Bruce Charlton's Notions

Through most of human history through most of the world; most people dies in the womb or during infancy - plus significant numbers died throughout childhood and adolescence. Only a small proportion reached mature adulthood.

This seems a neglected fact in theology - which generally assumes that Men live a full lifespan.

So - the usual, typical, statistically-normal human condition is to be incarnated (ie. to have a physical body); and then to die either almost immediately (miscarriage); during fetal life (spontaneous abortion); just-before, during or just-after birth (neonatal death), or death in infancy (first year of life - generally before the dawn of consciousness).

This is the human condition. This is the Life that Christian doctrine needs to explain. This is what religious metaphysics or theology primarily ought to make-sense-of...

On the whole; I would say that most versions of Christians do a poor job of it! Mormonism, on the other hand, explains that our pre-mortal spirit selves need to be incarnated, to receive a body - in order to progress to god-hood. (That is small 'g' god-hood.)

Thus, incarnation is vital in and of itself, and regardless of how long someone lives, or how much experience they have in Life. SImply to be incarnated as a embryo and then to die is sufficient for this purpose - after this, the person may be resurrected to eternal life, and it becomes possible that they can (if they choose) progress to full godhood; but without incarnation this is not possible.

For Mormonism, incarnation is superior to spiritual life in that sense of enabling full progression; because incarnation is linked to free agency, to divine personhood.

But the superiority of an incarnate is Not in the sense that incarnated persons are superior in virtue to pre-incarnate spirits - that is Not true.

A pre-mortal spirit may be, probably usually is, far more-Good than an incarnate human - but for a spirit theosis is limited, whereas the mortal incarnate has taken the next step.

For Mormonism, to have received a body is therefore Good from the perspective of enabling further progression towards divinisation, in and of itself; no matter what happens next. And the mass-majority of humans who died in the womb or as children have thereby attained something of crucial value.

The experiences of a long-life offer further opportunities and choices and possibilities - for good and for ill; but in the divine plan and scheme of creation as modified for each of God's billions of children, adult maturity and a full lifespan is Not necessary for most individuals.

People such as you and I are therefore an exceptional case...

'Eastern' religions - primarily Hinduism, also Buddhism, have it that life, the world, experience are Maya - illusion. The Western Platonic tradition has much the same core.

By my understanding; the purpose of experience is for us to grow towards divinity. and this is the 'function' of Life, or The World, of Creation.

It is true that this world of experience is not the world of primary reality; in the sense that it is a world of indirect communication rather than direct knowledge. Nonetheless, it is via this world of indirect communications that we are able to grow.

If the world of experience is discounted, is regarded as merely illusion, then Man cannot become A god; and this is indeed the case for Eastern religions - in which the purpose or hope is not to become A god, but to lose the Self and 'fuse' with the divine.

So, we are not created as gods, and therefore must become gods; and it is by experience, by Life in The World, that we may become gods (and there is no other way).

Therefore, despite that Life is not ultimate reality - and in that sense might correctly be termed Maya; Life is not merely illusion - and is that sense Life is Not Maya.

Life is (mostly) illusory in terms of knowledge, but (potentially) real in terms of function.

Let us understand that a skyhook is a "mind-first" force or power or process, an exception to the principle that all design, and apparent design, is ultimately the result of mindless, motiveless mechanicity. A crane, in contrast, is a subprocess or special feature of a design process that can be demonstrated to permit the local speeding up of the basic, slow process of natural selection, and that can be demonstrated to be itself the predictable (or retrospectively explicable) product of the basic process.

From Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel C Dennett, 1995, The full argument can be read on pages 73-84.


Dennett's Skyhook argument/ joke is famous and popular among 'Skeptic'/ atheists - the sort of person who finds it endlessly amusing to refer to Christianity as a cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - as a put-down of religion.

However, if you review the argument and reflect on it, what it amounts to is a denial that metaphysical assumptions are necessary. That metaphysical assumptions are skyhooks, hence nonsense.

By calling them skyhooks, metaphysical assumptions of any and all kinds are being mocked as imaginary, arbitrary, impossible. incoherent, ridiculous.

By contrast, natural selection is put forward as a theory without metaphysical assumptions - here terned a 'crane': that is a theory that builds entirely from the evidentially-known ie. from science. A crane is therefore, is asserted not to be based on any metaphysical assumptions at all.

'Cranes' are an example of metaphysical denialism.

The assertion is made that there exists a 'crane' mechanism for progressive change that does not require any metaphysical assumptions; and - unlike a 'skyhook' a crane is real and actually works...

Whether Dennett truly believes that natural selection in particular, and science in general, are (somehow?) not built-upon metaphysical assumptions is unclear to me.

