has nothing to do with me. Stuff happens in the world - or it doesn't - for reasons of deterministic-causality, or randomness. Things are not going-anywhere - except that material processes (mindlessly) unroll and interact. 

For MMM; things do not add-up to any meaning that is relevant to me personally... 

The universe cares nothing for me personally, neither does my individual consciousness and thinking have any effect on the universe - my mind is just a minor and insignificant  part of a vast, impersonal, objective chaos of 'stuff happening'.  

Starting from some version of the standard normal understanding of 'things in general'; Christianity offers the immediate benefits of understanding that I live in a divine creation which has a purpose and (therefore) meaning. It is going somewhere for real reasons. 

When I think, when I am conscious; it is against this backdrop of an unfolding story - rather than a chaos going-nowhere. Furthermore, divine creation is a story that includes me specifically and personally.

Christianity (properly understood - i.e. rooted in Jesus) is always personal. 

So that when I think, and what I am thinking, is relevant to the whole universe, the whole of creation. Creation is concerned with me, and my thinking and doing has an effect on creation. 

For the new Christian; life is a drama in which he has a role to play. 

As he becomes aware of himself and the world, as he becomes aware of his thinking - this personal and particular activity is known to be a significant part of the-whole-thing.  

The third of these benefits - the personal aspect - is largely distinctive to Christianity among major religions; although there are, and always have been, self-identified Christians who down-play it to the point of obscurity*.

The new Christian has an immediate benefit of knowing not only that his life is part of a story linked with creation, but also that his life will not be (as with MMM) a brief and flickering flame lost in the unimaginable space and duration of the universe; but instead his own particular life will be be eternal.

Nihilism and despair followed by death are the usual consequence of mainstream modern materialism: Christianity is an immediate escape from this and into a life of coherence and consequence.  

These three psychological benefits are an immediate outcome of becoming a Christian - or, at least, they are benefits for those people who desire that their own lives should have meaning, purpose and universal relevance... 

Which is, apparently, not everybody - not by any means...  

*e.g. By emphasizing the un-understandability, awesomeness, power, remoteness and abstraction of God - rather than the immediacy and know-ability and personal relatedness of Jesus and the Holy Ghost. Or by introducing weird and paralyzing philosophical concepts such as predestination, or that Time is an illusion - so that (somehow) everything in our lives has already happened. Such ideas obscure, when they do not negate, the essence of Christianity as personal. Of course; many/ most? people misunderstand Christianity and other religions - especially because they are unwilling or unable to consider the metaphysical assumptions and implications. So, more explicitly, what I am saying here is that Christianity - properly understood; is distinctive in its personal relevance to reality; when compared with other religions - properly understood.  

It is quite staggering to watch the purposive suicide of the Western Western global empire that has ruled for many generations; a change in the world that is greater than that of 1989-90 - and perhaps greater than any since the 1914-18 war (which I regard as including the Russian Revolution).  

What staggers me is that - apparently - hardly anybody in the Western Empire has even noticed this rapid collapse!

And nearly all of those who do notice; misinterpret, minimize, misunderstand to the point of inversion... 

The reason is familiar to those who have engaged with the dystopian totalitarian world of Philip K Dick, in which the very strength to control everything is a cause of self-destruction. 

To put matters simply; the Establishment leadership have developed a monolithic Western-global Mass Media which is integrated into The System of surveillance and governance, and to which the masses are addicted. Since the global coup of 2020; this mainstream Mass Media has become fully controlled in its major-issue content; and dissenting Mass sources have been blocked, demonized and crushed. 

As of Now, the masses know/ believe/ act-upon only that which is Establishment filtered, interpreted and disseminated. 

So when, as early last year, The System embarks on course of (supposedly) externally-directed 'sanctions' that (contrary to the expressed intent) had immediate and (objectively) catastrophic self-destructive, disempowering effects - this actuality was blocked, explained-away, and inverted by the Mass Media. 

The effects are unavoidable, will be catastrophic - but will not be noticed. Because unnoticed; therefore it will not be understood; therefore there is zero possibility of recognizing error and reversing a disastrous course.

