I have become convinced that a system of primarily parental choice (with a veto from participants) is overall the best human basis of a loving, strong, effective marriage:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-science-of-sex-most-important.html
Individual men and women are not equipped (neither by instinct, nor - in modern societies - by training: quite the opposite) to make wise choice of a husband or wife, unaided.
In practice, this means that the primary (although not final) choice should often be out of the hands of the potential married couple - as was original and natural to Men.
This is the consensus of human history.
Individuals are seldom validly able to choose their own spouses in isolation from a community which provides reputational background knowledge on the other person and is or her family, over a period of time - and which takes into account long term aspects.
Now - this is not the society we live in, in The West - and it would take a couple of generations to re-establish even if we wanted to (which, clearly, the mass of people currently do not).
This is not about to change for the better - all indicators are that overall marriage trends are for the worse.
But it is worth thinking-about in order to understand:
1. That the system we have at present for finding a spouse not only does not work (overall, on average), but cannot work.
2. What kind of system ought to replace it.
3. That we need to be on guard against the vast tide of hard-line and soft-sell propaganda to the contrary (the thousand daily mass media inputs and conversations from un-loving and mis-guided friends and lifestyle advisers, from love stories and pseudo-science, from fools and fiends - all of which takes for granted that individual husbands and wives ought-to select each other autonomously, in defiance of family - and 'nobody else has any right to interfere').
4. The question is not one mainly of vetoing unsuitable spouses - but more importantly of the first step - which is choosing another particular person as a possibility for marriage.
5. In a sense, the parent's role (ideally) would be to a choose a field of potential candidates, and within that field enable individual choice to operate.
Monday 18 January 2016
How to be convinced and certain of the reality of God
It is, in principle, very simple.
But it must be accepted that what works for one will not work for all; but what works for one is what matters.
It must also be accepted that certainty is not permanent in mortal earthly life - because nothing is permanent in earthly mortal life: we may be 100% certain now, but that certainty is no more permanent than any other fact of existence.
We will therefore need other certainties in the future (which is to say that effective faith must be a living faith.)
*
What you need to do is to start with some-thing/ any-thing (some subjective state - perhaps from an event, a picture, music, story, imagination...) that spontaneously seems to you in the here-and-now to be evidence of the reality of God.
Then contemplate that thing while asking the question of your innermost heart (nothing being more fundamental than this) whether it feels true.
If it does - that is certainty; because nothing is more fundamental than the evaluation of your innermost heart.
*
(It is not factual certainty, and what that certainty means will be incomplete and imprecise, because we are constrained Men. But that is certainty of the existential fact of God's reality. No more certain thing is conceivable - except that that certainty should be a permanent and unvarying state - something which is often, in practice, not possible among the vicissitudes of mortal life, but is at least conceivable in another state and place.)
The Unknown Watcher
The understanding elder Being is very patiently watching over the younger one who is seen reading his paper and oblivious to the Divine Person so close.
We can realise how quickly this Divine Person will respond to the younger one immediately the younger makes a move to build a friendship of affection and understanding between them.
But it must be accepted that what works for one will not work for all; but what works for one is what matters.
It must also be accepted that certainty is not permanent in mortal earthly life - because nothing is permanent in earthly mortal life: we may be 100% certain now, but that certainty is no more permanent than any other fact of existence.
We will therefore need other certainties in the future (which is to say that effective faith must be a living faith.)
*
What you need to do is to start with some-thing/ any-thing (some subjective state - perhaps from an event, a picture, music, story, imagination...) that spontaneously seems to you in the here-and-now to be evidence of the reality of God.
Then contemplate that thing while asking the question of your innermost heart (nothing being more fundamental than this) whether it feels true.
If it does - that is certainty; because nothing is more fundamental than the evaluation of your innermost heart.
*
(It is not factual certainty, and what that certainty means will be incomplete and imprecise, because we are constrained Men. But that is certainty of the existential fact of God's reality. No more certain thing is conceivable - except that that certainty should be a permanent and unvarying state - something which is often, in practice, not possible among the vicissitudes of mortal life, but is at least conceivable in another state and place.)
* * *
The Unknown Watcher
The understanding elder Being is very patiently watching over the younger one who is seen reading his paper and oblivious to the Divine Person so close.
We can realise how quickly this Divine Person will respond to the younger one immediately the younger makes a move to build a friendship of affection and understanding between them.
Sunday 17 January 2016
Social media are the mass media is social media
In the past decade, the social media have become massive, dominant, and many or most of the younger population are addicted - and spend most of their discretionary time connected up.
(Note: in The West, young now implicitly refers to below median age - which means younger than forty-five.)
Does this mean that social media are replacing mass media and user-generated content is overthrowing journalistic manipulations? Is the fact that professional mass media journalism is collapsing as a career (if that is a fact), evidence that the public are coming to their senses and thinking for themselves?
Well - take a look! Has the advent of social media reversed, stopped or in the slightest slowed-up the socio-political trends (away from religion, towards leftism, in favour of ever-more sexual revolution) that were established before social media?
Of course not! These decades long trends are obviously continuing, obviously getting worse!
We need to recall the spiritual warfare we are engaged in; and what is the real nature of 'the game'.
We need to consider whether God, or Satan, would be most pleased by the fact that nearly-everybody spends nearly-all their time connected by and communicating with social media? Would God, or Satan, be most encouraged by this trend?
Those who regard social media as a step in the right direction and hope for the future are deluding themselves with dreams of what might be, rather than insight into what is actually happening en masse - much like those of us, and I was one of them, who said the same thing about the internet leading to a truthful public discourse.
Don't get distracted from the real game, the real battle, the real war - which is spiritual and not of this world.
Accept the possibility (which I regard as near certainty - but you only need to accept it as a possibility...) that these are the end times - the latter days; and that Christians are very probably not going to win in this world, overall, in this dispensation.
But we will (certainly) win in the bigger picture of post-mortal life, and in the long term of eternity (if we are true).
We are not fighting to save 'the world' when the world does not want to be saved - wants not to be saved, and indeed regards the whole topic of Christianity as not just ridiculous but evil.
Our job is not to win an unwinnable war (using enemy troops!) but to win souls - actual, specific people including ourselves!
It looks to me (and I have personal experience of this) that worldly fights to beat secular Leftism on its own ground (i.e. fights to beat them solidly, permanently, in the arena of public discourse) often leads Christians into hard-heartedness, pride, and sometimes hatred when it becomes gradually clear that this kind of victory against overwhelming odds is not possible, and not wanted.
The Christian fight against Secular Leftism is not perceived to be a war of liberating victims from a tyrannical oppressor - because the victims are as corrupted as the oppressors, the victims are willingly victimizing themselves, the oppressed are fighting to stay oppressed because they prefer it.
Leftist oppression is successful at portraying itself as freedom, because the great bulk of Western people do not want to be free - they merely want not to be identified as sinful. They want a nihilistic world view because they don't want divine order.
The Western Masses believe only in this mortal life, and in the reality of the virtual world of the mass media - the modern idea of immortality is not resurrection and life everlasting in the New Jerusalem; but (e.g.) to have one's characteristic brain patterns downloaded onto an unbounded supercomputer. In practice this means that nothing really matters overall and in the long term; nothing is more significant than the latest whatever.
The Western masses want evil because they have chosen to reject the possibility of good, because good is a constraint, good is not what they personally want now, good must be worked-with and not re-defined, good is a real and heavy personal responsibility.
All this on average and as a general tendency - and nothing can be done (at least not directly) by you or I to confront, defeat and reverse the big picture of recent history in the modern West.
But our job as Christians is to help those who want to be helped - and to do that means ensuring that we ourselves are a proper example of warm heartedness, courage, love.
If fighting and campaigning is interfering with that - if it is corrupting us personally - then we must stop: we must not do it.
If alliance-building is diluting and clouding and confusing our understanding, or causing anything less than total honesty of Christian seeking and expression - then we must stop: we must not do it.
The end does not justify the means - rather, the end flows from the means.
It is not our job to define the end - but it is our job (and nobody else can do it) to seek and maintain the goodness of our souls. On this matter: No Compromise.
(Note: in The West, young now implicitly refers to below median age - which means younger than forty-five.)
Does this mean that social media are replacing mass media and user-generated content is overthrowing journalistic manipulations? Is the fact that professional mass media journalism is collapsing as a career (if that is a fact), evidence that the public are coming to their senses and thinking for themselves?
Well - take a look! Has the advent of social media reversed, stopped or in the slightest slowed-up the socio-political trends (away from religion, towards leftism, in favour of ever-more sexual revolution) that were established before social media?
Of course not! These decades long trends are obviously continuing, obviously getting worse!
We need to recall the spiritual warfare we are engaged in; and what is the real nature of 'the game'.
We need to consider whether God, or Satan, would be most pleased by the fact that nearly-everybody spends nearly-all their time connected by and communicating with social media? Would God, or Satan, be most encouraged by this trend?