But I don't think Dennett really cares whether his argument is true; because his motivations are quite obviously, and gleefully, destructive of Christianity in particular and religion in general. To club them to death, any false argument is welcome.


In reality - Dennet must be ignorant, dishonest or evil - or some combination thereof. And Dennett's self-styled skeptik/ atheist fanboys likewise.

If we want to name-call metaphysical assumptions 'skyhooks', then everybody and all theories and all ideologies are necessarily hanging-from skyhooks all of the time - the difference is that some religious people recognise and acknowledge their assumptions, while atheists Never Do.

Communication is experience, of a sort.

(Communication is Not about knowledge; communication is Not about the transmission of 'information' from one person to another. That can only be done by direct knowing, by Primary Thinking.) 

First - it is the experience of the one doing the communication; for instance, the writer. Secondly it is experience for those who engage with a communication - such as the reader.

Communication is much like a relationship: there is one side and another side. Intentions on one side is part of it; then, whether the communication is recognised, in what way recognised, whether acknowledged, whether made a basis for other and reciprocal relationships &c. Much like the range of possibilities of a friendship.

Somebody writes. That is the first experience (it may go no further, but experience is why we live) - and the experience includes whatever and everything that goes-into that writing.

Another person comes-across the writing; perhaps passively, or from seeking; and reads... Perhaps it affects him? Then, there are possibilities in how is it received, how understood, what affect that has, what actions are consequent... (this being a joint act: what went-into the writing and what comes-out - but not directly causal or constrained).

So the life of a writier (qua writer) is primarily the life of writing; and the question is ask is whether that life is Good? Is the experience of writing Good?

The life of a reader (qua reader - because all writers are also readers) is a life of experience from reading - that is, of experience as such.

The questions to ask of writing and reading - i.e. the question to ask of any communication - are the same as for any other kind of experience; e.g. friendship.

(For instance, is it - and if so where is it - Good, Deep, Free and so forth.)

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Conventional wisdom has it wrong. Our communication is a matter of us providing other-people with experiences. Our responsibility is to provide them with Good and valuable experiences. But it is not to transmit knowledge, concepts or the like - because communication cannot achieve this

More exactly, we can never know whether communication has trasmitted knowledge, concepts or anything else. Communication is disconnected, indirect, multi-step, interpretational and so on and so forth - as a way of transmitting truth it is hope-less...

It is - in contrast - by our thinking (our thinking of the real self) that we may directly share in knowledge; and by our thinking that we make and simultaneously shape reality (and that reality is permanent and universal - including universally accessible).

In sum; it is Thinking (i.e. primary thinking) that actually does what most poeple suppose communication does; and communication really does something altogether very different.

(One implication is that writing is never creative - communication in general is not creative; but thinking may be.)

That's it.

Background in Not Even Trying; my mini-book about the corruption of science.

The world, this world, was created and is sustained for our spiritual progression (yours and mine, and everyone else's); for us to experience, learn and grow towards a more God-like consciousness.

If we do not acknowledge this fact, or if we live in opposition to the nature of reality, then we will suffer. And we will continue to suffer - because this world is made for theosis.

Suffering is not the same as striving. Our life in this world is for spiritual striving. Our nature and capacity is (in its original potential) suited-to a state of striving and spiritual progression - much more so that they are to choices of stasis, reversal, decline, corruption, inversion... all of which cause us to suffer.

Much of the existential angst and alienation of Life is due to us living at odds with the designed-nature of reality - by us trying to live wrongly; usually by our failure to strive for spiritual progression, with what that entails.


The painting is by William Arkle, and the above ideas are drawn from page 81 of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness, 1974.

It is usual among Christians to regard the mass majority of Leftists in modern societies as well-meaning but misguided persons - that is, basically good and decent people who want the best; but who have erred in their belief systems.

I regard this a 180 degree wrong - and that the stark reality is that the mass majority of Western people who support an ideology that is nihilistic, despair inducing, totalitarian, anti-Christian (and, of course, fundamentally anti-Good) are like that because their motivations are wrong and not because their belief-systems are wrong.

Why? Simply because the way that we infer evil motivation is by errors being in one direction only over a repeated series of decisions. And this is what we find.

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Take as an example the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby; the assumption is typically that he is a well-meaning individual, a real Christian; but a weak and ineffectual man who is a long way out-of-his-depth in the job. In Christian terms, he supposedly want the right things, but lacks the character to stand-up for them in a hostile world.

This benign diagnosis is usually underpinned by the idea that Christians (for some, not Christian, reason) ought to give people 'the benefit of the doubt' - in assuming they are well motivated. This is nonsense! - we ought to discover and believe the truth of the situation, as best we can know it.  

