Bruce Charlton's Notions

It is somewhat dismaying to see Christians embarking, again and again, decade after decade, on delusory projects of "re-taking culture", including the established churches - and instead ending-up fundamentally (and whether they realize it or not) assimilated-to ("converged-with") mainstream (left-totalitarian) ideology.

This is often associated with the Boromir Strategy: "Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!" - either deliberately ("It's time we learned from the success of the Left"), or else by unconsciously and incrementally becoming more like the Left in order to infiltrate the structures of power and (so the original intention is) seize control. 

This usually begins with some local and small scale goal; like getting control of a magazine or journal, reforming a college or a school, placing "our people" in local government, or electing a single national politician. The idea is that this then serves as a base and bridgehead for the next step, and the next... and eventually the whole System will be re-orientated in a Christian direction...

There are two things to be said: firstly, people have been saying this and trying it for more than fifty years, and therefore by any realistic and this-worldly appraisal it has an effectively zero chance of working. 

Therefore, by all reasonably probabilities, the needful investment of time, energy and resources Will Fail to achieve the strategic and cultural objectives (although, in the short term and on a small scale, the attempt may make a living for a smaller group of people - which is perhaps why the strategy keeps getting revived). 

So there are large opportunity costs; because if you are prioritizing one thing, you are not prioritizing another thing*; and personal resources expended on pursuing futile (or selfish) ventures are unavailable for potentially valid and successful projects.   

(*There can only be one priority: therefore choose it well!)

The second and more important thing to be said is from an inferred spiritual perspective. 

All talk about re-taking the culture is essentially to do with the material and physical realm, and is framed in terms of a communal activity. 

Now, many Christians have assimilated and committed to the idea that Christianity is essentially a group, communal activity; that must be pursued via an intermediary and material, this-worldly social system (i.e. their favoured church or denomination) - so they are self-painted into an ever-shrinking corner from which they can only imagine (or will only entertain the possibility) of the same-old form of Boromir Strategic escape: no matter how often this has failed, no matter how counter-productive is the attempt in practice. 

My own understanding is almost the opposite; which is that Life is trying to teach us that retaking culture, taking-over The System, or any version of the Boromir Startegy... is not what we should be attempting; because we are spiritual Beings with a direct-line to God and direct guidance from the Holy Ghost. 

And this decision has been made easy for us, by the repeatedly proved fact that church-centred, institution-centred, collective strategies will not work, anyway - so it ought to be facile for us to abandon them.  

Of course; if one is indeed painted-into a this-worldly corner, then this sounds like a counsel of despair! 

But if we are instead prepared to learn from the divine teachings of this-world; we can be completely hope-full that pursuing the strategy which God has laid-out for us, will be far more successful (when success is defined correctly - i.e. spiritually) than the same old useless delusions. 

Indeed, we can be utterly confident that - in the long-term and where-it-matters - we certainly will be successful; so we ought to feel joy, not despair. 

In other words, the reaction of despair is a product of self-blinding and a delusion; but joy is a consequence of that hope which derives from faith in God the creator, our Heavenly Father+, and we His children. 

+This argument works equally well; whether one believes that God is our Heavenly Father only; or, as I believe, our Heavenly Parents.

I have noticed that one of the barriers to (in the first place) valid Christian understanding, and (secondly) to a valid comprehension of how Very Bad things are in the world, now; is a mistakenly This-Worldly and Morality-Centred perspective. 

Furthermore, being this-worldly and morality-centred means that such Christians, almost-inevitably, are un-repentantly tainted by Residual Unresolved Leftism; since a TWMC perspective is also characteristics of the socio-political globalist totalitarian mainstream. 

Thus; this-worldly and morality-centred "Christians" gravitate towards a world view that could literally (non-pejoratively) be described as a type of Christianized fascism; since fascism was the early twentieth century's primarily-secular reaction against internationalist communism. 

Yet, of course, "fascism" is itself a species of Leftism - albeit a less complete and more-functional leftism than communism, socialism, or the current post-sixties "New Left"-ism.  

A Christianity that understands itself primarily in this-worldly and moral terms is catastrophically vulnerable to pessimism - where pessimism is understood as the belief that things in this world are already Very Bad Indeed, and most likely to continue getting worse. 

Anyone who is fundamentally this-worldly (whether self-identified as Christian, or not) will find it very difficult to avoid despair (which is, of course, a deadly sin) unless he is dogmatically and systematically optimistic; and this means that he cannot tolerate pessimism - no matter whether a pessimistic evaluation of this-world is valid or not. 

In other words, for the this-worldly "Christian" an optimistic understanding of this world is mandatory; and any pessimistic evaluation of current and future conditions is absolutely ruled-out, in-advance, by-assumption; otherwise the individual will be overwhelmed by despair.

This partly explains why so many Christians are so falsely optimistic about the condition of the world now, and its probably future; why they are so resistant to a realistic appraisal of this mortal life; and why they are so often drawn into advocating and supporting residually-Leftist and collectivist socio-political programs. 

Note: The answer to the impasse - which would enable Christians to be realistic about the nature and prospects of The World - would, of course, be to base one's Christianity primarily upon Jesus Christ's promise of  resurrected eternal life; as clearly set forth in the Fourth Gospel ("John").  

Francis Berger: " I don't think speculating about consciousness development at the collective level is necessary or even helpful now."

My comment (edited): This articulates something that has been nagging at me for a while. In particular, I increasingly feel that the account of development of consciousness is valid for the past - and it is important to recognize that people have Not always been the same as now, nor are people the same everywhere at any particular time. 