Those who regard social media as a step in the right direction and hope for the future are deluding themselves with dreams of what might be, rather than insight into what is actually happening en masse - much like those of us, and I was one of them, who said the same thing about the internet leading to a truthful public discourse.
Don't get distracted from the real game, the real battle, the real war - which is spiritual and not of this world.
Accept the possibility (which I regard as near certainty - but you only need to accept it as a possibility...) that these are the end times - the latter days; and that Christians are very probably not going to win in this world, overall, in this dispensation.
But we will (certainly) win in the bigger picture of post-mortal life, and in the long term of eternity (if we are true).
We are not fighting to save 'the world' when the world does not want to be saved - wants not to be saved, and indeed regards the whole topic of Christianity as not just ridiculous but evil.
Our job is not to win an unwinnable war (using enemy troops!) but to win souls - actual, specific people including ourselves!
It looks to me (and I have personal experience of this) that worldly fights to beat secular Leftism on its own ground (i.e. fights to beat them solidly, permanently, in the arena of public discourse) often leads Christians into hard-heartedness, pride, and sometimes hatred when it becomes gradually clear that this kind of victory against overwhelming odds is not possible, and not wanted.
The Christian fight against Secular Leftism is not perceived to be a war of liberating victims from a tyrannical oppressor - because the victims are as corrupted as the oppressors, the victims are willingly victimizing themselves, the oppressed are fighting to stay oppressed because they prefer it.
Leftist oppression is successful at portraying itself as freedom, because the great bulk of Western people do not want to be free - they merely want not to be identified as sinful. They want a nihilistic world view because they don't want divine order.
The Western Masses believe only in this mortal life, and in the reality of the virtual world of the mass media - the modern idea of immortality is not resurrection and life everlasting in the New Jerusalem; but (e.g.) to have one's characteristic brain patterns downloaded onto an unbounded supercomputer. In practice this means that nothing really matters overall and in the long term; nothing is more significant than the latest whatever.
The Western masses want evil because they have chosen to reject the possibility of good, because good is a constraint, good is not what they personally want now, good must be worked-with and not re-defined, good is a real and heavy personal responsibility.
All this on average and as a general tendency - and nothing can be done (at least not directly) by you or I to confront, defeat and reverse the big picture of recent history in the modern West.
But our job as Christians is to help those who want to be helped - and to do that means ensuring that we ourselves are a proper example of warm heartedness, courage, love.
If fighting and campaigning is interfering with that - if it is corrupting us personally - then we must stop: we must not do it.
If alliance-building is diluting and clouding and confusing our understanding, or causing anything less than total honesty of Christian seeking and expression - then we must stop: we must not do it.
The end does not justify the means - rather, the end flows from the means.
It is not our job to define the end - but it is our job (and nobody else can do it) to seek and maintain the goodness of our souls. On this matter: No Compromise.
Saturday 16 January 2016
Why must there be a New Heaven, New Earth, New Jerusalem? Eternal perfection is a three step procedure
It seems that Man's future dwelling is to be in a New thing, which yet is a new type of an old thing. This seems, indeed, to be the rule of it.
The Heaven we hope to inhabit in the future is neither the already-existent Heaven, nor a wholly original place, unrelated to this one - but:
Revelations 21: 1-2. I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven...
And who will dwell in the new heaven and earth? - a new Man! Not Men just as we are now; and not something wholly different - but just as we are, perfected.
This is the rule: identity remains - of Men, earth and heaven, but is made new.
Why? Because it must be so.
The new cannot, it seems, be made in one step - but requires three steps - formation, death, perfection.
The spirit is born into the body - the 'soul' made of spirit-and-body is formed; but this first soul cannot be the eternal soul. To make the eternal soul we must die and be resurrected.
The same with the earth. The earth was made, but the New Earth, where we shall dwell in eternal life, lies on the other side of the end times, and the death of the earth.
This is apparently the rule: first creation, then death, and only after death then resurrection to the eternal state of perfection. The creation establishes the situation, but that situation is flawed, temporary, a means to the ultimate end.
This is perhaps the principle to be inferred from revelation - and confirmed in mortal experience: A form must be established then remade, before it can become eternally perfect.
The Heaven we hope to inhabit in the future is neither the already-existent Heaven, nor a wholly original place, unrelated to this one - but:
Revelations 21: 1-2. I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven...
And who will dwell in the new heaven and earth? - a new Man! Not Men just as we are now; and not something wholly different - but just as we are, perfected.
This is the rule: identity remains - of Men, earth and heaven, but is made new.
Why? Because it must be so.
The new cannot, it seems, be made in one step - but requires three steps - formation, death, perfection.
The spirit is born into the body - the 'soul' made of spirit-and-body is formed; but this first soul cannot be the eternal soul. To make the eternal soul we must die and be resurrected.
The same with the earth. The earth was made, but the New Earth, where we shall dwell in eternal life, lies on the other side of the end times, and the death of the earth.
This is apparently the rule: first creation, then death, and only after death then resurrection to the eternal state of perfection. The creation establishes the situation, but that situation is flawed, temporary, a means to the ultimate end.
This is perhaps the principle to be inferred from revelation - and confirmed in mortal experience: A form must be established then remade, before it can become eternally perfect.
Thursday 14 January 2016
Letter from a Mother in Heaven
Expanding on :
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/09/mother-in-heaven-is-feminism-delaying-the-fullness-of-this-doctrine/
And complementary to:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/letter-from-your-heavenly-father-part.html
I have the following intuitions, which could and probably should be regarded as something like a fantasy fiction rather than theology.
**
My Dear Child,
I feel a need to write this letter because I am grieved at the misery and despair of so many of my children in their earthly lives - your loneliness and isolation. My hope is that knowing a little more about me, and learning of the love I always have for you, will help you through the adolescent trials of mortality, and inspire you to make the choice to return as adults to dwell again in Heaven.
It may be helpful for you to know something of the history of the long and loving relationship between us, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, to know the reason why you hear so little about me during your mortal existence - why we encourage you to speak directly with God your Father, and to think much on your Brother Christ, but not - as a rule - to focus your attention on me.
Your Heavenly Father and I are the original co-creators and rulers of creation - but we have different areas of responsibility. Briefly, your Father is more concerned with 'creation' and I with 'generation'.
Your Father made the universe, and - with him - your Brother Jesus made the earth and then gave you the possibility of resurrection to eternal life. You may wonder what I was doing all this time? The simplest answer is that my special responsibility was with you spirit children, during the long ages of your pre-mortal sojourn in Heaven.
As you know, I am your spiritual mother - it was through my divine parturition that you transformed from being merely unaware primordial 'intelligences' to persons; but at first you were 'spiritual babies' and only gradually became more mature as pre-mortal spirits.
Somewhat like an earthly mother, it was my particular job to nurture and care for you during pre-mortal life, when you were developing and growing as spirit children.
Clearly some of you have hazy memories of the blissfulness of that time, the era when you were new-born or young and dependent child spirits - when you were barely self-aware, knew little of the past or future, but lived in a an eternal joyous present, a surrounding atmosphere of sustaining love.
You and I may never again experience the un-self-conscious bliss of that time of early spiritual childhood - and that is bittersweet for me, as it is for you.
But it is our plan and hope that you will grow beyond that to develop towards becoming like your Brother Jesus Christ - who lives and works with your Father and I; in other words, that you will become independent, self-aware god-children who will - from your achieved freedom, power and autonomy - choose to return and dwell with us as divine friends, participating in the great and endless work of loving creation.
And ultimately, that you may eventually have spirit children of your own - so that we all may dwell together as a loving extended and ever-growing family.
So, as pre-mortal spirits you lived constantly in my presence for many ages; but you grew, and developed, and eventually you decided to venture into mortal life and join the plan of salvation: of mortality and resurrection.
Then you made the brave step: you voluntarily left behind the reality of that atmosphere of sustaining love, and your left behind your continuous awareness of me. This was necessary in order for you to experience and develop your own independent selves, something which was not possible in the conditions of pre-mortal life.
My deepest hope is that you will pass through the painful isolation of spiritual adolescence during your mortal life on earth; and be resurrected to spiritual adulthood. That is my wish - that you will separate from me, in order to return - but to freely choosing to return.
I know that mortal life is not always as anticipated, and some of you - having tasted the isolation of autonomy - want nothing more than to return to the un-self-conscious bliss of our pre-mortal child life together. Since I cannot, and would not wish to, coerce you - but only to move forward step-by-step with your full consent and willingness - and it is your choice, you can return to your former state and remain in that situation until such a time as you are ready and willing to move on.
Otherwise, it may assist your time of learning by experience to know that although we are currently separated; I am lovingly concerned with you every moment and every step of your life. In a thousand invisible ways that you can scarcely imagine, I help you - nearly always without drawing your attention to the fact. I am aware of, and consoled by, your prayers and meditations to the Father and Son.
Be assured: I rejoice in your happiness and spiritual progress, I feel your sufferings, and I am most deeply worried by your hostility and rejection and the resulting despair.