Justin Welby's most obvious sin is that he is dishonest. When he is not actively lying, he is deceptively misleading. But Justin Welby only ever lies in one direction - which is either his own personal expediency or for the promotion of the (anti-Christian, anti-Good) agenda of the Global Leftist Establishment.

(Needless to say, Welby does not repent his wrong doing - but only apologises for what he regards as the evils of other people and past generations.)

In sum Welby - and in this Welby is absolutely typical and representative of almost the entirety of the modern Western leadership class, i.e. those in position-of authority in all the major social institutions) - is evil in his fundamental motivations. His specific (supposed) beliefs are irrelevant; not least because they change as is expedient.

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People who are well motivated are not a real problem. Everybody makes mistakes in this world; and the distinction is between those who acknowledge, repent and learn-from their mistakes; and those who double-down on them - and adjust their belief systems to accommodate their sins, so that their sins now become regarded as virtues.

This is seen most clearly in relation to the sexual revolution; where a whole range of sexual sins are now idealised, rewarded, actively-promoted and increasingly enforced; and the inversion of morality is so extreme that genuine sexual virtue is routinely mocked, despised, driven underground, and increasingly persecuted.

So, lets have an end to this nonsense about everybody being well motivated but misguided - if that was the case we would have nothing to worry about!

It is precisely because most people (and almost everybody in power) in the West is indeed wickedly motivated; that we are so deep in spiritual trouble: that we are, in plain fact, The Most Evil society in the known history of the world.

Much of genius is asking the right question - and it isn't easy. Finding the answer to the right question might be straightforward (which is why many people can understand the achievements of genius) - but asking that question is often extremely difficult (which is why so few people are geniuses).

And if you ask the wrong question, you may have entered a fly-bottle from which the way-out is very difficult to find. You will spend perhaps a lifetime buzzing around banging-off the walls but never escaping.

There are many example of wrong questions - such as: Why are some people Religious? This is wrong because people are naturally religious. Essentially everybody was religious until recently; and still the great majority of the people in the world are religious. So the proper question is: Why do some people become non-religious? Or - why are people atheists?

Another wrong question is: Are there differences between men and women? That question assumes that men and women are expected to be identical - unless specifically proven otherwise. But the idea that men and women would be identical is, in general, ridiculously implausible. So the proper questions are something more like: in what direction do men and women differ in this trait? How big is the difference, What effect does this difference have?

Another example is: Why am I unhappy? This assumes that the spontaneous baseline state of humans is a state of happiness, and any dropping below this state requires explanation. Yet the reality is the opposite - we are happy for a reason - and when there is no reason to be happy, we are not.

The above examples also suggest why people so often persist in asking the wrong questions - in that many individuals and groups benefit from people asking the wrong question.

If you make some grossly implausible or impossible assumption such as 'men and women would have equal outcomes if they were treated equally' - then all inequalities can be portrayed as an injustice.

(Almost the entirety of Leftist/ Liberal/ Progressive politics is based upon this false, and dishonest, inference.)

If you assume that religion needs explaining, it is a short-step to regarding religious people as pathological.

If happiness is taken as the norm, then industries can thrive based on the assumption that if everybody is not always optimally happy; then some-body or some-thing is to blame for it. If these problems can be addressed and solved, then everybody would always be happy... which seems-like so desirable a state that it justifies very extreme, intrusive, coercive actions to attain.

Another set of wrong questions is concerned with inequalities - why are there inequalities of wealth, income, health... and should there not be a 'fairer' distribution of such things? Such a perspective begs all the necessary questions (such as the incentive of the distributors to distribute fairly that which they have appropriated for the purpose) and inverts causality (because, typically, the current situation was not caused by 'distribution' of goods).

Unlike things, equally treated, will have unlike outcomes - so the equality debates are all based upon false assumptions regarding the equality/ sameness of persons.

But what when somebody in power keeps on, and on, asking the wrong question? Can they be convinced of their error?

The answer seems to be, only seldom. But even so, the only hope for progress is to become aware of the implicit assumptions which lie behind questions; and to recognise when the wrong question is being asked.

On the one hand we need to make choices and make an effort - what we need to do is neither to surrender to the Zeitgeist nor to relax into dreaminess - but to pursue evolution of consciousness consciously and explicitly.

On the other hand; when modern people make a deliberate and conscious effort - they nearly always do so by becoming focused on a program, a routine, a set of practices... and thereby they are passive but in a different way, thereby they narrow their perspective and become even more 'modern' and materialist (i.e. spiritually adolescent).