But the Steiner/ Barfield theory of the Evolution of Consciousness went badly wrong in being used as a predictor. 

Thinking further about this exchange, I realize I have been guilty of significant Residual Unresolved Collectivism (RUC). 

In other words; while in-theory realizing that there is no legitimate optimism to be derived from expecting Good Leadership the The West or any of its constituent nations, institutions or churches; I still retain a residual expectation that there is a desirability hence need for some kind of communal or group-based spiritual awakening of the necessary kind. 

It is Residual because my habitual practice of thinking is different from what I believe (and even know) must be the case: the collectivism is left-over from an earlier set of assumptions and practices.  

And, to this extent, my habits sabotage my intentions. 

RUC is closely analogous-to, and indeed related-to, other left-over forms of wanting and thinking that I have previously described: Residual Unresolved Positivism (which I got from Owen Barfield), and Residual Unresolved Leftism. 

In other words; just as we have habits of considering the world as primarily material/ physical and abstract (e.g. as models) in terms of its reality and causes; and just as our values nowadays tend habitually to begin with leftist assumptions (such as equality, pacifism, antiracism) -- and just as these are difficult to eradicate even when that is our priority...

So, we tend to think about the human world primarily in terms of large human groupings; and understand the individual as a consequence of such groupings. 

The collective is how we analyze and understand problems; and the collective is where we seek for (or, at least hope-for) answers. 

Collective thinking is, indeed, woven-into Christianity from its historical basis; especially in the Old Testament where most things are conceptualized in terms of "a people": the nation (tribe) of Israel.

Even many relatively recent and current forms of Christianity (such as Mormonism) have usually adopted collective explanations of God's motivations, and tried to recreate collective dealings-with God - including envisaging salvation - and theosis - in collective terms of God's dealings with A People. 

As I have often explained on this blog over the past decade; this I regard as untrue for this time and place; and counter-productive in relation to what Christians (as the individuals we actually-are) ought to be doing here-and-now. 

I believe that we cannot, and should not attempt to, live collectively in terms of our relationship to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost - but should take personal responsibility, and should act, now, from our-selves to do what is right and necessary (rather than waiting and hoping for some collective grouping to tell us what to do, and support us in the doing). 

I hope that now I have - with some help from Francis Berger! - been able to recognize and give a name to this tendency; I may begin to eradicate it more fully from my metaphysical assumptions and habits of thinking.  

Theosis (at root the same notion as sanctification, exaltation or deification) is the general idea that throughout our earthly mortal lives we are supposed to become (in some way) more like God, or perhaps more like "a god". 

"Supposed to" because this is why we are sustained alive -- After all, why stay-alive (in the past and now) rather than simply dying and achieving salvation as soon as we choose to follow Jesus Christ to eternal life?

(Because that would surely be a more certain salvation: To die at the split second we converted, at the instant we made a commitment to follow Jesus. There must therefore be a very important reason why it does not happen.)  

But theosis is difficult to conceptualize except in the rare instance of the greatest Saints; who have very obviously become more divine throughout their mortal lives (head in Heaven, feet still upon earth - as the Eastern Orthodox say). 

It has often, and truly, been observed that becoming a Christian does not (or only seldom) make somebody overall a better person - so that, if theosis is indeed an integral aspect of genuinely Christian living, then the process doesn't seem to work very well... 

I have, therefore, found it difficult to explain to myself - in some kind of comprehensible 'model' - what is supposedly going-on with theosis - but I now think I may have found a useful picture of the process, as it is intended to operate. 

My assumption is that we have a primal self - which could also be called our real, true or divine self; and it is this which is eternal, and has existed from eternity. My primal self is "encased" within a mortal and temporarily-incarnated self; which is (approximately) our body and our personality - that which other people observe, and which interacts with The World. 

The process called theosis describes the transformation of my primal self, across a timescale of eternity; but at present intended to be achieved by interaction-with, and learning-from, the experiences of my mortal self in this world. 

So -- if I succeed in my God-given task of learning from the experiences God has set-up for me in this mortal world; then it is my primal self that is positively-transformed by this learning. 

And it is this process of positive transformation of the primal self that can be called theosis. 

This model may explain why it is that theosis is not necessarily (or usually) observable in a Christian individual. 

What is happening is that the primal self is being-transformed positively and eternally - but the bodily behaviour and actions, and personality level motivations and thoughts; are Not (or not usually) being transformed. 

So the primal self is getting-better when we learn Godly-lessons from our life experiences  - whether or not the mortal self improves... or even gets worse!

This depiction maybe explains why and how it is that we may know someone who we are convinced has a Good Heart (i.e. the primal self); despite that his behaviour is clearly sinful and not improving; or exhibits grossly inconsistent, incoherent or chaotic behaviour.  

And, on the other side; why it often seems (to our intuitive inference) that someone who leads "a Christian life", who seems to think and do the Right Things, who is nice, socially responsible, devout, a good neighbour etc.; may strike us as heartless, cold, unloving - and certainly Not improving as a result of his continued-living. 

Or why we perhaps are sure that we our-selves are being made better by being-a-Christian; despite that we continue to sin in the same ways as much as ever, or in new ways, or backslide repeatedly - or even behave (to an external observer) overall worse than we did before becoming a Christian.  

Another aspect of this mismatch between primal self and mortal self, is that it becomes understandable why God would allow (or even want) such a divergence. 