And I yearn for nothing more than your safe return as mature, grown-up sons and daughters.
With all my love,
Your Mother in Heaven
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/09/mother-in-heaven-is-feminism-delaying-the-fullness-of-this-doctrine/
And complementary to:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/letter-from-your-heavenly-father-part.html
I have the following intuitions, which could and probably should be regarded as something like a fantasy fiction rather than theology.
**
My Dear Child,
I feel a need to write this letter because I am grieved at the misery and despair of so many of my children in their earthly lives - your loneliness and isolation. My hope is that knowing a little more about me, and learning of the love I always have for you, will help you through the adolescent trials of mortality, and inspire you to make the choice to return as adults to dwell again in Heaven.
It may be helpful for you to know something of the history of the long and loving relationship between us, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, to know the reason why you hear so little about me during your mortal existence - why we encourage you to speak directly with God your Father, and to think much on your Brother Christ, but not - as a rule - to focus your attention on me.
Your Heavenly Father and I are the original co-creators and rulers of creation - but we have different areas of responsibility. Briefly, your Father is more concerned with 'creation' and I with 'generation'.
Your Father made the universe, and - with him - your Brother Jesus made the earth and then gave you the possibility of resurrection to eternal life. You may wonder what I was doing all this time? The simplest answer is that my special responsibility was with you spirit children, during the long ages of your pre-mortal sojourn in Heaven.
As you know, I am your spiritual mother - it was through my divine parturition that you transformed from being merely unaware primordial 'intelligences' to persons; but at first you were 'spiritual babies' and only gradually became more mature as pre-mortal spirits.
Somewhat like an earthly mother, it was my particular job to nurture and care for you during pre-mortal life, when you were developing and growing as spirit children.
Clearly some of you have hazy memories of the blissfulness of that time, the era when you were new-born or young and dependent child spirits - when you were barely self-aware, knew little of the past or future, but lived in a an eternal joyous present, a surrounding atmosphere of sustaining love.
You and I may never again experience the un-self-conscious bliss of that time of early spiritual childhood - and that is bittersweet for me, as it is for you.
But it is our plan and hope that you will grow beyond that to develop towards becoming like your Brother Jesus Christ - who lives and works with your Father and I; in other words, that you will become independent, self-aware god-children who will - from your achieved freedom, power and autonomy - choose to return and dwell with us as divine friends, participating in the great and endless work of loving creation.
And ultimately, that you may eventually have spirit children of your own - so that we all may dwell together as a loving extended and ever-growing family.
So, as pre-mortal spirits you lived constantly in my presence for many ages; but you grew, and developed, and eventually you decided to venture into mortal life and join the plan of salvation: of mortality and resurrection.
Then you made the brave step: you voluntarily left behind the reality of that atmosphere of sustaining love, and your left behind your continuous awareness of me. This was necessary in order for you to experience and develop your own independent selves, something which was not possible in the conditions of pre-mortal life.
My deepest hope is that you will pass through the painful isolation of spiritual adolescence during your mortal life on earth; and be resurrected to spiritual adulthood. That is my wish - that you will separate from me, in order to return - but to freely choosing to return.
I know that mortal life is not always as anticipated, and some of you - having tasted the isolation of autonomy - want nothing more than to return to the un-self-conscious bliss of our pre-mortal child life together. Since I cannot, and would not wish to, coerce you - but only to move forward step-by-step with your full consent and willingness - and it is your choice, you can return to your former state and remain in that situation until such a time as you are ready and willing to move on.
Otherwise, it may assist your time of learning by experience to know that although we are currently separated; I am lovingly concerned with you every moment and every step of your life. In a thousand invisible ways that you can scarcely imagine, I help you - nearly always without drawing your attention to the fact. I am aware of, and consoled by, your prayers and meditations to the Father and Son.
Be assured: I rejoice in your happiness and spiritual progress, I feel your sufferings, and I am most deeply worried by your hostility and rejection and the resulting despair.
And I yearn for nothing more than your safe return as mature, grown-up sons and daughters.
With all my love,
Your Mother in Heaven
Wednesday 13 January 2016
Trends in the changing meaning-of-words/ consciousness
Owen Barfield's work on the evolution of consciousness stemmed from his observation (e.g. in History in English Words, or Poetic Diction) that words began as 'poetic', broad, complex and containing of 'references to inner states; and had become narrower, simpler, more 'literal'.
His favourite example was 'spirit' which originally contained meanings similar to ghosts and non-material phenomena and also simultaneously meant 'wind'. One complex word meaning many things together is replaced by several separate words each of which are more specific.
Another trend in the changing meaning of words that I have noticed is for words to lose their force and strength.
'Anon' - as in 'I will do it anon' - for Shakespeare meant immediately, and for us means sometime or another (and perhaps never).
'Naughty' - for Shakespeare meant really wicked, while for us it means a bit mischievous.
More recently:
'Fantastic' and 'Fabulous' used to mean beyond comprehension and beyond belief, but they now mean no more than a generic positive endorsement.
"Vile" used to meant utterly contemptible, but now is 'something I personally happen to dislike'.
Presumably, this phenomenon is an example of habituation or tolerance; when the same dose of any strong stimulus will, when repeated and repeated without catastrophic outcome, progressively lose its effect.
His favourite example was 'spirit' which originally contained meanings similar to ghosts and non-material phenomena and also simultaneously meant 'wind'. One complex word meaning many things together is replaced by several separate words each of which are more specific.
Another trend in the changing meaning of words that I have noticed is for words to lose their force and strength.
'Anon' - as in 'I will do it anon' - for Shakespeare meant immediately, and for us means sometime or another (and perhaps never).
'Naughty' - for Shakespeare meant really wicked, while for us it means a bit mischievous.
More recently:
'Fantastic' and 'Fabulous' used to mean beyond comprehension and beyond belief, but they now mean no more than a generic positive endorsement.
"Vile" used to meant utterly contemptible, but now is 'something I personally happen to dislike'.
Presumably, this phenomenon is an example of habituation or tolerance; when the same dose of any strong stimulus will, when repeated and repeated without catastrophic outcome, progressively lose its effect.
Tuesday 12 January 2016
The age of ideology has finished (Get over it!)
When the age of faith began, rather obviously, to come to an end in the 19th century; there emerged an age of ideology - of 'secular religions', and initially the secular ideologies shared some of the strength of conviction, and capability of generating motivation, that is characteristic of religion.
The hallmark of motivation is self-sacrifice.
This led to the idea that ideology was, and could remain, a substitute for religion.
The earliest of these powerful ideologies was nationalism - which was strong enough to create regime changes all over Europe and Scandinavia, then later in places like India and Africa, due to the intense and sustained motivation of its adherents.
But in all cases nationalism faded after about a generation - and there have not been any powerful nationalist movements in recent generations.
Communism came along next; and the earliest communists were dedicated and motivated - it seemed as if communism had the same kind of power to evoke self-sacrifice as did religion.
But, as with nationalism, the motivational power of communism (and other types of socialism) faded after a generation - and modern Leftism is feeble, corrupt and pampered.
(Old-time communists accepted jail, violence and death for their faith; but a modern Leftist is regarded as an 'activist' if he attends a 'demonstration', or takes a make-work job as an 'organizer'.)
Since communism there have been no secular ideologies with the power to evoke self-sacrifice - the age of ideology is long-since over.
Nowadays, if you are not religious you are not motivated. If you are not religious you will not be capable of significant self-sacrifice for your beliefs.
We now know that there is no secular substitute for religion,
The future lies with one religion or another. It is a matter of choice between religions - ideology is not a valid choice.
The hallmark of motivation is self-sacrifice.
This led to the idea that ideology was, and could remain, a substitute for religion.
The earliest of these powerful ideologies was nationalism - which was strong enough to create regime changes all over Europe and Scandinavia, then later in places like India and Africa, due to the intense and sustained motivation of its adherents.
But in all cases nationalism faded after about a generation - and there have not been any powerful nationalist movements in recent generations.
Communism came along next; and the earliest communists were dedicated and motivated - it seemed as if communism had the same kind of power to evoke self-sacrifice as did religion.
But, as with nationalism, the motivational power of communism (and other types of socialism) faded after a generation - and modern Leftism is feeble, corrupt and pampered.
(Old-time communists accepted jail, violence and death for their faith; but a modern Leftist is regarded as an 'activist' if he attends a 'demonstration', or takes a make-work job as an 'organizer'.)
Since communism there have been no secular ideologies with the power to evoke self-sacrifice - the age of ideology is long-since over.
Nowadays, if you are not religious you are not motivated. If you are not religious you will not be capable of significant self-sacrifice for your beliefs.
We now know that there is no secular substitute for religion,
The future lies with one religion or another. It is a matter of choice between religions - ideology is not a valid choice.
Monday 11 January 2016
Telemann - sublime and jolly
I discovered GP Telemann (in a serious way) slightly before JS Bach, because of Telemann's fondness for writing for the Treble Recorder, which I particularly liked.