In other words; it is precisely the totalitarian power of the Establishment (to control minds) that enables, and indeed doubles-down on, actively self-destructive policies; because knowledge of effects are now (because of totalitarianism) detached from their causes.

Note: The above analysis is merely materialistic, and (even worse!) implicitly assumes that the physical suicide of the West's socio-military-economic power is spiritually 'a bad thing' for the world. I am here merely trying to explain a mechanism by which an apparently all-powerful regime can - because of its power - destroy itself without even knowing it is doing so! 

Why is destruction of Western nations the priority for the demonic powers of purposive evil? It clearly is. 

The demonic powers are in control; the global Establishment leadership and multi-billionaire class are puppets, and the Western masses are controlled. And the West is being encouraged to destroy itself economically, financially, by mass immigration, political correctness, climate change and pseudo-environmentalism, birdemic-peck healthism. 

And now - the intention is - by gratuitously provoking and escalating a mega-killing war against the global South and East. 

But why are the non-Western nations apparently exempted from this imposed suicide cult. Because, since early 2022; the world has split, the West is increasingly isolated, and the rest-of-the-world is incrementally (week by week) stepping-off the Establishment-constructed down-escalator to deliberate auto-annihilation...

Exactly because the leadership class and Western masses are oblivious to the world-historical scale of unfolding events, and because they continue to ramp-up the self-destructive policies all-round; I feel sure that this prioritizing of Western nations for the chop is a deliberate demonic strategy - happening by intent.  

There are, no doubt, multiple factors at work - but behind it will be something simple, clear, comprehensible - and spiritual; that is being directed purposively-against The West. 

It is, we can infer, extremely important to supernatural evil - to those spiritual powers that seek Man's damnation - that the West be brought to abandon and turn-against Christianity and to embrace the value-inversions of secular-left-modernity. 

And the Western nations (their leaders and especially managerial/ intellectual classes) are not merely willing, but indeed actively keen, thus to fall in line with the demonic agenda. 

...With the exception (so far) of the Fire Nation; which is why it has become public enemy number one for the West. 

Of the other 'breakaway' nations of the East and South; I don't see any that threaten the eventual victory of the demonic perspective - they are non-Christian, they are developing in a convergent 'materialist' manner, they have not learned the lessons that the West failed to learn; and would be expected to fall-into the demonic clutches later if not sooner. 

So, I assume that the real (supernatural, demonic) strategists of the world are making the best (from their damnation-intending point of view) of the current situation; by using the breakaway of the East and South to concentrate their efforts on The West.

They can now accelerate the self-destroying policies in the West, with even less opposition than before February 2022 - including mobilizing majority Western support for morally-scapegoating all the Eastern-Southern nations who dissent from, or delay, aggressive and immediate implementation of The Agenda of Evil. 

Destruction of the West has always been the priority - now it can be achieved even faster and more completely.

The rest of the world can wait...

I first heard of Miles Mathis - who has two very large websites on science (mostly physics) and on other-stuff - especially cultural critique, but also the arts, literature, media etc. - because several people sent me links to his fan-fiction follow-up to The Lord of the Rings. 

I didn't like this fan-fic, and could only manage to read a few pages; but went on to browse his other productions, and began to notice a few references to MM here and there in my corner of the internet.

It seems that Miles Mathis is something of a 'phenomenon' in terms of his productivity, range, and stylistic extremism.  

Therefore, someone worth a second look, and deserving of some attention. 

Since then, I have read through scores of his essays and other productions. 

These are attention-grabbing by their 'outrageousness' of vehemence and claims, and broadly appealing to my socio-political sensibilities; but I was also trying to discern whether there was value in them. 

(On the basis that, as Chesterton stated; to understand a Man we need to know his philosophy; and knowing his philosophy is a key to understanding everything important about him.)

This was not easy; because I find the MM persona - i.e. his written personality - very irritating and grating. He writes as a tremendously pretentious and domineering character; a particular 'type' of self-assertive, boastful yet emotionally brittle individual - who is relatively common in university circles, but who I would avoid interacting-with 'in real life' (and in print).  