The reason why we are sustained alive is to challenge us with repeated and multiple interactions with this world: experiences that are intended as learning opportunities. 

And this situation may be easier to arrange if our mortal selves are Not (or not much, or only unevenly) positively transformed by life. 

After all; the ultimate value of this mortal life is not within this temporary world, where nothing lasts and everything dies; its ultimate value is found in Heavenly life everlasting. 

It takes a lot to keep us alive*; but only one thing to kill us. 

*Almost certainly; far more than you realize or could conceivably plan for. 

The take-home message: Spiritual preparation is what is vital for all without exception and starting now; anything else is mere prudence.

It seems to me that we have to make a decision about the significance of life: more exactly we need to discover what it is that we personally really feel about the significance of the "events" of this our mortal life. 

There are various "philosophies" of this life that are knocking-around; but none of the standard ones that we are likely to encounter seem to be validated by my own deepest and most lasting intuitions, insofar as I am conscious of them. 

For instance; some people sometimes talk as if life is a cumulative process, a matter of building towards - so someone might look back on their life as if it was all working towards who (and what) he is now. 

This is often a way used for structuring obituaries and biographies (whether informal and verbal, or written) - the idea of encapsulating what somebody's life was "about"... but it is hard to say how seriously it is taken by most people. 

It often seems like an as-if and ironic kind of activity; just "something to say", as in a funeral eulogy. 

On, the other hand; it does seem like some people actually live in order to make what they regard as an impressive obituary - the idea that their lived-life is validated by their post-mortal official reputation. 

(I should note, here, that (even just five years into retirement) the various academic/ scientific/ educational achievements of my own working-life, seem hollower, and are experienced as far less satisfying, than I had ever imagined at the times they happened!) 

At the opposite extreme is the idea that each person's life is ultimately futile; amounting to nothing and ended by annihilation of the self. 

This may be softened by stuff about "living-on" in the memories or hearts of others... But even to the extent this is true, it merely "kicks the can" a generation or two downstream; since we cannot thus survive beyond the lifespan of those who really-knew the real-us.  

The annihilation story is the underlying official and global metaphysical assumption; the one that lies behind all modern social institutions. It goes with the idea that individual people exists to serve the social systems. 

But the idea that an individual life is futile is also the implication of oneness spirituality in its various manifestations; including such ideas that this mortal life is an illusion, a deception, a simulation. That we are not really individuals at all, we only think we are. I mean the idea that we never really had or have an independent reality as "agents" as beings with the capacity for freedom...

People quite often talk in this way; although, again, it is hard to say how deeply they really believe what they are saying - often it just seems like a social status game.

My own deepest intuition is that this life is not futile; or rather that life is not necessarily futile - although we can choose to make it so. 

But that is merely a double-negative: I would go further and say that life is purposive and meaningful - but not in the way of an obituary. 

Rather; some events in life strike me as innately "of eternal significance". 

That feeling or belief is a kind of psychological fact-of-life for me - some things that happen in my life, combined with the way I responded to these happenings, are experienced as having a quality that seems to stretch-out into the eternal future; as if (from my point of view) everything has been changed by them.

I said a "psychological" fact, but part of this psychological fact is that this significance of some "events" goes beyond my own psychology, that the significance is objective - it is part of reality. 

Now this is a strange intuition! at least when compared with the kind of interpretative explanations that are knocking around the world nowadays. 

It is a strange thing to suppose that an-event-as-I-personally-experienced-it might form one of the building blocks of eternal reality; yet that is indeed how it seems. 

It is a secondary matter, coming after this intuition, to devise some model of the world in which this is possible; a moving-picture of the world in which it makes sense that an-event-as-I-personally-experienced-it could have a real, eternal significance.

Furthermore, this intuition includes that the significance is both objective and personal - that is, both important to me personally (so that, somehow, "I" am still going to be around to appreciate this importance) - as well as of continued, everlasting significance to "reality in general".* 

And that is one of the motivators behind my philosophical, metaphysical, activity - and also a reason why the theology to which I adhere - Romantic Christianity, as I call it - has ended-up being different from all the mainstream options. 

That is, in sum: None of the mainstream explanatory options make coherent sense of my intuition that an-event-as-I-personally-experienced-it could be a thing of eternal, and indeed personal, significance. One of my (self-motivated) tasks is therefore to devise a scheme by which the validity this intuition is explained. 

*I should emphasize that I do not have this intuition of eternal significance for every-thing that happens, but only for some things that happen. 

In times like this, it is - I suppose - understandable, maybe even "natural" to seek for some reason to be optimistic, or at least positive about the-world; and to seek also for some task with which you can cooperate to "save the world" - or, make a better world. 

But, what I see, is a lot of people who so grossly underestimate the severity of the spiritual condition of The West (and, apparently, nearly all of the world) that this must be evidence of their own lack of understanding. 

I am saying here that the practical-minded positivity of too-many commenters derived from a radically inadequate grasp of the breadth and depth of corruption already established in-place; from top to bottom in The West. 

And this lack of understanding must itself be evidence that they personally are complicit with the main-stream of evil in the world. 

This underestimation of evil has, itself, many causes - perhaps the most important being that people get distracted from understanding reality by an overwhelming focus upon their lives here and now, the question of what they are "going to do"; and a fear or fascination with The Future: a desire to know in advance what is going to happen. 

They put the "cart" of physical-action, before the "horse" of spiritual-understanding.  

So people shear-away from a recognition of the truly appalling, by far the worst ever in history, spiritual state of the world - because this seems too pessimistic, despairing or defeatist... 