Telemann clearly ranks below JS Bach and GF Handel - but could, at times, match them - as above.
And here is the start of his major work for the Treble Recorder:
The mass media overestimate the Western Masses
Every time there is some atrocity which contradicts the narrative of political correctness and reveals that the Western leadership is strategically operating to destroy the West; the mass media employ their range of cover-up techniques: ignoring the incident, drowning reports in boring bureaucratic prose (full of complex nuances, qualifications, and the use of 'alleged'), or someone whom the media dislike is blamed (right wing/ white nationalist extremists, Christians), or the focus fatalistically and despair-inducingly placed on people's misery, rather than what actually happened...
Or the focus is on the danger of 'backlash'.
The mass media are obviously terrified that if the Masses get to hear about what is going on in a timely and clear way - then they will 'backlash' - that is the Masses will rise-up and... well, put a stop to it... somehow.
In this they overestimate the Masses; as does almost everyone.
Nowadays, in The West, incidents and atrocities occur quite frequently which would - in the past - have caused instant and decisive reversal of policies, major changes of law, mass riots, civil wars, indeed inter-national wars - and nowadays they provoke... nothing at all.
The ruling Leftist elites are concerned that the Masses will rise-up and thwart them in their revolutionary projects - they are wasting their time: it won't happen.
The Right wing opposition are hoping and encouraging the Masses to rise-up and thwart the Left: they are wasting their time: it won't happen.
The Western Masses are inert, cowardly, ineffectual - they get reality from the media, they don't believe common sense, they don't even believe the evidence of their own eyes.
The Western Masses are utterly demotivated: they won't do anything about anything unless there is a payoff in instant diversion or hedonism... and even then, they would probably rather get intoxicated.
It used to be said of some measure that public opinion 'would not stand for it' - he fact is that THE problem is the Western Masses have proven, again and again, that they will stand for anything.
Given that this is a fact, and that it will lead to the continuation of a strategy of utter and deliberate destruction of all Good things in the West by the Leftist Establishment - what is to be done?
What is needed is Motivation.
Where does motivation come from? The answer is given by considering where did motivation go?
My inference is that motivation went when religion died as an effective force in the West. It seems to me that the Masses of all Religious societies are a force to be reckoned with; but in non-religious societies they are not a force to be reckoned with: they are not any kind of force at all.
This fact does not, of course, mean that people can or should become religious in order to find motivation. That is not a reason to become religious - it is certainly not a reason to become Christian.
But the fact that the Masses, since the end of Christianity, have become so utterly contemptible in their short-termist, hedonic, bovine placidity should at least be noted as a consequence.
And people might reflect that if subtraction of Christianity from a culture can lead to the Masses ignoring gross and lethal atrocities occurring, repeatedly, on their own doorsteps: then maybe, perhaps, there was something to be said for Christianity after all...?
Or the focus is on the danger of 'backlash'.
The mass media are obviously terrified that if the Masses get to hear about what is going on in a timely and clear way - then they will 'backlash' - that is the Masses will rise-up and... well, put a stop to it... somehow.
In this they overestimate the Masses; as does almost everyone.
Nowadays, in The West, incidents and atrocities occur quite frequently which would - in the past - have caused instant and decisive reversal of policies, major changes of law, mass riots, civil wars, indeed inter-national wars - and nowadays they provoke... nothing at all.
The ruling Leftist elites are concerned that the Masses will rise-up and thwart them in their revolutionary projects - they are wasting their time: it won't happen.
The Right wing opposition are hoping and encouraging the Masses to rise-up and thwart the Left: they are wasting their time: it won't happen.
The Western Masses are inert, cowardly, ineffectual - they get reality from the media, they don't believe common sense, they don't even believe the evidence of their own eyes.
The Western Masses are utterly demotivated: they won't do anything about anything unless there is a payoff in instant diversion or hedonism... and even then, they would probably rather get intoxicated.
It used to be said of some measure that public opinion 'would not stand for it' - he fact is that THE problem is the Western Masses have proven, again and again, that they will stand for anything.
Given that this is a fact, and that it will lead to the continuation of a strategy of utter and deliberate destruction of all Good things in the West by the Leftist Establishment - what is to be done?
What is needed is Motivation.
Where does motivation come from? The answer is given by considering where did motivation go?
My inference is that motivation went when religion died as an effective force in the West. It seems to me that the Masses of all Religious societies are a force to be reckoned with; but in non-religious societies they are not a force to be reckoned with: they are not any kind of force at all.
This fact does not, of course, mean that people can or should become religious in order to find motivation. That is not a reason to become religious - it is certainly not a reason to become Christian.
But the fact that the Masses, since the end of Christianity, have become so utterly contemptible in their short-termist, hedonic, bovine placidity should at least be noted as a consequence.
And people might reflect that if subtraction of Christianity from a culture can lead to the Masses ignoring gross and lethal atrocities occurring, repeatedly, on their own doorsteps: then maybe, perhaps, there was something to be said for Christianity after all...?
Sunday 10 January 2016
Mother in Heaven and Mr Hulot's Holiday - some Junior Ganymede posts
I have the privilege of posting at the Junior Ganymede blog, and have been somewhat monopolizing it over this weekend:
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/09/mother-in-heaven-is-feminism-delaying-the-fullness-of-this-doctrine/
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/10/mr-hulots-holiday-the-perfect-mormon-family-movie/
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/09/mother-in-heaven-is-feminism-delaying-the-fullness-of-this-doctrine/
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/10/mr-hulots-holiday-the-perfect-mormon-family-movie/
Saturday 9 January 2016
My epistemology
I used to be much troubled by questions of epistemology - how did we know that we knew something - how did we even know that knowledge was possible?
As far as I could see, there seemed no way that anything could be known.
But nowadays I am no longer plagued by such nihilism - and this is the solution I have worked-out (it seems valid enough to be going on with).
1. God knows - because he is the creator
2. We know because we are God's children
Explanation: We are God's literal (not symbolic) children - and therefore have inherited something of God in us, including the knowledge of the creator.
This establishes that validity of human knowledge is possible; because we have somthing of the creator (who made things) in each of us.
*
There remain many questions about explaining or deciding between disagreements in knowledge claims, errors, imprecision, uncertainty, changes etc.
But I find that the above simple epistemology does most of the heavy lifting in getting the weight of solipsism off my shoulders.
(Solipsism is the belief, or perhaps rather the fear, that I am the only thing which exists; and everything else is just in my mind.)
As far as I could see, there seemed no way that anything could be known.
But nowadays I am no longer plagued by such nihilism - and this is the solution I have worked-out (it seems valid enough to be going on with).
1. God knows - because he is the creator
2. We know because we are God's children
Explanation: We are God's literal (not symbolic) children - and therefore have inherited something of God in us, including the knowledge of the creator.
This establishes that validity of human knowledge is possible; because we have somthing of the creator (who made things) in each of us.
*
There remain many questions about explaining or deciding between disagreements in knowledge claims, errors, imprecision, uncertainty, changes etc.
But I find that the above simple epistemology does most of the heavy lifting in getting the weight of solipsism off my shoulders.
(Solipsism is the belief, or perhaps rather the fear, that I am the only thing which exists; and everything else is just in my mind.)
Friday 8 January 2016
Being coerced to be dishonest at work
http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/01/07/christians-required-to-be-dishonest-at-work/
I should make clear that my criterion for dishonesty is anything less than being as honest as possible at all times and about everything.
Being deliberately misleading (including hype, spin, selective exaggeration or hiding of problems etc) these are all dishonest: and indeed among the very worst and most insidious types of dishonesty - not least because they are 'deniable', hence insidious.
This type of expedient, deniable dishonesty is indeed endemic and almost universal in Britain - in mainstream public discourse of all kinds (including science, academia and medicine - which I know best), and even in most private discourse - in a way that was not the case forty, or even thirty, years ago.
The dishonesty is most obvious when it is self-serving - but most powerfully enforced (and difficult to resist) when it is regarded as (and may well be) necessary for the survival and/ or thriving of employing institutions - so we are asked/ required to be dishonest (as dishonest as we can get away with - without actual fabrication) for the good of our colleagues/ institution/ profession.
I should make clear that my criterion for dishonesty is anything less than being as honest as possible at all times and about everything.
Being deliberately misleading (including hype, spin, selective exaggeration or hiding of problems etc) these are all dishonest: and indeed among the very worst and most insidious types of dishonesty - not least because they are 'deniable', hence insidious.
This type of expedient, deniable dishonesty is indeed endemic and almost universal in Britain - in mainstream public discourse of all kinds (including science, academia and medicine - which I know best), and even in most private discourse - in a way that was not the case forty, or even thirty, years ago.
The dishonesty is most obvious when it is self-serving - but most powerfully enforced (and difficult to resist) when it is regarded as (and may well be) necessary for the survival and/ or thriving of employing institutions - so we are asked/ required to be dishonest (as dishonest as we can get away with - without actual fabrication) for the good of our colleagues/ institution/ profession.