This is a reason why genuine spiritual progress is so rare; because even when people realise that is needs conscious, explicit, effort - it simply falls back into more-of-the-same-thing.

The 'answer' (easier said than done) is Not to use the mighty will-power to seek; but the heart. Actively to seek but based on intuitive thinking - and therefore Not to a program.

In sum, we need to be prepared to make fools of ourselves - even by our own estimation. Maybe that is the ultimate humility?

Probably only Christians, and among Christians mainly Mormons, have an adequate metaphysical explanation for 'free will' or agency.

To have a coherent metaphysics seems to me to entail a coherent and purposive universe - which seems to require a single creation - or else (if there were no creation, or many) everything would ultimately be 'random', incoherent, contingent and arbitrary; and agency would have no meaning.

And it also seems to require the participation of agents (e.g Men, in this instance) - that Men are actually engaged with the universe, and can change it by and from their own distinctive natures. This seems to entail that Men are 'gods' - in the sense that they are sufficiently separated from reality not merely to be caused-by it (i.e. determined) - and also that Men are able to change reality from themselves, expressive of their nature - and not merely arbitrarily. In other words, these are the characteristics of gods.

So, the need is for a single creation and also multiple gods inhabiting the creation. In other words (at least by my interpretation) Christianity as it seems to be depicted in the Bible - in which there is one primary creation; but several gods including explicitly the Father and the Son, implicitly the Holy Ghost, and the Sons of God who are presumably also gods (since they are sons).

(Whereas if there is just one God and no gods; then the beings in the universe cannot plausibly have free will, having all been made by the one in their entirety. Or, at least, the free will of Men - and angels - which is absolutely essential to Christianity, cannot be explained and must therefore be accepted as a pure mystery.)

This makes a simple and coherent metaphysical system explanatory of free-will/ agency, understandable at a normal common-sense level.

To assert agnosticism is to be an atheist; because agnosticism denies the centrality of God.

If you believe yourself agnostic but do not realise you are actually an atheist; it can only because you have not fully thought-through the implications; or aren't being honest with yourself.

To assert agnosticism is usually a way of trying to avoid what someone regards unpleasant, boring, inconclusive, futile arguments - to change-the-subject. But this is only possible to one who has already decided that the question of God is unnecessary, irrelevant, unimportant, even destructive.

There are no real agnostics.

...Is a metaphysical one - not a matter of 'evidence'. And that insight (metaphysics not evidence) is the first step.

The situation is that Life is a mixed-picture: the decision is whether Life is validated by its best moments or times; or destroyed by its worst.

As I said, evidence does not help - the question is not quantitative. This is a matter of primary assumption.

And the question is not answerable in isolation - Life can only be validated if Life has 'meaning'; and the nature of validation depends on the nature of that meaning.

On the other hand, if you have already accepted that life has no meaning - is merely determined, or random - then you have already made your Big Decision. (Whether implicitly or explicitly) your basic assumptions ensure that for you Life is defined by its worst aspects - indeed the single, most extreme worst-of-Life is the truth-of-Life (both for individuals, and en masse).

Nothing can be done for you - because any possible Good will be negated by One Bad Thing - even when that Bad is merely the evanescence of Good.

On the other hand; if you understand, and live-by, the conviction that the best of Life is the truth of life (despite that this cannot be continuous) - then you have indomitable strength, assurance, and hope.

Without Primary Thinking there would be nothing but chaos - mere phenomena.


It is by God's thinking that the world of creation was formed from chaos - and it is by Man's thinking that he joins God in the work of creation.


Theosis (a.k.a sanctification, divinisation, spiritual progression) is the purpose of Life on earth - our purpose of Men living beyond mere incarnation and death (and of thereby risking the problems of human life, the danger of us rejecting salvation) is so that we may work towards ultimately becoming full deities - sons and daughters of God on the same qualitative level as God.  


This entails attaining divine Goodness (which is well known, and tends to be the exclusive focus of most Christians); but also attaining divine Thinking - so that we may each participate in creation.


If we attain divine Goodness without divine thinking we may choose to inhabit and passively experience creation (like a child - indeed as a spiritual child in our nature)...


Or else we may reject this - we may choose 'damnation' which is to live outwith God's creation.


But to be fully mature children of God - we must be able to co-create with God.


In brief: the primary purpose of Man is Love. God wishes deeply to share his creation with divine children, and this is why men and women are created (made literal children of Heavenly Parents).


But then what? Having established a divine family, what do we all do for eternity? It would not be satisfactory for God's children passively to bask-in creation for eternity...