In reality; the refusal to confront the scale of evil in the world now - and the consequent tendency massively to overestimate the possibilities of Doing Good on some social or community level; some larger than individual scale - this refusal itself comes from a this-worldly perspective which is itself evidence of being so deeply complicit in the evils of the world that they have become invisible.

The terrible danger of unconscious complicity is that repentance becomes impossible. We cannot repent a sin that we do not recognize. 

And that is the very-worst, most spiritually-lethal, problem with holding to a positive, optimistic, Can Do kind of attitude to the socio-political scene of this world 2023. 

It is a form of self-blinding, which is being used to justify a worldliness of attitude that cannot help but be deeply caught-up in the ideology of a purposively evil world.   

It is easily understandable why people would deceive themselves about the severity of our actual condition; because if the world was still (as it was just a few generations ago) divided between a significant proportion of people and institutions on the side of God and divine creation - and those against them; then we could indeed engage in "business as usual" - by working-with the Good-forces, by the kind of organizing and politicking that humans have been doing for centuries (if not millennia)... 

However; now there are no "good forces" of sufficient size and cohesion for this strategy to do anything other than encourage one form of evil against another. 

Look around you! It is impossible to find any genuinely-good cause for us in The West to support that has more than a handful of adherents; those large (or even medium) scale causes that are put forward as good are always deeply enmeshed in the denial of evil. 

This denial of evil, this calculated auto-blinkering, is inevitable because it is the pre-requisite for worldly activity with the world as it is now. 

Yet it is spiritually lethal - so long as it lasts. 

Our primary and essential task in these times is to be aware, to be conscious of what is, to know evil wherever and whenever it is present. 

Only after this has been accomplished should we become concerned about "what to do" about it; and that any "what-to-do" answer will (by the nature of our condition) very likely be personal and spiritual and immediate - rather than communal and political, or to do with strategies and plans. 

Compared with the birdemic-peck era, or the height of anti-Fire Nation Mania; at the time of writing there is no major policy thrust afoot driven by the demonic totalitarian Establishment. 

Of course this could change very rapidly, and I would not be surprised if it does! Yet at present the murder of Western Culture* proceeds by a thousand cuts rather than by the swinging blows of  suicidal lockdowns or self-destroying "sanctions". 

*(Which culture, let's face it, richly deserves to be murdered - and ASAP - for its multiple engrained, accelerating, and un-repented value-inversions -- albeit that the death-justifying inversions were suggested and implemented by "those same people" who are now killing what they originally created.)

Instead of a single Big Message; official pronouncements and the media have been chock-full of micro-issues and multiple, incoherent, lies/ cover-ups/ misrepresentations and fake disputes and scandals. It is currently more a matter of dividing and pitting-against; rather than with crushing monolithic surveillance-control. 

Except at the level of individual persons (and, I suspect, very few of them) it is clear that nothing true and important is being learned as the West implodes; to the point that the crust of delusional optimism is still surprisingly intact. 

People still talk about "sensible reforms" to social systems, as if there was any motivation for them, or any possibility whatsoever of them happening. 

People still talk about choices between politicians as if they were on different sides;and still hope to be rescued (from an imaginary crisis) by some leader or party. 

People still focus exclusively on feeling good about themselves, and trying to impress others by their compassion and concern; and still act as if there was a realistic expectation of having a successful 20th century style professional career and a rewarding personal life in a nation that is being incrementally picked apart; and stirred into chaos, violence, poverty, oppression and disease. 

People - including religious professionals - still regard the spiritual as irrelevant, airy-fairy, idiotic nonsense; and the only "real life" as the bureaucratic/ managerial/ financial/ social imperatives of short-term institutional subsistence.   

The spectacle of such colossal triviality and endemic dishonesty and blinkered utilitarianism; is astonishing and horrifying. 

Whether we end with a bang or a whimper... With a massive and fatal hemorrhage, or slumping into unconsciousness from the seepage of hundreds of small wounds, seems not to matter...

Since there seems not be even the slightest grasp of why we are ending; and the extent to which we in the West have done, and continue to do, all this to ourselves. 

The answer is, of course, to step-back from all this (as far as possible); and live in a world of eternal significance; as befits eternal Beings participating in an eternal Quest. 

It's as simple, and as extremely difficult, as that. 

For me, this section of The Magic Flute by Mozart is one of the supreme passages of opera; which is all melodies yet moves the plot along like recitative (if only Wagner had based his seamless style on this aria-based continuity; rather than making everything more like recit!). As always with the best of Mozart opera, on a second go it is wise to listen to what is going on in the orchestra; the delicate aptness of which is supernatural.  

It's from the Ingmar Bergman movie, which is in Swedish; and sheer delight throughout. It is not the most musical "Flute" (that would be Solti's recording) but is surely the most enjoyable. 

This begins with Papageno getting his "gag" removed by the three ladies, the gifts of the magical flute and bells, and then the introduction of three boys who take-over as guides for the hero and his sidekick.

Note: The second (blonde) lady is played by Kirstin Vaupel, who is surely one of the loveliest singers I have seen - in a characteristically Swedish style.   

I absolutely love this harmonization, and the way it is sung. Everything about it - the tone, the dialect, the sliding harmonies, the open chords... just incredible. 

It evokes in me a genuinely ancient quality; a medieval, or even dark ages, feel.  