Setting that personality aversion aside, what is my evaluation? 

Perhaps surprisingly, I think Miles Mathis's best work is his science. 

I'm not saying he is right - or indeed wrong - in his particular theories and claims; because his field of concern is not mine, and I am unable to evaluate specifics. 

But - from the overall impression and from many small details - I recognize the mental workings and truth-seeking commitment of a real scientist doing real science. 

This is rare - especially in physics, which has been corrupted for longer than any other branch of science. And it means that Mathis has a chance of being right or on-the-right-lines; whereas the overwhelming majority of those in 'official' science have zero chance of being right, since they are merely professional research bureaucrats who are "not even trying" to seek or speak the truth. 

The rest of Mathis's output can be divided into criticism, critique, and depictions of his visual art works.

The visual art work strikes me as good quality commercial art/ illustration, and I am unsurprised that he can (apparently) make a living from doing it. But - judged as 'art' it is spiritually empty at best, and sometimes it is nasty and evil-tending. 

The sense of queasiness and repulsion induced by some of MM's art is mirrored in the effect of much of the writing; and in his self-satisfied (unopposed, pridefully-affirmed, multiply-defended) egotism. 

He deploys the kind of ranting aggressive manner associated with the later Nietzsche in his 'Antichrist' phase. I mean the Nietzsche whose chapter headings in his last (pre-totally-insane from syphilis dementia) book Ecce Homo include "Why I am so clever", "Why I am so wise", and "Why I write such excellent books".  

This is a manner which, I believe, emanates from someone who lacks a coherent metaphysics and who knows it unconsciously, and wants to keep that knowledge unconscious. One who has excluded the necessary assumptions from-which he could (in principle) discern, critique and advocate values - yet continues to engage in making multiple (quasi-objective) value affirmations and rejections. 

In other words; an aggressive assertiveness that brooks no resistance is - it seems to me - the characteristic affect and affectation of a moralist whose deepest beliefs are nihilistic. It is a proximately in-your-face confidence and fluency; overlying an implicit and unacknowledged/ denied conviction of ultimate emptiness, futility, despair.

This is my diagnosis of the many essays focused upon explaining the calculated fakery and manipulation in service to evil that is mainstream modern culture and discourse.

I, of course, agree that mainstream modern West is indeed dishonest and evil - I would say more-so than at any time or place in human history (Mathis, by contrast, regards all of history as essentially The Same, Always bad in the same way as now, and he never seems to discuss the development of human consciousness). 

But my explanations are rooted in a belief in God and that we dwell in a divine creation; and that this mortal world is inhabited by spiritual entities; which include the supernatural evil of immortal demons who oppose God's will and divine creation - and whose ultimate goal is the damnation of souls. 

...Whereas Mathis explains the characteristic evils of this mortal world in terms of 'secular materialism' - in terms of a selfish and self-gratifying tribalism that holds-together, increases and extends throughout millennia of human history. Thus he (like the late Nietzsche) is focused on genealogy; on the lineages of heredity and ideology of the Evil-Establishment.  

This (to my mind) self-contradictorily entails that MM posits an extreme degree of multi-generational purpose, planning and organization; and a sustained and developing global networking... yet such massive cooperation and coordination is posited as happening among people who are (by the same theories) most deeply motivated by their own selfish lusts. 

In other words; MM's theories posit ultra-selfishness and self-indulgence, with simultaneously the greatest imaginable degree of long-termist systematic teamwork. This I regard as an impossible combination for mortal and temporary human beings - although exactly what would be expected from immortal demons. 

When I looked at the detail of Mathis's specific essays on specific cultural and artistic or literary topics - even when I agreed with his general conclusions, which was quite often - it was evident that most were only very superficially researched and understood; and that the argument method and mode was stereotyped, mechanical, and vastly over-generalized - such that anything at all could be 'proved' or refuted using them.  