Educating the group soul of The West
If we acknowledge that God is concerned not just with our individual souls, but also with the souls of peoples, nations and whole civilizations - with what we might term the 'group soul' - then we may interpret current trends in terms of the teaching, the education, the disciplining of the group soul in The West.
Whatever we may believe as individuals, and however we may behave, our time (and this era of some hundreds of year - exacerbated in recent decades) has been one of apostasy - of leaving the Christian religion, of actively rejecting Christianity.
We rejected God, then we came to believe that God is Dead, now that God had never been alive and the history of humankind was one of mass delusion. We believe that only modern Man has woken-up to realize his total freedom. Total freedom from all constraints, total freedom to do whatever he thinks is good - or evil.
This radical cutting-off from God, religion, the past - this is something, as a civilisation, we absolutely insist upon.
During this period of apostasy there has been (up until a generation ago, anyway) a great growth in prosperity, diversion, comfort, convenience - also, ever since the French Revolution there has also been wave upon wave of extermination, repression, torture and death. The twentieth century was one of the darkest in the history of the world.
It is clear, however, that there is no repentance in The West, no heed is paid to the writing on the wall. The culture has become ever more explicitly nihilistic - the major policies from the leaders of all Western Nations will have the effect of destroying the West with a very high degree of certainty.
The peace, prosperity, diversion, comfort and convenience are - pretty obviously - not meant to be 'an end in themselves'; but intended to be a means to some higher end. And everybody used to acknowledge that until the mid-20th century.
But, as a civilisation, all that 'higher' stuff has since been rejected. Yet, the leaders, the poets and artists and thinkers, the 'commentariat', are not even trying to safeguard the prosperity, comfort, convenience and radical freedom by which they justified apostasy.
Think of it: as a group soul we reject the past, and we reject all spiritual aims, and we reject defending that radical freedom which was supposed to be the justification of all the other rejections.
As a civilisation we aggressively refuse to think to learn, to perceive our true errors, to repent and change. It seems that even if all our worldly freedoms are to be lost - nonetheless we still want to be free from God at any price, at any cost, even if it causes us pain, misery, fear and an abject and cowardly death without honour.
Despite the ever-open doorway to repentance; it seems that our cultures, nations, and civilisation - the group soul of The West - insists upon playing this out to the very end.
It looks very much as if we have implicitly decided to insist upon bringing on ourselves the consequences of mass apostasy - in this world, and presumably the next.
As individuals we can, and should, opt-out of this act of civilisational suicide in the name of a 'freedom' we cannot even be bothered to defend, but instead take steps to annihilate. We should save our souls.
But the group soul? It cannot be saved if it is determined to be damned - and not damned in the end for any positive benefit, but simply from the negativism of what it does not want: it does not want God at any price; at any cost, it craves its own annihilation.
Whatever we may believe as individuals, and however we may behave, our time (and this era of some hundreds of year - exacerbated in recent decades) has been one of apostasy - of leaving the Christian religion, of actively rejecting Christianity.
We rejected God, then we came to believe that God is Dead, now that God had never been alive and the history of humankind was one of mass delusion. We believe that only modern Man has woken-up to realize his total freedom. Total freedom from all constraints, total freedom to do whatever he thinks is good - or evil.
This radical cutting-off from God, religion, the past - this is something, as a civilisation, we absolutely insist upon.
During this period of apostasy there has been (up until a generation ago, anyway) a great growth in prosperity, diversion, comfort, convenience - also, ever since the French Revolution there has also been wave upon wave of extermination, repression, torture and death. The twentieth century was one of the darkest in the history of the world.
It is clear, however, that there is no repentance in The West, no heed is paid to the writing on the wall. The culture has become ever more explicitly nihilistic - the major policies from the leaders of all Western Nations will have the effect of destroying the West with a very high degree of certainty.
The peace, prosperity, diversion, comfort and convenience are - pretty obviously - not meant to be 'an end in themselves'; but intended to be a means to some higher end. And everybody used to acknowledge that until the mid-20th century.
But, as a civilisation, all that 'higher' stuff has since been rejected. Yet, the leaders, the poets and artists and thinkers, the 'commentariat', are not even trying to safeguard the prosperity, comfort, convenience and radical freedom by which they justified apostasy.
Think of it: as a group soul we reject the past, and we reject all spiritual aims, and we reject defending that radical freedom which was supposed to be the justification of all the other rejections.
As a civilisation we aggressively refuse to think to learn, to perceive our true errors, to repent and change. It seems that even if all our worldly freedoms are to be lost - nonetheless we still want to be free from God at any price, at any cost, even if it causes us pain, misery, fear and an abject and cowardly death without honour.
Despite the ever-open doorway to repentance; it seems that our cultures, nations, and civilisation - the group soul of The West - insists upon playing this out to the very end.
It looks very much as if we have implicitly decided to insist upon bringing on ourselves the consequences of mass apostasy - in this world, and presumably the next.
As individuals we can, and should, opt-out of this act of civilisational suicide in the name of a 'freedom' we cannot even be bothered to defend, but instead take steps to annihilate. We should save our souls.
But the group soul? It cannot be saved if it is determined to be damned - and not damned in the end for any positive benefit, but simply from the negativism of what it does not want: it does not want God at any price; at any cost, it craves its own annihilation.
The un-understandability of abstraction: or, let's be clear about God (reflections on Owen Barfield)
First, the abstract version...
Abstract thinking, thinking about things in general, is very difficult - so difficult that it is difficult to know when you know - and when you have got lost in abstraction.
A lot of the philosophy I read is made more difficult by lacking a basis in metaphysics - the philosophy just 'hangs there' in mid air - not really explaining, lacking context.
It is an advantage of theology when God is put into position at the top of the explanatory scheme - rooting the further speculations. But then again, for most philosophical writers, God is conceptualised with extreme abstraction - impersonally, as a collection of attributes or non-attributes.
Only when God is understood as a person with personal attributes; a man with a plan; a man who has motivations, hopes and can feel sorrow and joy: our Father... only with such concrete clarity are the abstract schemes rooted.
I find that what was a complex and hard-to-follow explanation often enough becomes something simple enough to tell a child - when expressed in terms of what God wants.
All this is a factor when authors leave-out God. They may leave Him out because they suppose they don't believe him (although their scheme entails implicitly that they actually do), or in deference to the conventions of the genre that they are writing in, or in hope of attracting a wider audience.
But there is a price to pay - misunderstanding by others, on top of the danger of self-misunderstanding.
Is abstraction more explanatory? Maybe not. Maybe the greater scope of abstract explanations is merely the result of a wider deficit of understanding?
*
Now the concrete version...
Understanding the work of Owen Barfield has been made far more difficult than it need be by the omission of God from the explanatory scheme. In particular, the failure to link the philosophical scheme to what God wants, and why.
For example, great effort is made to explain the evolution of human consciousness through three phases from Original Participation and aiming at Final Participation - but it is never explicitly explained why, what this epic drama of millennia is all for. Nor is it explained why God needs to achieve His goals by such a long-drawn-out and unreliable process.
Now, all this can be answered, and the answers are implicit and can be quarried out. Barfield was a Christian. But the fact is that most of Owen Barfield's advocates and admirers were and are not Christian (or, if they are, never mention the fact) - and indeed may be 'post-modernists.
Clearly, the modern Barfeldians do not realise that the evolution of consciousness metaphysic is neither-here-nor there without God.
In the first place, it is a metaphysical scheme which, as with all metaphysical schemes, intrinsically cannot be proven empirically. Barfield says he came upon it by studying the changing meaning of words, but that is autobiography. Observations of changing meanings of words can be 'explained' in innumerable ways that do not entail a fundamental restructuring of metaphysical reality.
But secondly - even if it is true (which I believe it is!) the evolution of consciousness has no significance unless there is some reason for us to live by it - we need to know whether the new metaphysics of consciousness is Good for us to believe, no just whether it is coherent and consistent with the facts.
I presume that Barfield left-out God partly in order to make his work accessible to a wide audience who did not share his Christianity, and partly because he did not himself see his work as flowing-from his Christian belief - but rather as pointing-at it. Whatever the reason, there was a price to pay - and the price was:
1. His work became very difficult to understand , due to its abstract nature. and,
2. People who misunderstood his work were unable to detect their own misunderstanding - again due to the difficulties of extended abstract thinking. Consequently,
3. Most writer about Owen Barfield seem to leave out God, and thereby implicitly reduce the significance of his work to being some kind of conceptual metaphysical schema simply floating in a space somewhere in-between our personal lives and the ultimate basis of reality.
*
The trouble is that when we force or allow ourselves to be crystal clear about God, it comes across as childish which puts off most intellectuals and academics - thereby destroying ones' audience. It also makes things so clear and easy to understand that people immediately feel able to mock, criticise and to reject - whereas an abstract scheme can seldom be understood well enough to reject it outright, and will be ignored rather than mocked.
So, what should Barfield have done?