This was recorded during the Watersons' first incarnation, from the 1960s; the group consisting of (left to right) two sisters Norma and Lal, brother Mike (lead vocal); and cousin John (bass) standing to the left. 

I have written before about JD Salinger's novella Zooey; and how it has fascinated me, off and on, ever since I encountered it in the summer of 1981. Well, I have again been dipping into it, and as usual it has triggered some associations and notions. 

Zooey struck me as a deep book, when I first read it - as if it might contain the "secret of life" somewhere embedded. It probably had this effect because this was the first time in my life that I had met with "spiritual stuff" that really interested and excited me. 

I was very taken by the way that some of the characters talked about spiritual and religious matters; in a personal and engaged way; this was obviously the most important thing for them (and implicitly the author). 

Maybe this was the first sense I got of the possibility of a personal and inwardly-driven spiritual/ religious quest for people of my broad type, people with whom I could identify. 

The Glass family did plenty of quoting and name-dropping, true; but clearly they were not just repeating what "other people" had said. 

And also, they were trying to use these insights in living their lives: giving it their Best Shot. 

My reaction was, I now perceive, a kind of recapitulation of the way in which, from the late-1800s and with the emergence of Theosophy; many Western people were attracted to the esoteric spirituality and religions of the East - mainly philosophical Hinduism and Zen Buddhism. 

(Mainstream Christianity was largely irrelevant to this quest - it simply did not address the driving motivations of such people.) 

And the way, also, that this Eastern perspective was then brought-back and applied to "Christianity" -  because Zooey (and the short story Franny that precedes it) is focused on the Jesus Prayer, and the Russian Orthodox book "The way of a pilgrim" - which is about the use of this prayer as the centre of a religious life. 

Zooey is permeated-by, and culminates-in, what I found at the time to be an appealing positive presentation of Jesus Christ - and that was something I had seldom encountered before.

(As a child and adolescent I had always found the character Jesus to be uninteresting, alien and irrelevant to my problems and concerns.)  

I can nowadays see that the version of Jesus Christ, the Jesus Prayer and "Christianity" that are featured in Zooey are primarily Hindu/ Buddhist/ Eastern. For instance; the Jesus Prayer is presented as a mantra, pure and simple; and Salinger's Jesus is a very different and almost opposite phenomenon from that of what I now regard as real Christianity. 

Salinger's Jesus is indeed much more like Buddha than the Jesus of the IV Gospel; and Salinger's Jesus's concerns and aims are in-line with Oneness spirituality; rather than being focused upon life after death, salvation, resurrection - and Heaven. 

But this understanding of mine is all retrospective. At the time of reading, my concerns and demands were much like those of the Glass family children. 

What, then, were these demands and concerns?

The big problem for the Glass children is that this mortal life on earth cannot live up to the aspirations and perceived possibilities of youth. 

This afflicts all the children we encounter in the main Glass stories: Franny, Zooey, Seymour, and Buddy (the author's persona) - and, implicitly the others too. They all seem to have a yearned-for ideal of what life could and should be - but later discover that whatever they do (and, between them, the children try a range of strategies)...

Whatever they try: life just doesn't match up with these intense hopes. 

Therefore, there is an underlying pessimism about the Glass family saga; even when the specific stories end in an upbeat fashion - upon what seems like an epiphany, an insight, an answer (as do both Zooey and Raise high the roof beam, carpenters) - the reader senses that it will be a very temporary and partial triumph.

This pessimism comes across primarily because the oldest child, Seymour, committed suicide; shot himself with a gun (in A perfect day for bananafish). 

Yet Seymour was (at least to his family) a spiritual genius, the best of the children - a man we are told was both far-advanced and deeply-into the actual practice of Eastern spirituality. 

Therefore, despite that Seymour, like Salinger himself, suffered from Combat Fatigue (true PTSD, not the watered-down modern usage) as a consequence of prolonged front-line participation in the World War II invasion of Europe - we feel that Seymour should, nonetheless - as a kind of saint, have been able to overcome whatever horrors life threw at him. 

The background - and deeply-sad - implication and conclusion; is that there is no answer to the problem of that between life-as-it-might-be and life-as-it is; because not even Seymour could find one. Seymor's failure in this mortal life casts across all the Glass stories a shadow of the inevitability of failure.  

The young Glasses may not grasp this, when they are still growing-up, extraverted, when life is apparently opening-out - and they have the delusional confidence that they will be the first to find this answer. 

But this will always fail; and will lead either to an abandonment of the spiritual quest (as with sister "Boo-Boo" - a socially-integrated housewife and family woman; or else to a frustration and dismay that increases with age (Seymour, and Buddy).

Then there is Waker, who is described as having become a Carthusian monk, vowed to silence for much of the time. It may be that we are supposed to infer that Waker has candidly acknowledged to himself the insufficiency of this mortal life; and looks therefore to the life beyond. 

My interpretation of Waker is that Salinger saw him more as an Eastern monk than a Christian. One who regards this life as suffering and an illusion, from-which we should seek to detach ourselves - awaiting a kind of re-absorption into universal and impersonal divinity. 

In other words; (IMO) Salinger had neither an understanding-of, nor belief-in, the Christian idea (well, some Christians believe it) that this mortal life and our death are real, necessary steps en route to a state of post-mortal divinity that is personal.  

So, I agree with Salinger that this mortal life is inevitably insufficient; and I agree with his implicit conclusion that there is no answer to this problem within the scope of Eastern religion.

(Since; to regard this mortal life as a tragedy of suffering and attachment is not a solution; and to cure our sense of tragic insufficiency with annihilation of "the self" and consciousness is to avoid, but not to solve, the problem.) 