I was kept reading when my agreement or relative ignorance led my mood to be dominated by my negative-pleasure at reading unrestrained and deft rubbishing of things I felt needed to be rubbished. 

But when it came to serious matters; and especially to matters of core values and the proper motivations to a Good man in this world of evil lies - well, there was nothing there. 

Furthermore, when I knew the subject matter; the arguments were - in many cases - full of errors and arbitrary false-assumptions, including mistakes in exactly those aspects upon-which the argument depends. 

Overall, therefore, I find Miles Mathis to be someone who has good surface instincts; but - because of his God-rejecting, creation-rejecting, anti-spiritual heart - has ended-up indirectly working for the wrong side in the spiritual war of this world. 

Once the excitement of his prose and persona have worn-off; what is left, is merely the same fear, resentment, despair and nihilism that characterize The West in these days.

Reading Miles Mathis in quantity or with attention; therefore tends to induce exactly the same mind-set that the demonic spirits most desire to induce in the people of this world; and which they propagate by their human agents of fake-liberation, globalist totalitarianism, and spiteful destructiveness of all that is Good. 

As for Mathis himself - somewhat as with Nietzsche, his position is so extreme in its surface-depths incoherence, that its inherent contradictions make it unstable. It is this incipient instability which is being self-concealed by the self-distractions of externally-directed ranting aggressiveness. 

But I feel that Mathis may - sooner or later, and perhaps post-mortally - eventually choose to cure these inner contradictions, by adopting metaphysical assumptions that make sense of his superficial opposition to the lies and exploitations of this modern world. 

That is, MM is a pretty strong candidate for choosing theism, and Christianity - as soon as he applies his intelligence to fundamental matters of life, death and eternity - with the same diligence he applies it to the phenomena of this world. 

On the other hand; Miles Mathis could choose to flip the other way. 

If he holds-onto his nihilism, it will infect and permeate his superficial opinions; and he will gravitate to the swelling ranks of pseudo-radicalism, of controlled-opposition - of those who deeply endorse the core assumptions of this evil world, while publicly fussing over the morality of meaninglessly-specific details.  

All sincere prayer is good; but some forms are higher than others - and it is reasonable to expect the form to develop as our consciousness develops through stages of life. 

As a child, our prayer tends to be petitionary (asking for things to happen) and also propitiatory - begging for things not to happen; including making deals with God ("if you do X for me, then I will do Y for you"). 

This form of praying could be characterized as excessively egotistical; in the sense that it is often the surface, personality and this-worldly 'me' that is talking to God. As if we knew better than God what God ought to be doing...

Later in life, we may become aware of this egotism and self-assertion as a major barrier, standing between us and God. 

Then we may aim for an ideal of 'sitting before God', and of prayer as silent, contemplative; an opening to allow God to 'take over'. The idea of removing the self, and our own will - so that only God's will is done. 

Yet this ideal of self-effacing prayer is so passive as to be aiming implicitly to delete our-selves from divine creation. We are implicitly assuming that it would be better if we personally did not exist, better if we never had been born - which means as if we were never created by God... 

Yet God did create us - and presumably He knew his business! He would hardly have created us if the ideal was then for us to disappear-into His creation! 

I may not actually be able to do it reliably; but I can see that what God would most want from us is not to sit in a passive, obedient merely to absorb and transmit divine creation (as if we were Not There); because this would add nothing to God's creation. 

Admittedly, self-effacing prayer removes the problem of sin, and stops us from actually fighting against God's creation and will. And this is desirable. 

But surely God created us for positive reasons, to do something good - not merely to refrain-from-doing bad things? 

God created us, I believe, so that we may choose to develop such as to join our personal creativity and love to that of God. 

We live so as to add-to creation, by our continuing existence. 

Yes, to do this efficiently (to avoid fighting our-selves) we would indeed need to eliminate sin and evil from our will - we need to cease to oppose divine creation - but we would also need to add-our-bit to creation. 

Therefore, I believe that prayer should ideally be personally active and creative; and therefore not ego-less, self-effacing and contemplative. 