Well, I am not sure how Barfield understood God - and probably he had the rather unclear conception which is usual among most Anglicans - that is, he probably regarded God as in some symbolic way our Heavenly Father, but probably felt embarrassed and uncomfortable about 'anthropomorphising' God - and preferred to discuss Him abstractly, symbolically and so on.
But my own view of God is derived from Mormonism, and is straightforwardly anthropomorphic and concrete - also I believe that we can and do know what God wants for us and from us in general terms: he wants us to grow spiritually to become divine like him, so we can eventually have a relationship of 'friendship' rather than a parent-child relationship (or rather, a perfected loving relationship like that between a grown-up child and his Father rather than like the relationship of a perfect Father and his infant son).
Anyway... I think that what Barfield needs is something on the lines of explaining that God wants us to grow up, and attain adult consciousness (which is Final Participation) - but we must ourselves want this to happen. It can happen by the experience of living - experience is necessary, therefore the process takes time.
By our innate agency, we are free to accept or reject each step in our spiritual growth - and this applies not only to the individual soul but to the (various type of) group soul. The individual soul can achieve final participation (albeit temporarily and imperfectly during mortal life), but at the level of the group soul - e.g. the nation, or civilisation, the process is much slower.
This happens because, as the Bible makes clear, God works with 'people's as well as with individuals - because individuals are actually, in fact, like it or not - part of peoples. We began as immersed in a group consciousness, and that link to the group remains.
The stages in the evolution of consciousness which we may observe in history are the deliberations of the groups soul in moving through the developmental process form childhood consciousness, through adolescent consciousness - but none have yet reached adult consciousness (and indeed the current most advanced civilisation has turned-away-from adult consciousness).
I could go on - but this is just supposed to illustrate how the ideas are easier to express and understand when they are put into the full context.
*
Men need, Men must have, purpose - and purpose entails a divine plan and the reasons for it - reasons which we can understand and agree to.
If we leave-out purpose from our explanations then those explanations will be abstract, and become very difficult to understand, and more difficult to make sense of; and easy to misunderstand without realizing...
But if we include purpose, clearly and explicitly... everything gets much simpler. The difficulty is then related more to doing what is required, rather than (as so often) getting stuck on trying to understand what it is that we are supposed to do.
Abstract thinking, thinking about things in general, is very difficult - so difficult that it is difficult to know when you know - and when you have got lost in abstraction.
A lot of the philosophy I read is made more difficult by lacking a basis in metaphysics - the philosophy just 'hangs there' in mid air - not really explaining, lacking context.
It is an advantage of theology when God is put into position at the top of the explanatory scheme - rooting the further speculations. But then again, for most philosophical writers, God is conceptualised with extreme abstraction - impersonally, as a collection of attributes or non-attributes.
Only when God is understood as a person with personal attributes; a man with a plan; a man who has motivations, hopes and can feel sorrow and joy: our Father... only with such concrete clarity are the abstract schemes rooted.
I find that what was a complex and hard-to-follow explanation often enough becomes something simple enough to tell a child - when expressed in terms of what God wants.
All this is a factor when authors leave-out God. They may leave Him out because they suppose they don't believe him (although their scheme entails implicitly that they actually do), or in deference to the conventions of the genre that they are writing in, or in hope of attracting a wider audience.
But there is a price to pay - misunderstanding by others, on top of the danger of self-misunderstanding.
Is abstraction more explanatory? Maybe not. Maybe the greater scope of abstract explanations is merely the result of a wider deficit of understanding?
*
Now the concrete version...
Understanding the work of Owen Barfield has been made far more difficult than it need be by the omission of God from the explanatory scheme. In particular, the failure to link the philosophical scheme to what God wants, and why.
For example, great effort is made to explain the evolution of human consciousness through three phases from Original Participation and aiming at Final Participation - but it is never explicitly explained why, what this epic drama of millennia is all for. Nor is it explained why God needs to achieve His goals by such a long-drawn-out and unreliable process.
Now, all this can be answered, and the answers are implicit and can be quarried out. Barfield was a Christian. But the fact is that most of Owen Barfield's advocates and admirers were and are not Christian (or, if they are, never mention the fact) - and indeed may be 'post-modernists.
Clearly, the modern Barfeldians do not realise that the evolution of consciousness metaphysic is neither-here-nor there without God.
In the first place, it is a metaphysical scheme which, as with all metaphysical schemes, intrinsically cannot be proven empirically. Barfield says he came upon it by studying the changing meaning of words, but that is autobiography. Observations of changing meanings of words can be 'explained' in innumerable ways that do not entail a fundamental restructuring of metaphysical reality.
But secondly - even if it is true (which I believe it is!) the evolution of consciousness has no significance unless there is some reason for us to live by it - we need to know whether the new metaphysics of consciousness is Good for us to believe, no just whether it is coherent and consistent with the facts.
I presume that Barfield left-out God partly in order to make his work accessible to a wide audience who did not share his Christianity, and partly because he did not himself see his work as flowing-from his Christian belief - but rather as pointing-at it. Whatever the reason, there was a price to pay - and the price was:
1. His work became very difficult to understand , due to its abstract nature. and,
2. People who misunderstood his work were unable to detect their own misunderstanding - again due to the difficulties of extended abstract thinking. Consequently,
3. Most writer about Owen Barfield seem to leave out God, and thereby implicitly reduce the significance of his work to being some kind of conceptual metaphysical schema simply floating in a space somewhere in-between our personal lives and the ultimate basis of reality.
*
The trouble is that when we force or allow ourselves to be crystal clear about God, it comes across as childish which puts off most intellectuals and academics - thereby destroying ones' audience. It also makes things so clear and easy to understand that people immediately feel able to mock, criticise and to reject - whereas an abstract scheme can seldom be understood well enough to reject it outright, and will be ignored rather than mocked.
So, what should Barfield have done?
Well, I am not sure how Barfield understood God - and probably he had the rather unclear conception which is usual among most Anglicans - that is, he probably regarded God as in some symbolic way our Heavenly Father, but probably felt embarrassed and uncomfortable about 'anthropomorphising' God - and preferred to discuss Him abstractly, symbolically and so on.
But my own view of God is derived from Mormonism, and is straightforwardly anthropomorphic and concrete - also I believe that we can and do know what God wants for us and from us in general terms: he wants us to grow spiritually to become divine like him, so we can eventually have a relationship of 'friendship' rather than a parent-child relationship (or rather, a perfected loving relationship like that between a grown-up child and his Father rather than like the relationship of a perfect Father and his infant son).
Anyway... I think that what Barfield needs is something on the lines of explaining that God wants us to grow up, and attain adult consciousness (which is Final Participation) - but we must ourselves want this to happen. It can happen by the experience of living - experience is necessary, therefore the process takes time.
By our innate agency, we are free to accept or reject each step in our spiritual growth - and this applies not only to the individual soul but to the (various type of) group soul. The individual soul can achieve final participation (albeit temporarily and imperfectly during mortal life), but at the level of the group soul - e.g. the nation, or civilisation, the process is much slower.
This happens because, as the Bible makes clear, God works with 'people's as well as with individuals - because individuals are actually, in fact, like it or not - part of peoples. We began as immersed in a group consciousness, and that link to the group remains.
The stages in the evolution of consciousness which we may observe in history are the deliberations of the groups soul in moving through the developmental process form childhood consciousness, through adolescent consciousness - but none have yet reached adult consciousness (and indeed the current most advanced civilisation has turned-away-from adult consciousness).
I could go on - but this is just supposed to illustrate how the ideas are easier to express and understand when they are put into the full context.
*
Men need, Men must have, purpose - and purpose entails a divine plan and the reasons for it - reasons which we can understand and agree to.
If we leave-out purpose from our explanations then those explanations will be abstract, and become very difficult to understand, and more difficult to make sense of; and easy to misunderstand without realizing...
But if we include purpose, clearly and explicitly... everything gets much simpler. The difficulty is then related more to doing what is required, rather than (as so often) getting stuck on trying to understand what it is that we are supposed to do.
Thursday 7 January 2016
What is going-on with global conspiracy theories?
I knew almost nothing about the world of large scope conspiracy theories, certainly no details, until I discovered a couple of years ago that somebody who I had once known quite well was actually the leader of one of the lesser known but still substantial groupings (having very detailed theories about alien Illuminati who control most of the major political and social systems).
(It was only yesterday I came across the idea that these members of the elites are a race of large reptilian shape shifters - apparently, I had unconsciously screened and edited-out this material in the past so it never reached awareness.)
Anyway, this old friend sent me links to his stuff which I sampled, and I had to form an opinion of it to make a response.
My overall view (and this includes the reptilian stuff I have only just heard about) is that these 'global conspiracy' people are mostly intelligent and well-informed individuals (my old friend is both of these), and that among a mass of errors and deliberate frauds, they are responding to a core of what might be termed some genuine 'underlying raw phenomena'.