The only coherent answer is that we need to create - which is endless. And to create like God, actively to participate-in God's creation - we must think as God does: Primary Thinking.

I recently sat in the same room as an adult explained the difference between conservative and left wing politics to a 15 year old. Conservatives, he said, think the past was good and didn't want to change anything (the clue is in the name, he maintained) while left wing people thought that the future could be better than the past. So they were in favour of change and progress while conservatives just clung to old ways and didn't like anything new...

You might say that plenty of right wing people now have no interest in God but I would counter that this is because they are only on the right in certain matters, economic for example. In most other particulars they are have absorbed the current liberal ethos. The fact is that all true right wing thought recognizes a higher reality and a higher authority than the secular, materialistic world of the left. So, as far as I see it, what distinguishes the two sides is the acknowledgement of God and the acceptance that we are here in this world for a spiritual purpose.

From William Wildblood. Read the whole thing at Meeting the Masters

See my previous posts on Primary Thinking...


Primary Thinking is creation - and this applies to God's creation.

Without thinking is chaos. There are phenomena, but these are meaningless, incoherent, lacking any relationship or purpose.

Phenomena are incomplete - they are completed by thinking.

Reality was chaos until it was thought by God - it was God's thinking which made creation from chaos.

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Creation is ongoing, as God continues thinking eternally. 

When we Men think from our divine-selves (i.e. Primary Thinking) we participate in this creation.

Our thinking (from that little corner of reality that we grasp) changes creation; changes it universally, for everybody who knows and participates-in creation by their thinking (including God).

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The primal event that made creation possible was the love of Heavenly parents (their celestial marriage) - this was God.

Together our Heavenly Father and Mother thought, and this thinking was creation; and their shared thought could independently be known by each.

This is why the ultimate reality is Love - because love underpins and permeates all of creation (and outside of love is chaos, no meaning, no cohesion, no relation, no purpose).

Only that which conforms with primal love can participate in creation. All Primary Thinking is within-love and conforms with creation - else it is not Primary Thinking, and does not create.


(And what of ourselves - children of God? Yes, we too were thought from chaos; but there was more than this - because we were more to begin with, being also gods - and there was more done than simply to think us into creation, because we are God children, not only God's creation. But this matter is not clear to me...)

This summer I did some travelling in England, keeping aware (as best I could) of the spiritual situation.

My solid impression is that there remain considerable reservoirs of instinctive goodness; but there is near-zero consciousness of the nature of things.

All explicit knowledge is secular, materialistic, and mostly Leftist.

So there is, in Albion, a split between intellect (atheist, materialist, net-evil) and inarticulate gut-feelings (spontaneously pagan supplemented with memories of Christianity) which are the basis of Good.

What is utterly lacking in Albion is precisely what I regard as most necessary: a conscious awareness of the current situation derived from the intuitive knowledge of the heart; a clear, simple, chosen knowledge of how things are and what is (personally) required of each-of-us...

Lacking-which Albion cannot awaken because she cannot repent; and she cannot repent because she does not understand.

She is asleep - drugged, anaesthetised, tranquillised - and in a nightmare; but lacks knowledge of her state, and lacks even the desire to awaken. 

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So, what is to be done? I mean done now, by you and by me - not waiting on some national scheme; not waiting for some kind of organisation or institution.

We are restricted to the mode of 'communication' (by the normal channels, by the senses and by media) because shared direct knowing would require that participants be awake; and Albion is asleep...

Given that The Problem is exactly that the modes of communication - mass media, official channels, public discourse, and increasingly even personal conversations - are all monitored, controlled, and hedged by threats and sanctions... this makes matters difficult. Consequently, there can be no general advice, no standard schemes or systems of how to awaken Albion.

We must await the arrangements initiated by imperceptible divine spiritual beings - and ready for these when they do occur - which is only intermittently; windows of opportunity opening when circumstances have been shaped and put into place. Such alignments of circumstance are potential fruitful because there may be sufficient genuine communication to enable direct sharing of knowledge.

On that basis, individual people of Albion may find themselves confronted with an informed, aware, free choice to discover reality, repent, awaken...

We need to be in readiness for such moments - to develop habits conducive to recognising and living-in such moments - habits of discernment, intuitive awareness, honesty and so on.

There is no formula for making best use of such moments - indeed, what is required is precisely the opposite of a formula. But we may trust that there will be such moments, and be ready for them.

(Cross-posted, unsurprisingly, at the Albion Awakening blog!)

On the one hand I regard Primary Thinking as the single most vital attribute towards which modern Western Man must strive; on the other hand, this is very difficult and there is no recipe for it - because the essence of Primary Thinking includes that it is free, conscious and chosen.