Exactly this has been made possible to us through the work of Jesus Christ; by resurrection to eternal life in Heaven. In Heaven, and after resurrection, the ideal can become eternal reality. 

But how do we actually do this; here-and-now; during mortal life and on this side of resurrection? 

For a start, in this mortal life, it cannot be done in any complete and permanent way from our own will-power, effort and practice; because we are all indeed tainted by sin and egotism and selfishness that cannot be eradicated (or at least not without also eradicating the possibility of active, personal and creative prayer).

The highest form of prayer is, however, possible here-and-now - so long as we accept it will be brief and usually partial in degree; as are all attainments in this mortal life - yet still of permanent value. 

(Whatever actually is achieved in this temporary life on earth, will be retained, will be added to the totality of eternal divine creation; and then potentially experienced forever by those who are resurrected to Heaven.) 

In thought much is possible - and to any person - that is not possible in the constrained material realm. By knowing what we most want, what we are aiming-at; then we are able to attain it in our thinking. 

Thinking what? Well, for instance thinking about our own death and resurrection, and about Heaven. Thinking about our deepest Good desires - thinking on that we value most deeply and permanently; thinking on those we love, on what we value in those we love. 

Thinking on the truth, beauty and virtue of God's creation; and on our own thoughts and deeds that add to this creation (maybe in practice, but certainly adding to creation in thought - in potential). 

Thinking in a spirit of gratitude to God and affirmation of divine creation; with intent to contribute to it. 

In essence, perhaps; by thinking on joy and love in our own lives and ideal thoughts; and 'consecrating' these joys and loves to God's creation. 

In our imagination; adding our joys to the permanence, development, and eternal growth of creation. 

Such seems to me the highest form of prayer. 

The idea that Jesus came to "make us good" and/or that this is the purpose of Christianity, is a pernicious misunderstanding or deliberate distortion - despite that exactly this has been a mainstream belief through most of history since Jesus. 

People have been arguing for nearly 2000 years about whether devout and practicing Christians are more, or less, good than the alternatives. 

By now it is clear that such arguments are merely circular; depending on definitions (and differential priorities) of what counts as good that are themselves dependent on whether one is a Christian or not (and how Christianity is understood).  

One of the great benefits of these most-evil times, is that such matters are clearer and easier to understand Now than ever before. 

Now we have - what seem to Christians - to be gross evils and lies propagated officially and by all major social institutions as good, true, necessary. And Christian ideas regarded as evil. And most Christian churches taking the official line - on several or all of the strategies that sustain exactly such evils and lies. 

In the past we had other religions opposed to Christianity - and a considerable overlap of values (different religions more a matter of different priorities given to values, than wholly different values). 

But Now we have a system of ideology (not religion) that imposes value-inversions opposed to Christianity.  

Thus surface differences in understandings and measures of good are rooted in different deep assumptions on each side; such that the very meaning of good is what is at issue. 

In such a situation it makes no sense even to argue about whether or not Christianity makes Men good... 

What must instead be considered is the much more fundamental issue of whether the Christian understanding of good is superior to rival understandings, and why.  

The primary reality is of Beings who, at first, existed as individuals dwelling in chaos; until God's creation arose. 

The first choice was whether to dwell in creation, whether to join-in with the God's 'project' of creation. This incarnated mortal world consists of those who made this choice. 

But some Beings who dwell in creation desire to live in harmony with God's plans, while others live in opposition to them - for example, desiring to exploit their situation at the expense of harmony. So that is the second choice - to live in harmony, or opposition, with divine creation. 

This mortal life is what might be termed 'temporary creation' and is finite; such that every incarnated Being that inhabits it will undergo entropic decline tending towards death - in which the spirit will separate from the material. 

After the point of death, there is a choice of whether to move-on to permanent creation - which is Heaven - or not. To move on to Heaven; entails that each Being makes an eternal commitment to live by Love, and to reject all that is incompatible with love (i.e. sin).  

So that is the next choice - repentance and resurrection to life everlasting (i.e. without 'entropy') in that part of creation called Heaven; or to remain out-with Heaven in some way or another.  