In conclusion, I continue to regard Zooey as a valuable and honest - as well as interesting and exciting - "spiritual story" - but I no longer believe it contains "the answer" to this mortal life!

Rather, Zooey and the other Glass stories show us what are Not the answers... 

But more than just "showing"; through participation in these stories, we potentially live-out putative answers, and experience for ourselves their (noble!) failures; and they leave us to continue the quest for ourselves and in different directions. 

The handy psychological term "projection" derives from the nonsensical world of Sigmund Freud's psychodynamics - but, albeit for extremely different reasons than Freud suggested,  the actual phenomenon of accusing others of one's own motivations contains a great deal of validity. 

The reason for projection is that we use "our-self" - how we see the world, how we are personally motivated, what we are trying-to-do - as the basic model by which we understand "other people" and the world generally. 

Of course, knowing this phenomenon, it is possible to do otherwise - or even do the opposite; but the level of self-awareness in the managerial and leadership class of The West is... well, it is extremely low. 

The people running things are essentially either bureaucrats - obediently trying to please their bosses; or else psychopaths - self-centred and short-termist types - who don't care enough about other people to realize that they may be differently motivated. 

Therefore, unless they are continually watched and controlled; They will continually be giving themselves away, will repeatedly be revealing their real and underlying motivations, by their criticisms and accusations against others. 

That is what I mean by the term "projection". 

Examples abound!

During the birdemic - anyone who objected to the state bureaucrats and media Moghuls was labelled as a science denier; while the accusers were simply inverting or throwing-out a century of medical knowledge concerning epidemics and respiratory viruses. 

Those who objected to mass pecking with an unnecessary, ineffective and dangerous agent; were labelled as being dangerous gamblers with the public health! Parent who cared about the safety of their children, were labelled as selfish and short-termist - by those whose interests (money, jobs, status, promotion) was enhanced by pushing the peck. 

When the Fire Nation war came along; the inversions were legion. The Fire Nation were accusing of provoking the war, deliberate escalation, suffering massive casualties from "human wave" tactics, of imminently running-out of munitions, etc (continuing) - all of which were knowingly being done by the side making the accusations. 

More generally; They accuse anyone who notices, publicizes and opposes the explicit (UN Agenda 2030, Great-Reset) and massively-documented for decades global plan for totalitarian omni-surveillance and micro-control of everyone except an "elite" of (implicitly) wise and just leaders; variously, as "climate denialist" and as a "conspiracy theorist". 

In a nutshell; Their projections are an insight into their own natures, their motivations, their intentions. 

We can easily understand the way that They regard us, and regard the world, by observing that of which They accuse their enemies. 

**

Explanatory and Contextual Note: 

It might be asked how it is possible to escape from the accusation of projection - after all, it could and will be said that someone like myself is also projecting ("You are projecting!". "No, it's You who are projecting!... &c."- Maybe I am projecting even more and worse than Them! 

That is what inevitably (because intrinsically) happens to someone whose explanatory model goes no deeper than "psychology" - one who uses psychology as their ultimate and bottom-line explanatory model... Everything is ultimately reduced to "a matter of opinion", which itself reduces to whoever has the greatest power and influence... And we are back to square one! 

The "answer" is that we all need to become explicitly aware of our own most-basic (metaphysical - including religious) assumptions concerning the nature of reality. In public discourse, we can and should expect that such assumption be made clear. 

Metaphysical assumptions are the true bottom-line and ultimate distinctions; while psychology (or politics, or economics, or whatever) is only ever a proximate explanation; only valid insofar as the metaphysical assumptions are known, and are coherent. 

In this regard; They will not make clear their metaphysical assumptions, and will indeed deny the validity of metaphysics - stoutly maintaining all discourse on a surface and "sound bite" level of emotive manipulations and assertions about "evidence" and "facts" - which They can easily control. 

Projection is such a problem - here and now - exactly because the mainstream, official, mandatory modern discourse is a futile cycle of ungrounded assertions; that exclude metaphysics; and that operates entirely at the surface and proximate level, and with sound-bite (two step) logic. 

In a nutshell: the leadership/ managerial class are themselves slaves to projection because (by assumption) they see no deeper than psychology and its manipulations; and all possible depth is excluded by the anti-spiritual, atheistic materialism/ positivism/ scientism/ reductionism that permeates (and is enforced by) the whole official world. 

The mainstream orthodox Christian stance of extreme suspicion against anything "spiritual" (what I recently dubbed spiritual scaremongering) is a deadly error - that leads indirectly but almost-inevitably into embracing the "Ahrimanic", bureaucratic totalitarianism of "this world" - but especially The West. 

This is because spiritual scaremongering is a species of materialism/ positivism/ scientism/ reductionism - and that is what has delivered the whole world of global and (almost entirely) national social institutions and public discourse into the rulership of demonic evil. 

As modern Men have become individual consciousnesses (alienated, cut-off - but also more free, potentially spiritual agents), so that we are no longer unconsciously and spontaneously immersed-in the consciousness of each other; so has dwindled to insignificance the ancient and medieval way that an exemplary Christian monarch - and Christian priests, monks and nuns of valid churches - could act for the community in spiritual matters. 

When in the past (and the further past, the more this is so) we all shared in each others consciousness, one (or a small group) could indeed act for all a spiritual community.