In previous stages of human development, before the modern era (and in the childhood of modern persons), there was an instinctual way of doing things - to a greater or lesser extent. Development was a thing that 'just happened' to people - it came-upon people and overwhelmed them and imposed-itself; whether they liked or wanted it. Development was passive, it did not need to be understood, and it was not free.

But the next stage of human development - that which we here-and-now must seek - is the mode of divine; and it has characteristics which we can infer to be characteristic of the thinking of our God. So Primary Thinking must be consciously self-aware - knowing itself, subject to our will, free and agent, voluntary... In sum Primary Thinking must be thinking of-and-from our real and divine selves, in the divine mode.

(Our real self is divine by virtue of being in its essence eternal and uncreated; it is also divine by virtue of us having become sons and daughters of God; it is therefore divine because it is God-within-us - recognising that God is both universal and also unique to ourselves. We are each a part of God, and each also our unique and divine selves.)

So - the Primary Thinking we need to seek is something that each individual Man must discover and develop for himself. This must happen if he or she is to become more fully divine - adult, agent, autonomous. The alternative is to remain eternally a spiritual adolescent (because we have by now left-behind childhood - and adolescence is meant to be only a transitional state - not a permanent mode of being).

Thus, modern Man is not compelled to take the step to Primary Thinking (you personally are not compelled) - but if we do not make this step, we will remain eternal adolescents; neither children nor mature.

However, Primary Thinking cannot, therefore will not, just happen-to-us. It cannot come-upon us, cannot overwhelm us, cannot compel us... Will not creep-up on us, will not happen in sleep or unconsciously - it cannot be indoctrinated. In sum we cannot be manipulated into Primary Thinking by any means whatsoever.

Primary Thinking is something we Must Do; and also we must do it for ourselves in full awareness of what we are doing.

Primary Thinking must therefore be grasped and known by each person, in full consciousness of its implications; and embraced deliberately and from a free act of the soul.

This is not easy, and we should neither expect nor want it to be easy; and each of us (as an unique embryonic god) must ultimately do it for ourselves - must find our own path to Primary Thinking. 

It would be better - indeed it is ultimately necessary - that people become real Christians; but in the modern world, nearly all real Christians are fundamentally (i.e. deeply) terribly deficient and defective.

And I am not talking about failing to live-up to ideals of Christian morality - I mean that their whole way of thinking and being is anti-Christian, contradicts Christianity.

In sum, modern Christians believe as Christians, but think as materialist atheists.


Indeed, much of the problem is exactly this disconnection between believing and thinking - Christians 'believe' all sorts of things - but their actual living at the level of thinking is all-but unaffected by those beliefs. I don't just mean that Christian thinking fails to match up to Christian beliefs, but that their beliefs don't affect their thinking At All.

The awareness of this problem is typically unarticulated - the grumbling unease and dissatisfaction that Christians feel about not becoming a New Person; the way that the world around and other people seem unreal and meaningless - a mere shadow play. Their inability to know what is really going-on, and what they ought to do about it...


Leftism

Why are so many modern Christians Leftists?

Many are quite extreme Leftists; but nearly all are adherents and supporters of mainstream politics of one sort or another, accepting the secular ideas of what is significant and important (e.g. The News shapes their Christian agenda).

And all mainstream politics is Leftist (everything in public discourse, in official communications and the the mass media - including all the conservative, nationalist, supposedly 'Right' wing groups and parties - all are fundamentally secular-materialist in ideology and thought-structures).

Yet Leftism is literally demonic; a systematically and strategically anti-Christian ideology - purposively destructive of The Good.

How is it that Christians cannot just see that, know that? Something is terribly wrong...


Dishonesty

Why are so many Christians so deeply dishonest in their work? And why can't they perceive this?

Modern work demands systematic dishonesty - especially at the managerial level. Surely this is obvious? - yet many Christians occupy leadership and managerial roles, which they occupy because they are good-at dishonesty, and where they are dishonest for a living; and there is no sign they feel they have anything to repent.

Christians are too ready to excuse-themselves on grounds of pragmatism, and to try and distinguish in their actions between a stark made-up lie (regarded as bad) and the deniable deliberate misleading of others (regarded as part of life...) - when in fact the deniable misleading of others, often pursued through many stages and levels of organisation, is a far worse (because more calculated) sin than is making-stuff-up on the spur of the moment.

The problem, as usual, is not the sinning, but the making of excuses to oneself and others - it is the failure to repent, because the sin has been reframed as necessary, hence 'actually good' (in an inverted way)...