Of those Beings who enter Heaven (by following Jesus Christ, who is the unique guide from discarnate spirit through-to resurrection), there is a further and ongoing choice; which is how far to proceed with consciousness. 

In other words, the choice of "how conscious do I wish to become?"

This choice applies to all Beings; but all Beings are unique individuals - albeit apparently the fall into broad and continuously-varying categories; such as men, animals, plants and minerals. (All of these categories are considered to be living Beings, purposive, conscious - but in different ways and to different degrees.) 

If we focus on Men; there is a choice of how much consciousness we desire to develop the over long term of eternity. The 'top level' of consciousness is to become like God: a full creator, albeit within God's primary creation. 

Lower levels of Man's consciousness can be understood as analogous to the different developmental stages of Men... e.g. baby, young child, pre-adolescent, adult. 

But not a permanent adolescent, that is Not an option in Heaven; because that phase meant to be merely transitional - which is why the powers of purposive evil strive to make Modern man desire to remain a permanent adolescent (i.e. perpetuating this desire can only lead to rejection of the divine).

That, then, is the 'final' choice of spiritual development made by subclasses of beings: choosing to become fully-divine, and a grown-up child of God; or some lower and lesser degree of consciousness...

I say 'lower and lesser'; yet this is the destiny and desire of some Beings; whose nature is such that they do not have a fully-divine-desiring disposition. These 'natural-children' will become Beings that - to some variable extent - will passively (and less-than-fully-consciously) be 'controlled' to attain harmony with the other Beings of Heaven, in a top-down fashion by God, or God's agents. 

Such are the choices. 

As so often - the two most-available mainstream options are both wrong, ineffective, and unsatisfying when it comes to 'my' role in 'life'.  

On the one hand there is a conceptualization of 'religion' that regards The Church - its tradition, rituals and practices - as an objective and overwhelming reality; to which the individual must conform. the church does not need me; but I need the church... The church objectively is, while I am just subjectivity...

I can recall this as a child - the dull, deadening weight of Christianity as I experienced it. It was something that pressed on me in a crushing way, always trying to shape and mould me - yet offering none of the future excitement, hope, engagement that I found in (for example) science, literature, music when I contemplated a life 'in' them...

I felt I personally could contribute to the arts, philosophy etc; in a way that was impossible for religion - therefore the future was one of being actively-entwined with life-unfolding; rather than incrementally being squeezed into standard shapes in a set-pattern. 

Yet the other option of these times was also hope-less. The idea of self-development; the idea that each Man would 'make' his own world - the ideas of the relativity of truth and values... These were experienced as toxic; because such a 'freedom' and creativity is at the price of its irrelevance. 

We can believe whatever we want - but none of it matters. We can explore human relationships in unconstrained fashion - but in the end it is just a game of mutual manipulation and attempted exploitation. We can do whatever we feel we desire, but in the end we die and all is washed-away. 

Nothing really matters, nothing lasts... When life is no more than 'whatever I want' then it is meaningless, purposeless, wearisome; and demotivating because there is no point in doing what will not lastingly satisfy. It is just a matter of doing whatever is easiest, short-term pleasantest - and of Not thinking about the future - because the future is irrelevant to the present, unpredictable, and never adds-up.

Both these options are wrong and utterly unsatisfying. And that dissatisfaction means that life Must Be futile - if church and subjectivism are the Only options. 

What is needed is something else quite simple to state; which is that we need to live in a way that recognizes both the objective reality of a life beyond our-selves; and also that we personally - our subjectivity, our efforts and aspirations, will be able (in principle) to make-a-difference to objective reality.  

The trouble is that our usual mainstream (and going back to ancient times) assumptions about objectivity and subjectivity, about reality and the human mind, are such that we keep on channeling the possibilities down to just the two above: either subjectivity conforms to objective reality - and subjectivity is some kind of an irrelevant illusion; or, if subjectivity is all-there-is, then we fall into some kind of nightmarish solipsism of life as a random dream-nightmare. 