So that there was no necessity for all Men to have spiritual contact with the divine or with spiritual Beings; since the spiritual work of a small proportion of selected, trained, supervised persons could do this on behalf of the community - as with the Medieval monastic ideal of intercession. 

No longer. 

We do not feel spontaneously and powerfully participators in, parts of, a spiritual community. 

All such immersive group phenomena have declined, catastrophically - and those who insist upon them, who insist upon obedience to an institution (including a church - those who will not deploy their own spiritual potential... Such persons are either left bereft (by their own choices - not by God); or else have de facto substituted the material for the spiritual. 

...They have, in effect, delivered themselves up to "society" in a world where "society" is net-evil and ruled by evil imperatives.  

Here and now; we cannot rely on other people (past or present) for the benefits of spiritual and divine contact - and if we try to do this, we will merely be "secondhand Christians" - which means (because of the corruption of social discourse and institutions) we will Not Be Christians.  

Spirit is primary - and contains all: The physical realm is indeed always and necessarily spiritual, but the physical is a subset of the spiritual realm. 

And the divine is a subset of the spiritual. 

We ought therefore, I believe, to consider spiritual contact - i.e. contact with the spiritual aspects of this world - as a necessary participation in the whole world. 

Lacking which we have self-excluded from participation in the whole world; and cut-off the possibility of our own escape from the totalitarian evils of The System.

Therefore, spiritual scaremongering is a covert form of materialism; a species of metaphysical self-blinding against the spiritual; hence the divine. 

As I said a few days ago: Demons want all religion to be mediated by human institutions, because demons can (and currently do) control institutions.

In sum: we must take the risks of seeking spiritual contact - we have no alternative if we wish to become and remain Christian in a world where the demons have taken over net-control of social institutions - including the churches (and where this evil corruption is worsening). 

Because we now need to become Christians our-selves, first-hand; therefore rooted in spiritual contacts generally - and divine contacts in particular. 

Note added: The reason for the "hard-line" urgency of this blog post, is that I seem to see far too many serious orthodox and traditionalist Christians who are following their churches away from the warm-hearted, loving, personal nature - of the truth of following Jesus Christ. And instead descending-into the hard-hearted, this-worldly literalism/ legalism/ Pharisee-ism that modern church-based Christianity becomes when its adherents eschews personal responsibility for faith and metaphysical choices. The trajectory leads away from the spirit and into a material world dominated, as never before, by the spirit of Satan. This trajectory is, I think, consequent upon the necessary goal of seeking courage to hold-the-line; but doing so by accusation and doubling-down on obedience to a church as their primary (non-negotiable) virtue. 

Snow began to fall on 29th November - second anniversary of Storm Arwen, which was the most destructive storm in this region for a century; and has continued being added to since. 

It is not very deep snow, but it has persisted for five days so far; and is proper snow - covering every twig of every tree - and the leaves have not yet fallen from the oak in our garden; and thick enough for sledging and snowmen. 

This is only the second time since 1977 that I can recall snow falling as early as November; but the last time was 2010 when there was a massive (for England) overnight snowfall of about 15 inches in mid-November - and then the temperature did not really get above freezing nor did the snow finally clear until February 2011.   

Back in 2010-11, there was high barometric pressure settled over the British Isles, which kept the weather static; as sometimes happens here around the Solstices, and persists until the lengthening, or shortening, days break-up the weather pattern by the cross-quarter days (Candlemass or Lammas). 

At present, however, the barometric pressure is only middling; signifying "Change" - so I don't at present suppose that this weather will last for months. But in Britain - who knows? 

**

Note added 4 December: Woke up this morning and rain was falling, and the snow all gone. That's what low barometric pressure can do for you...

For a couple of years back in 2010-11, I was deeply immersed in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (as can be seen from this blog, at that time) - and I was especially interested by that tradition's embrace of mysticism and spiritual experience; how this 'worked' and how they dealt with the problems. 

The US lay-monk Seraphim Rose (later a priest-monk) wrote on this topic with what seemed like great insight and a full acknowledgement of modern conditions. 

What I derived from this; was that the ascetic monks and hermits of the EO tradition (including the millennium before the Great Schism division of the Catholic church; which was caused by divergence of the Western Latin tradition - especially the emerging influence of philosophical theology) were indeed actively seeking a direct and personal relationship with the divine and with spiritual Beings - with God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, Mary the mother of God, angels, and saints - dead and living.  

This active seeking of mystical spiritual experience was pursued by very extreme measures! Including extreme asceticism (lack of food, extremes of heat or cold, immobility,) and heroic vigils (staying awake praying for many hours, sometimes is adverse conditions), and by prolonged meditation including solitude for extended periods - sometimes years. 

The EO tradition is, however, very aware of the problem of achieving spiritual experiences that are demonic rather than with representatives of God. 

This is often represented as demonic attack, or sometimes of succumbing to temptations such as spiritual pride, or being deceived. Some of the greatest of Saints are represented as susceptible - for example it seems that England's greatest Saint - Cuthbert - was assailed (i.e. badly tempted) by demons when he went into solitude on the island of Inner Farne, off the coast of Northumberland. 

Seraphim Rose also explained that there was no valid method or system by which angels and demons could be distinguished reliably, because demons were capable of impersonating angels convincingly; and because the mystic's own evaluations were affected by his own (inevitable, because human) sinful impulses. 

According to SR; over many centuries, the best method for protecting mystics from demonic temptations was a Spiritual Father who had himself known and overcome such temptations, and who might reasonably be assumed to be wholly dedicated to the spiritual good of his spiritual sons and daughters. There was (especially, and in the end, only) in Russia an unbroken lineage of Spiritual Fathers in the premier monasteries, that ensured the overall and across-time integrity of the Russian Orthodox tradition. 