(This is, in broad terms, the interpretative strategy of Fr Seraphim Rose in his book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future of 1975 - when he looks at the upsurge in paranormal interest of the late sixties, including UFOs.)
It is striking that some of the conspiracy theorists have for a long time been accurately describing - in specific detail - the grossly depraved sexual culture of the British Establishment since the nineteen sixties; of which most of us have only been aware since Jimmy Savile - but which continues to astonish and appall with its revelations. I would certainly have regarded endemic, pervasive elite paedophilia as the craziest of allegations; until I, like everyone else, was forced to accept the weight of evidence.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-satanic-british-establishment.html
In a nutshell, my interpretation is that these global conspiracy theorists are essentially atheists who are describing what they can perceive of the actuality of Spiritual Warfare in the End Times.
The conspiracy theories are about aliens; my guess is that the core of reality is demonic activity at the high levels of global society, and presumably some rare manifestations or detections of actual demons (who are said to be discarnate beings, but who can simulate human bodies).
That is, reptilians = demons (and not aliens).
(Also, some'good aliens' may actually be angelic - in principle, Christians must accept that possibility.)
So that is what I said, and what I think is probably going on - global conspiracy theory is what you get when spiritually acute people notice the situation of spiritual warfare which has played-out on earth and through history; they are people who disbelieve the positive side of Christianity and therefore misinterpret the real activities of Satan and his minions and servants.
The result of this one-sided combination is a horrified and dread-full state of mind, in which the individual conspiracy theorist feels himself overwhelmed by the power and scale of purposive spiritual evil in this world, and sees no realistic hope for escape during mortal life, and no hope of opposite and compensatory supernatural good.
This state of mind can be experienced by engaging with their world for even a few minutes - the nature of the analysis leads strongly towards despair, and therefore indirectly supports the evil agenda (since despair is a sin) - which may perhaps be why propagation and discussion of such ideas is allowed to continue.
Indeed, this is what seems to happen with all secular groups who practise what they term Red Pill thinking - I mean those who develop a world view focused on the harsh-but-denied 'truths' of modern life.
If this perspective is taken seriously, on its own terms, such thinking must lead to horror, misery, dread and despair - which is the inescapable state of mind of those of the ultra-radical anti-establishment anarchic Left who genuinely believe their own analysis.
(It was only yesterday I came across the idea that these members of the elites are a race of large reptilian shape shifters - apparently, I had unconsciously screened and edited-out this material in the past so it never reached awareness.)
Anyway, this old friend sent me links to his stuff which I sampled, and I had to form an opinion of it to make a response.
My overall view (and this includes the reptilian stuff I have only just heard about) is that these 'global conspiracy' people are mostly intelligent and well-informed individuals (my old friend is both of these), and that among a mass of errors and deliberate frauds, they are responding to a core of what might be termed some genuine 'underlying raw phenomena'.
(This is, in broad terms, the interpretative strategy of Fr Seraphim Rose in his book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future of 1975 - when he looks at the upsurge in paranormal interest of the late sixties, including UFOs.)
It is striking that some of the conspiracy theorists have for a long time been accurately describing - in specific detail - the grossly depraved sexual culture of the British Establishment since the nineteen sixties; of which most of us have only been aware since Jimmy Savile - but which continues to astonish and appall with its revelations. I would certainly have regarded endemic, pervasive elite paedophilia as the craziest of allegations; until I, like everyone else, was forced to accept the weight of evidence.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-satanic-british-establishment.html
In a nutshell, my interpretation is that these global conspiracy theorists are essentially atheists who are describing what they can perceive of the actuality of Spiritual Warfare in the End Times.
The conspiracy theories are about aliens; my guess is that the core of reality is demonic activity at the high levels of global society, and presumably some rare manifestations or detections of actual demons (who are said to be discarnate beings, but who can simulate human bodies).
That is, reptilians = demons (and not aliens).
(Also, some'good aliens' may actually be angelic - in principle, Christians must accept that possibility.)
So that is what I said, and what I think is probably going on - global conspiracy theory is what you get when spiritually acute people notice the situation of spiritual warfare which has played-out on earth and through history; they are people who disbelieve the positive side of Christianity and therefore misinterpret the real activities of Satan and his minions and servants.
The result of this one-sided combination is a horrified and dread-full state of mind, in which the individual conspiracy theorist feels himself overwhelmed by the power and scale of purposive spiritual evil in this world, and sees no realistic hope for escape during mortal life, and no hope of opposite and compensatory supernatural good.
This state of mind can be experienced by engaging with their world for even a few minutes - the nature of the analysis leads strongly towards despair, and therefore indirectly supports the evil agenda (since despair is a sin) - which may perhaps be why propagation and discussion of such ideas is allowed to continue.
Indeed, this is what seems to happen with all secular groups who practise what they term Red Pill thinking - I mean those who develop a world view focused on the harsh-but-denied 'truths' of modern life.
If this perspective is taken seriously, on its own terms, such thinking must lead to horror, misery, dread and despair - which is the inescapable state of mind of those of the ultra-radical anti-establishment anarchic Left who genuinely believe their own analysis.
What do I think of The Holy Grail?
Commenter Crow asked me for my view on the subject of The Holy Grail - and his question was interesting to me, because I found it hard to give a brief answer.
In one sense I am not very interested by the HG, because I have very seldom thought about it spontaneously. In another sense, I have read quite a few books which feature the topic, and it is bound-up with something which does interest me intensely, a secret mania - perhaps, which is the idea of Jesus visiting Britain during his life and before his ministry, and the linked idea that Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain not long after the crucifixion, and founded The Church (probably in Glastonbury).
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/and-did-those-feet-jesus-in-england.html
So - the actual object of The Grail is not a thing I think much about, but the circumstances by which it arrived in Britain is. If pressed, I would say that I sort-of, mildly believe that the object was real and came to Britain; that it was precious and formed the centre of perhaps the founding church in England; but not that it had any magical powers - especially not of a kind which could be used for evil purposes.
In one sense I am not very interested by the HG, because I have very seldom thought about it spontaneously. In another sense, I have read quite a few books which feature the topic, and it is bound-up with something which does interest me intensely, a secret mania - perhaps, which is the idea of Jesus visiting Britain during his life and before his ministry, and the linked idea that Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain not long after the crucifixion, and founded The Church (probably in Glastonbury).
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/and-did-those-feet-jesus-in-england.html
So - the actual object of The Grail is not a thing I think much about, but the circumstances by which it arrived in Britain is. If pressed, I would say that I sort-of, mildly believe that the object was real and came to Britain; that it was precious and formed the centre of perhaps the founding church in England; but not that it had any magical powers - especially not of a kind which could be used for evil purposes.
Wednesday 6 January 2016
The ancient spiritual role of the Island of Britain - from Nikolai Tolstoy's Quest for Merlin
The evidence indicates that as priest prophet and magician, Merlin was the incarnation of a god - or was held to have been such. He stood as heir to an extraordinarily rich and varied mythological tradition.
In the Welsh Triads, the first name that this Island bore, before it was taken or settled, was Merlin's Precinct. Clearly there was a time when Merlin was regarded as embodying in some respects the Isle of Britain.
Another tradition tells how Merlin acquired the Thirteen Treasure of the Isle of Britain - various objects possessing miraculous powers - and went with them to the Glass House, and there they remain forever. The Glass House is the Otherworld, and may be alluded to in the Welsh name Myrddin meaning 'fortress of the sea' - the island fortress of Britain herself - hemmed in by the transparent walls of the ocean.
Britain herself was identified at times with the Otherworld. As early as the sixth century there existed a belief in Brittany that the souls of the dead were wafted across the English Channel in unmanned boats. On the British shore they saw no-one but heard a voice name them all, one by one.
Like Shakespeare's John of Gaunt, it seems that the Britons of old may have regarded their Island as as 'this little world, this precious stone, set in the silver sea, which serves it the office of a wall'; in which case Myrddin was simply a homonym for Britain.
It is likely that the coastal perimeter of Britain was regarded as a magic defence, marking out the middle of a chaotic space, peopled with demons and phantoms; an enclosure, a place that was organised.
In the case of Britain, 'the fairest island in the world', it may be that it was looked upon as a particularly sacred place, a microcosm of the larger world.
In Merlin's day the Island of Britain was regarded as lying in a direct path of the axis mundi which linked the Nail of the Heavens (the Pole Star) to Earth and the Underworld beneath. Gildas, writing in the middle of the sixth century, opens his history by stating that Britain is 'poised in the divine balance which sustains the whole earth'.
Edited and paraphrased from pages 117-119 of The Quest for Merlin by Count Nikolai Tolstoy, 1985.
In the Welsh Triads, the first name that this Island bore, before it was taken or settled, was Merlin's Precinct. Clearly there was a time when Merlin was regarded as embodying in some respects the Isle of Britain.
Another tradition tells how Merlin acquired the Thirteen Treasure of the Isle of Britain - various objects possessing miraculous powers - and went with them to the Glass House, and there they remain forever. The Glass House is the Otherworld, and may be alluded to in the Welsh name Myrddin meaning 'fortress of the sea' - the island fortress of Britain herself - hemmed in by the transparent walls of the ocean.