This is why I return over and again to the need to understand and expose our underlying metaphysical assumptions (i.e. our basic conceptual model of reality); and to revise them. 

We need a picture of objective reality in which we - each and personally - can change objective reality - which must therefore be one in which objective reality is known to be dynamic, developmental, 'evolutionary'.

However we formulate it (and any specific and communicable formulation, or state-able 'model', is bound to be incomplete and distorted, compared with the boundless and openly-interconnected nature of reality) - we need to have this kind of picture in-mind; if we are to envisage life in a way that is both motivating and true. 

At the level of communication, it sounds unsatisfactory. But we are part of creation, as well as participants. We are children of God (the primary creator) as well as immortal beings with agency. 

At the ultimate level, beyond the capacity of symbolic representations (such as language) we have this experiential-knowledge of our-selves and of reality.

We have lived-through a vast (cosmic) background of events; all of which form that ground of understanding which makes possible a sufficient grasp of our role in Life.  

I have decided to suspend commenting on this blog; because the frequency of publishable comments has dwindled to so low a level, that the time I need to spend on monitoring and moderating has become disproportionate. 

I do not know how long this will last; but interest in blogging as a whole (and, more significantly, the inter-relationships of the relevant blogosphere) is going through a trend of decline, or else a down-swing - and this blog is no exception. 

This may or may not be permanent. But in the meanwhile; previous comments are hidden (although not lost). 

An incredibly eerie thought came to me just now after reading over a typed page in which I describe the Black Iron Prison occluding us in such a way that we can't (even) tell we are occluded. 

Philip K Dick, Exegesis - Sept-Oct 1978: Folder 19

**

As I have often said; there is never just one thing wrong when there are chronic and adverse trends, but always also a second thing - which overcomes corrective feedback and makes possible the sustaining of the first fault. 

This is the case with those pervasive, unremitting and accelerating PSYOPS practiced upon Western populations (and - even more so - on the managerial/ intellectual classes of these populations) by officialdom, corporations and the mass media. I means the multiple false and arbitrary claims, and gross self-contradictory incoherences; which, nonetheless, 'must' be believed and supported as objective facts. 

What is at work here is a two-fold strategy of occluding, blocking, human thinking. The actual processes of thinking are being damaged, and also this damage prevents people from recognizing that their thinking is being-damaged. 

We find that Modern Man cannot, apparently, apply universal common sense to social situations; fails to recognize and learn-from repeated personal experiences; is unable/ unwilling to infer evil intention from many-fold evil actions; and gets 'blocked' by panic and incomprehension when confronted by even a two-step logical chain ("because of A and B, then C") . 

This is what happens - here-and-now; but why is it possible for the masses to be thus manipulated? And why did it not happen in the past and in all other societies?

Again the answer is twofold (at least twofold): One factor is the presence of the Mass Media and its innate addictive nature and addictive properties. 

The second, which permits this and prevents feedback - is the mass 'apostasy' of Western Man: that vast tidal trend of the abandonment of Christianity, the soul, life-after-death, the world of spirit etc; and adoption of the ideology of materialism/ positivism/ scientism/ leftism with its pseudo-morality of hedonic utilitarianism. 

Thus, on the one hand, we have unprecedented powers of mind-control; while on the other we have the unprecedented vulnerability of self-maimed minds that deny their own purpose, meaning and significance.  

In the end; we have a world of Men who have rendered themselves helplessly confused and blocked from basic understanding; actively embracing further interventions that increase their own mental helplessness and occlusion; all to the point of destroying Mens' capacity to recognize their own situation. 

The System is the Black Iron Prison - so it will not help its encaged mass victims; and the B.I.P. extends to include the churches, academia, education, arts... and all other potential mainstream sources of spiritual guidance.  

The answer is clear, simple, and within the grasp of a child; but for exactly that reason it is unacceptable to Modern Man. 

The bad news is that each Man can only help himself because no external help is to be had; the good news is that any and every Man is capable of helping himself: of initiating a sequence of events leading to his own escape from the mental toils of the BIP.

It's all a matter of what he most wants.