But this lineage was broken, permanently, with the Russian Revolution of 1917; and the subsequent murder of the Tsar and his family, and (essentially) all of the true-hearted Bishops, Abbots and holy monks - except those who escaped overseas and were dispersed in non-Orthodox nations (and they left no heirs of their stature). 

What I got from this was that direct mystical spiritual-contact was essential to Eastern Orthodoxy over many, many centuries; therefore it was worth taking the risks of being deceived by demons - even though there was no really reliable method of ensuring that some aspirants were not deceived. 

There could be, and was, pre-selection of those monks who were best motivated - before they were allowed to become extreme ascetics, or hermits. But this was no guarantee, since all Men are sinful, hence susceptible, to some extent. 

And even the best supervision by Holy Fathers did not reach into the 'desert' conditions of the hermits, which may last for years - e.g. there was nobody to supervise St Cuthbert in the harsh solitude of Inner Farne.  

But the background to all this implicitly seems to have been that personal contact between Men and spiritual Beings, and God; was so vital that risks must be taken. 

Eastern Orthodoxy works in a society in which there is a communal spirituality, such that individuals are immersed in the group mind of the people; such that the Tsar really can represent his people in relation to God; and monks really can be intermediaries between the divine and the mass of lay-people. 

But modern Western consciousness excludes this possibility; and therefore we are confronted by a choice between - on the one hand - personally taking the same kind of risks that the Eastern Orthodox monks used to take - but without the possibility of valid human supervision (because the churches are all net-corrupted, and Men of the spiritual stature of past Holy Fathers are not to be found - Seraphim Rose was very definite about that). 

And - on the other hand - practicing a second-hand faith. 

Practicing, that is, a Christianity that has lost its beating heart of contact with the divine, angels, and good-spirits of other kinds; a Christianity of mere scholarship... A Christian faith that is about being a Christian - got from books and other-people, following rules and rituals, doing set tasks, and expressing certain formulae of words - rather than actually being a Christian.

That mainstream modern Christianity is merely second-hand and not a real faith and therefore weak and easily (eagerly!) corruptible, was made obvious in 2020 - if it was not already so. 

The problem is that being a second-hand Christian, is another way of Not being a Christian.  

That is why a second-hand Christianity that engages in spiritual scaremongering, and eschews or proscribes direct and personal spiritual contacts with God, Jesus Christ and the wide range of divine and good spiritual Beings - is a weak, fake Christianity - because it is spiritually dead. 

Therefore, the only way actually to be a Christian is to take the risks of being deceived. 

And to have faith that anyone who is genuinely motivated to God and Jesus Christ will be able to receive the necessary divine corrections, when things go wrong. 

(When, not if, things go wrong.)

Now that traditions of Spiritual discipleship are broken, and now that Men have no good churches upon which faith can be pinned; and when our consciousness has become individual and agentic, rather than being immersed in a group (so that Christians must take personal responsibility)... 

We can be sure - 100% confident - that God our Heavenly Father and the Creator - has ensured that every single person is, nonetheless,able to get the experiences and guidance he needs for attaining salvation and spiritual development. 

If individual spiritual knowledge and mystical experience are indeed a necessary part of being a Christian, as was believed by the Eastern Orthodox for nearly 2000 years - then we can be sure and confident that this has been made possible. 

Possible for me, and for you. So; if you do not already know this by experience, than it is time you found out (that is; if you desire to be and remain Christian). 

To summarize: There is no safe way to be a Christian; therefore the danger of spiritual scaremongering is considerable, and safety-first-ism must be rejected - since the sanction for yielding to spiritual scaremongering is to become first a second-hand Christian, then (because that is so feeble and easily corruptible) not-at-all. 

One who rejects personal discernment and responsibility and seeks safety in external institutions and rules - will simply not be a Christian before very long, will be led by the nose away from Jesus Christ. 

Remember: This is (here-and-now) a world where all major institutions (national and global - including the churches) are under overall-demonic control.

Demons want all religion to be mediated by human institutions, because demons can control institutions.

Surely that is obvious? 

Thus; all Christians need direct spiritual contact with - and guidance from - the divine and all possible Beings of Good; and must therefore take courage, take the risks - in a spirit of trial-and-error; while being always open to correction by "divine-feedback" (which will me made available): and ready for repentance. 

Note added: I suppose I should say again what I have already stated so many times: which is that I think the current situation is that many (most? all?) real Christians have actually already started doing exactly what I recommend - have used personal discernment and taken personal responsibility for their Christian faith, including their choice of denomination and church, and which "authorities" to follow in that particular church. But... Because this has been unconscious, hidden from their own awareness; they have not acknowledged explicitly to themselves that this is what they have actually done -- and instead they pretend/ assert that their choices were actually compelled by "evidence", "reason", "logic" or some such external and supposedly-objective source (for which they, personally, eschew responsibility for choosing; claiming necessity). These are living in a situation of Bad Faith by denial of what is true. Since such a situation is fundamentally incoherent; therefore their Christianity is weak - and readily corrupted or diverted. I suspect that something of this kind is responsible for the incremental loss of once-real Christians, year by year, as they fail one or another Litmus Test; become this-worldly in their primary orientation and aspirations; or fall into an externally-controlled form of second-hand Christianity that presages de facto exit from the faith.