In sum, to be dishonest and deny it is literally to do the work of the devil - and to do it systematically and strategically. This is a measure of the extreme spiritual hazard of the dishonesty of modern Christians


Bureaucracy

The modern world is bureaucratic, and bureaucracy is totalitarian, and bureaucracy is death.

Yet modern Christians are bureaucratic - they believe-in bureaucracy as the best and proper way to do things - from government down to the local jumble sale. Their churches are bureaucratic - everywhere and in all things is the implicit assumption is that the organisation is right, the group is right, committees are right, the vote is right...

All this is obviously and profoundly anti-Christian (because Christianity is rooted in individual agency, and only individuals can be moral or know The Good) - and yet Christians cannot see it!


Nihilists

Modern Christians - even the real Christians - regard the world reductionistically, materialistically, as positivists.

Events are seen as either mechanically caused or else random - even one's own thoughts are thus seen; the world of the modern Christian is drained of meaning at the finest and most exact level of analysis.

They theoretically-believe that the world is God's creation, but in their moment-by moment thoughts they regard the world just as described by 'science' (maybe sometimes externally-shaped by God).

In sum, modern Christians think as nihilists - actual-believers in nothing, deniers of the reality of the real. They do not see the world as alive and full of purpose, and they do not even want-to - they don't think this is important. They think the only thing important is what they believe, what they profess, how they live by the rules.

And the fact that everything around them and within-them is - in practice - regarded as unconscious, dead and pointless is (if thought-about at all) regarded as a sign of progress in Christianity, an escape from superstition; and indeed a positive good since it avoids the deceptive and demonic hazards of 'spirituality'.


Literalism

In sum, modern real Christians are deadly-literal, superficial, fearful - and wrong.

Their literalism shows in how they regard themselves as mechanical effect; agency merely as a craving to be externally-controlled and compelled by rules, bureaucracies, drilled-in habits of behaviour. They are superficial, lack spontaneity, are phony and manipulative in their interactions - and this is because they are thinking like modern materialists while trying to live by a set of beliefs and practices that are merely stuck onto the surface of this purpose-denying, meaning-denying, life-denying set of fundamental assumptions.

Modern Christians are like crude Robots who say and do the right things - but inside are merely whirring circuits following rigid programmes.

And they like that way...  Because, technically, modern real Christians are, at the deepest level, metaphysically atheist materialists; and their Christianity is a stuck-on lifestyle choice at the level of professed beliefs and adhering strictly to the rules.


But nobody is perfect! It is, indeed, very difficult indeed Not to be a materialist atheist at the metaphysical level, in the modern world - our upbringing, our history, and present society all inculcate and enforce it.

However, it is essential that modern Christians become aware of this very serious, very important, and indeed lethal defect of their faith.

They must not ignore their own gnawing, endemic dissatisfactions at the shallowness and meaninglessness of their lives. They must notice and acknowledge their profound state of alienation and the superficiality of their beliefs and practices. The mismatch between what they profess and how they think...

Only if these facts are known can they be repented; and only if they are repented can they (even potentially) be overcome.

The paradox of modern Western life is usually missed. Officially we live in a materialist and secular world, in which the religious and spiritual is excluded from all serious and official public discourse; and where public priorities are selfish personal values such as prosperity, comfort, convenience, thrills and entertainment.

Yet if this was the whole story then public discourse would be much more Right Wing than it actually is - because materialism implies some form of selfishness - probably enlightened self-interest.

*

However, as we all know - in fact even the secular Right perspective (traditional patriotic conservatism or Republicanism, even libertarianism) is excluded from public discourse by harshly imposed censorship backed by multiple personal sanctions. To the very limited extent it is allowed, the Right perspective is never engaged-with at the level of argument (but only by ignoring, misrepresenting, changing the subject, demonising, attacking etc.)

For example, mass, open-ended immigration is very clearly lethal to prosperity, comfort, convenience, thrills and entertainment - yet this objection is taboo.

Another example: The sexual revolution and antiracism are both having multiple and severe damaging effects on economic, military and educational effectiveness and efficiency - and on legal coherence and consistency; and this is causing an ever-clearer decline in prosperity, comfort, convenience, thrills and entertainment... Yet objections to such principles are likewise taboo.

*

What this tells us is that the secular-materialist perspective is not the ultimate one in the Modern West - because it is only allowed to operate within a 'higher', much more powerfully-enforced ideological-ethical framework.

Since this overall framework is not materialist - it is in fact necessarily immaterial, indeed the framework is spiritual.

Yet the ruling spiritual framework which constrains materialism denies its own existence. It is there, it is pervasive, it is compulsory, it is enforced by rewards and sanctions... yet it denies its own existence!