Britain herself was identified at times with the Otherworld. As early as the sixth century there existed a belief in Brittany that the souls of the dead were wafted across the English Channel in unmanned boats. On the British shore they saw no-one but heard a voice name them all, one by one.
Like Shakespeare's John of Gaunt, it seems that the Britons of old may have regarded their Island as as 'this little world, this precious stone, set in the silver sea, which serves it the office of a wall'; in which case Myrddin was simply a homonym for Britain.
It is likely that the coastal perimeter of Britain was regarded as a magic defence, marking out the middle of a chaotic space, peopled with demons and phantoms; an enclosure, a place that was organised.
In the case of Britain, 'the fairest island in the world', it may be that it was looked upon as a particularly sacred place, a microcosm of the larger world.
In Merlin's day the Island of Britain was regarded as lying in a direct path of the axis mundi which linked the Nail of the Heavens (the Pole Star) to Earth and the Underworld beneath. Gildas, writing in the middle of the sixth century, opens his history by stating that Britain is 'poised in the divine balance which sustains the whole earth'.
Edited and paraphrased from pages 117-119 of The Quest for Merlin by Count Nikolai Tolstoy, 1985.
Tuesday 5 January 2016
The metaphysics of natural selection in the context of evolution as a whole
I have been engaged in a period of intense metaphysical reflection recently
- in other words thinking about the fundamental structure of reality.
For those who don't know - I am (pretty much) an evolutionary theorist by profession, so this is a topic I have thought about a great deal over the years.
e.g. http://christian-evolutionist.blogspot.co.uk
But my recent engagement with the work of Owen Barfield has opened up the topic again; and in a more fundamentally challenging way than ever before.
*
What strikes me clearly is the extent to which the whole set of assumptions of the standard Natural Selection story is completely different from natural selection than for Mormon theology, indeed almost the exact opposite.
Natural selection is predicated on a basic situation of reality as purely-material, simple, dead, non-conscious, and purposeless - and envisages complexity, life, consciousness and (apparent) purpose as emerging incrementally from this by undirected mechanisms (it 'just happens').
The Mormon theology is the opposite - the basic situation - before the earth is made - was one of spirit, life, consciousness, purpose etc. (However, Mormonism has an implicitly evolutionary metaphysics, in that creation is the organization of pre-existing 'matter' over Time by a pre-existing divinity. There is no 'creation from nothing' - with its requirement for instantaneous change - outside of Time. Mormonism envisages everything unfolding and shaping inside Time.)
*
My current understanding is that there is no doubt that natural selection is real and observable - to some extent and in some situations. When a certain set of circumstances prevail - reproduction in excess, heritable variation competition etc - Natural Selection just-happens, it is algorithmic). But NS should be (logically, must be) regarded as a set of factors embedded within the larger reality.
Therefore, basic situation and long term trend is one thing - and natural selection is a local and short term modifier.
What this seems to mean, is that the mainstream modern, scientific understanding of the last 4.5 billion years on earth 'must be' wrong - because it assumes that the basic situation is entirely explained by natural selection. And this false but underlying metaphysical assumption of the ultimate validity of NS undercuts all religious belief in an insidious fashion - and destroys the reality of all and any purpose, meaning and relationships.
Barfield's insight was that we must restore a proper, true metaphysical framework to our story of the history of the earth - and we must put NS into this framework as a local and short-term factor, rather than trying to do the opposite - or trying to treat both metaphysical assumptions as (somehow) simultaneously (equally) correct.
*
So, I think we need to have a very different picture in our minds when we think of the history of earth and especially of life on earth. We need a picture of the earth and everything in it as alive, conscious, purposive and connected.
(My current notion is of original Earth as a living ocean with seeds of potential Men - spiritual intelligences - in it. This isn't quite right, but something of the sort...)
This primordial situation has the potential for all that happened - then evolves by a process of transformation, metamorphosis - of coagulation and incarnation - a 'segmenting' of this diffuse reality into ever smaller, and more concentrated, and autonomous self-aware and purposive agents.
This means we 'take for granted' communication, relationship, cohesion, coordination (as the primordial reality) - and see evolution as a process of individualization, self awareness, smaller scale purposiveness etc.
But - this is en route to a final situation when the autonomous agents of incarnate Men have become more fully divine and can return to a higher and fuller and more 'equal' relationship with God.
*
Natural selection is still in the picture; but working in a local and time-bounded way within this over-arching and dominant purpose. Natural selection with its tendencies to 'selfishness' and indeed parasitic exploitation; and the breakdown of complexity, order, purpose (life, consciousness...) All this is a fact; but does not have the last word. NS is 'merely' a (sometimes) counter-current in the inexorable flow of a vast and powerful river.
*
In principle, I don't see any fundamental problems with this overall view, because it retains all that is observable and logically-necessary about Natural Selection while recognizing its subordinate status in evolution; and I think some such reconceptualisation of our picture of deep history is likely to be required in the long term.
In principle... It is easy enough to state what we must or should do.
But the difficult task is for the correct metaphysics to become habitual, natural, indeed subconscious - in both thinking and in public discourse - consistently applied across all realms of human life.
For those who don't know - I am (pretty much) an evolutionary theorist by profession, so this is a topic I have thought about a great deal over the years.
e.g. http://christian-evolutionist.blogspot.co.uk
But my recent engagement with the work of Owen Barfield has opened up the topic again; and in a more fundamentally challenging way than ever before.
*
What strikes me clearly is the extent to which the whole set of assumptions of the standard Natural Selection story is completely different from natural selection than for Mormon theology, indeed almost the exact opposite.
Natural selection is predicated on a basic situation of reality as purely-material, simple, dead, non-conscious, and purposeless - and envisages complexity, life, consciousness and (apparent) purpose as emerging incrementally from this by undirected mechanisms (it 'just happens').
The Mormon theology is the opposite - the basic situation - before the earth is made - was one of spirit, life, consciousness, purpose etc. (However, Mormonism has an implicitly evolutionary metaphysics, in that creation is the organization of pre-existing 'matter' over Time by a pre-existing divinity. There is no 'creation from nothing' - with its requirement for instantaneous change - outside of Time. Mormonism envisages everything unfolding and shaping inside Time.)
*
My current understanding is that there is no doubt that natural selection is real and observable - to some extent and in some situations. When a certain set of circumstances prevail - reproduction in excess, heritable variation competition etc - Natural Selection just-happens, it is algorithmic). But NS should be (logically, must be) regarded as a set of factors embedded within the larger reality.
Therefore, basic situation and long term trend is one thing - and natural selection is a local and short term modifier.
What this seems to mean, is that the mainstream modern, scientific understanding of the last 4.5 billion years on earth 'must be' wrong - because it assumes that the basic situation is entirely explained by natural selection. And this false but underlying metaphysical assumption of the ultimate validity of NS undercuts all religious belief in an insidious fashion - and destroys the reality of all and any purpose, meaning and relationships.
Barfield's insight was that we must restore a proper, true metaphysical framework to our story of the history of the earth - and we must put NS into this framework as a local and short-term factor, rather than trying to do the opposite - or trying to treat both metaphysical assumptions as (somehow) simultaneously (equally) correct.
*
So, I think we need to have a very different picture in our minds when we think of the history of earth and especially of life on earth. We need a picture of the earth and everything in it as alive, conscious, purposive and connected.
(My current notion is of original Earth as a living ocean with seeds of potential Men - spiritual intelligences - in it. This isn't quite right, but something of the sort...)
This primordial situation has the potential for all that happened - then evolves by a process of transformation, metamorphosis - of coagulation and incarnation - a 'segmenting' of this diffuse reality into ever smaller, and more concentrated, and autonomous self-aware and purposive agents.
This means we 'take for granted' communication, relationship, cohesion, coordination (as the primordial reality) - and see evolution as a process of individualization, self awareness, smaller scale purposiveness etc.
But - this is en route to a final situation when the autonomous agents of incarnate Men have become more fully divine and can return to a higher and fuller and more 'equal' relationship with God.
*
Natural selection is still in the picture; but working in a local and time-bounded way within this over-arching and dominant purpose. Natural selection with its tendencies to 'selfishness' and indeed parasitic exploitation; and the breakdown of complexity, order, purpose (life, consciousness...) All this is a fact; but does not have the last word. NS is 'merely' a (sometimes) counter-current in the inexorable flow of a vast and powerful river.
*
In principle, I don't see any fundamental problems with this overall view, because it retains all that is observable and logically-necessary about Natural Selection while recognizing its subordinate status in evolution; and I think some such reconceptualisation of our picture of deep history is likely to be required in the long term.
In principle... It is easy enough to state what we must or should do.
But the difficult task is for the correct metaphysics to become habitual, natural, indeed subconscious - in both thinking and in public discourse - consistently applied across all realms of human life.
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