There is no explicit statement of the spiritual beliefs, principles, aspirations of the governing ideology of the modern West - on the contrary it is claimed that there is no such ideology, but that The West operates in the absence of any ideology. It is claimed that we are a materialist and pragmatic society without religion - and at the same time everything demonstrates implicitly that we are ruled by spiritual values.

*

Why would the ruling Establishment deny their own spiritual ideology? Why would they deny that they have an ideology? Surely it would be better to make the ruling ideology clear, and try to get everyone to agree with it... this was certainly what happened in past civilisations.

Well, why do you think? To me it is obvious that the existence and nature of the ruling ideology is denied and kept secret because it is evil, hence indefensible.

Explicit, strategic, purposive evil can only succeed by lying and misdirection - and that is precisely what we have.

*

What kind of 'people' would, or could, actively and consciously pursue long-term plans and policies (stretching over many decades) that lead to the destruction of precisely those material values which they simultaneously say are the only true values... This is surely a recipe for absolute spiritual despair, and rejection of all values... Surely a recipe for self-hatred and spiritual-suicide...

To me this seems obviously the work of immortal demons who seek the self-chosen damnation of Men; and that therefore I infer that demons rule this world: at the highest level, they are in control.

More detail than this, I don't know; and I don't feel I need to know more. That fact is enough. The large shape and individual fingerprints of demonic activity are everywhere.

This is spiritual warfare - and only if we recognise the fact can we win.

Metaphysics is the most important thing in the modern world. But for most modern people metaphysics is gibberish - even worse, metaphysics is boring and irrelevant gibberish...

The usual attitude in English society, as in The West generally, is that the ultimate explanation for everything is a matter of science - of physics, chemistry and biology. It is obvious to everybody that everything began with some kind of big bang as described by physics; with the formation of the stars, solar system, and earth; then chemistry kicked-in until biology emerged; and biology led to plants, animals, intelligence, consciousness then eventually Man - who then developed with the emergence of society, into each of us here and now...

On that basis, there isn't any purpose or meaning to life; and our strivings and relationships are consequences of undirected chance plus past evolutionary pressures. There isn't anything to be said about why we are here, or what we 'ought' to do. Things just are as they are; and n conclusions can be drawn about anything.

Hence the pervasive nihilism of modernity, and the consequent undercurrent of despair. Our dissatisfaction with the pointless futility of everything can be explained, but never gratified.

Upon such metaphysical foundations are constructed the entire structure of the modern world - or, in other words, the modern world has no foundations.

None At All.


Read the rest of this at Albion Awakening...

It isn't common to attribute problems of this world to angels - but it is a theme running through William Arkle's work.

For example - in a letter he returns to this matter:

Higher Beings such as Angels are trying to improve us and tidy us up - rather like socialists do, by putting us into a manageable form. Angels naturally abhor the mess that the world has got itself into, and harmony is to be sought at any price. But might it not also be true that God needs the mess?

Arkle sees angels as necessary and integral to God's creation of this world - but, as created persons who have only experienced the bliss and one-sided goodness of Heaven; their perspective is neither that of God, nor of us mortal Men. As such angels have free will, but limited knowledge and capacity - and their understanding is both limited and biased.

In particular, Arkle suggests that angels have a tendency to try and preemptively prevent the suffering caused by bad choices, by enforcing blanket systems of control and order. The comparison he makes with (sincere) 'socialists' is interesting - in sharing the tendency is to 'make' Men good and happy by system, by indoctrination and limitation of free will: indeed, by totalitarian surveillance and control justified by the greater good...

In a nutshell, the tendency of angels may be (albeit with compassionate motivations) to treat Men as children; and thereby keep them as children - prevent Men 'growing-up' - which tends to thwart God's ultimate hope for us (and the reason for creation itself).

It may seem unlikely that God would 'allow' this - but Arkle's interpretation makes sense if we regard creation as being for the benefit of both Men and angels; with Men and angels needing to have life experiences and to learn from them in order that both may progress towards full divinity as Sons and Daughters of God.

(Arkle regarded angels as a separate creation - while I believe that they are mostly pre-incarnate Men, as I have described previously.)

The interesting and neglected possibility is therefore that angels - not fallen-angels or demons; but good angels, with good intentions - may be responsible for some significant part of the sufferings of mortal life; and of a particular kind.

This seems like a terrible thing to say - given some traditional understandings of angels as perfect direct messengers and implementers of divine will. But maybe the observable and often extreme 'messy' situation of earthly life is the best that can be done all-round; given the extreme difficulty of what God wants us to achieve in our long, zig-zag road to full divinity ('us' being both mortal Men and angels) - And therefore perhaps indeed God needs the mess.