Bruce Charlton's Notions

In which I argue that all modern leaders are bad - but, luckily, living without leadership is exactly what we ought to be learning to do, anyway...

If someone has become a Christian and they are not going to join an existing church suitable to their convictions and aspirations - what should they actually do?

It's a problem, because it is possible thy will not personally know a single person in the same situation, with the same perspective - and if they do know someone they are probably living miles away, probably in another country - known only via the internet or other mass media...

The essence of our current situation includes that all public discourse, all cooperative behaviours, are corrupted - often to the point of inversion.

Well, thoughts and thinkings are the most important reality; but for most of us this is not enough; we are good enough at thinking for it is suffice...

So that is where a personal (private) journal comes in. It starts as reflections and notions planked down, but may develop into a conversation with oneself - itself a way of thinking; a kind of feedback process by which the written expression of an idea becomes a partner in conversation with yourself as you have become in the (brief) time since you had that idea - because to make an idea explicit is to change the mind.

The writing of a journal, the process rather than the product, can be literally a form of meditation - it is for me. 

Journaling doesn't suit everybody, it doesn't help everybody; indeed it may make some people worse - increasing self-absorption and hardening wrongness.

But it may help you.

Yes, he was saved; according to the author of the Fourth Gospel, and going entirely by that gospel (written as it is by an eye witness) - I think that is what we are intended to infer: that Pilate 'believed on' the name of Jesus; and therefore was saved.

I feel that this is why so much attention is given to each of several interactions between Jesus and Pilate.

For me the crucial aspects seem to be firstly that Pilate asserted plainly and repeatedly (and would not withdraw the statement) that Jesus was King of the Jews, meaning he was the Messiah, the spiritual king (by contrast, the Jews said - "We have no king but Caesar").

Secondly that Jesus said to Pilate: "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." - which, I take it, absolves Pilate of direct responsibility for crucifying Jesus. 

In short, we are shown that Pilate believed Jesus's claims concerning himself, and behaved as such - this (and this alone), we are repeatedly told, is what qualifies us for Life Eternal; and this is why Pilate is given such great prominence in the Fourth Gospel.


Note: Pilate comes out worse if the other Gospels are also taken into account; but the purpose of my current reading it to take the fullest account of the greatest authority of the Fourth Gospel. Here is the relevant text:

From John Chapters 18 & 19: Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death: That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus Of Nazareth The King Of The Jews. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. 

Note: Pilate makes two more appearances after this, first to allow the the crucified men's legs to be broken and finish the process; and to allow Joseph of Arimathaea to take the body for entombment. 

Thinking about thrush song, and how I haven't heard any for a few years - I recalled this poem by Robert Frost; picked up the book of collected poems, and read one after another.

For me, Frost is just The Best Poet - he wrote more poems that I love, by several fold, than anyone else.

This is one.



As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.

Robert Frost


So much is there - and yet what is there I cannot paraphrase; or, when I try, it comes-out leaden.  But part of it is that with almost every line I read, as I go through the poem, it changes the sense of all the lines preceding...

I suppose I regard lyrics, such as the above, as the best kind of poetry - but of course Frost wrote many wonderful long poems in blank verse, too. This is a particular favourite, and perhaps not so well known as some:



What tree may not the fig be gathered from?
The grape may not be gathered from the birch?
It's all you know the grape, or know the birch.
As a girl gathered from the birch myself
Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,
I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.

I was born, I suppose, like anyone,
And grew to be a little boyish girl
My brother could not always leave at home.
But that beginning was wiped out in fear
The day I swung suspended with the grapes,
And was come after like Eurydice
And brought down safely from the upper regions;
And the life I live now's an extra life
I can waste as I please on whom I please.

So if you see me celebrate two birthdays,
And give myself out of two different ages,
One of them five years younger than I look-

One day my brother led me to a glade
Where a white birch he knew of stood alone,
Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves,
And heavy on her heavy hair behind,
Against her neck, an ornament of grapes.

Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year.
One bunch of them, and there began to be
Bunches all round me growing in white birches,
The way they grew round Leif the Lucky's German;
Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though,
As the moon used to seem when I was younger,
And only freely to be had for climbing.

My brother did the climbing; and at first
Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter
And have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack;
Which gave him some time to himself to eat,
But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed.

So then, to make me wholly self-supporting,
He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earth
And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes.
'Here, take a tree-top, I'll get down another.
Hold on with all your might when I let go.'

I said I had the tree. It wasn't true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole. So I was translated
To loud cries from my brother of 'Let go!
Don't you know anything, you girl? Let go!'

But I, with something of the baby grip
Acquired ancestrally in just such trees
When wilder mothers than our wildest now
Hung babies out on branches by the hands
To dry or wash or tan, I don't know which,
(You'll have to ask an evolutionist)-
I held on uncomplainingly for life.

My brother tried to make me laugh to help me.
'What are you doing up there in those grapes?
Don't be afraid. A few of them won't hurt you.
I mean, they won't pick you if you don't them.'
Much danger of my picking anything!
By that time I was pretty well reduced
To a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang.

'Now you know how it feels,' my brother said,
'To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them,
That when it thinks it has escaped the fox
By growing where it shouldn't-on a birch,
Where a fox wouldn't think to look for it-
And if he looked and found it, couldn't reach it-
Just then come you and I to gather it.
Only you have the advantage of the grapes
In one way: you have one more stem to cling by,
And promise more resistance to the picker.'

One by one I lost off my hat and shoes,
And still I clung. I let my head fall back,
And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears
Against my brother's nonsense; 'Drop,' he said,
'I'll catch you in my arms. It isn't far.'
(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)
'Drop or I'll shake the tree and shake you down.'
Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,
My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.
'Why, if she isn't serious about it!
Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.
I'll bend the tree down and let you down by it.'

I don't know much about the letting down;
But once I felt ground with my stocking feet
And the world came revolving back to me,
I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers,
Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.
My brother said: 'Don't you weigh anything?
Try to weigh something next time, so you won't
Be run off with by birch trees into space.'

It wasn't my not weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anything-
My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart -- nor need,
That I can see. The mind -- is not the heart.

I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind-
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.

Robert Frost

My experience of Christianity as a child (5-11 years old) was an oppressive one.

The village school was a Church of England establishment, and so Christianity was woven into its life. But while I liked many aspects of the school, and have many happy memories about it; my recollections of the Christian side of its life is almost wholly negative. It was, as I said, an oppressive experience; like a weight of life-draining deadness pressing-upon me.

I disliked assembly, being preached-at, and I disliked most of the hymns we sang - which seemed dirge-like, with nasty words; and I resisted many of the things we said in prayers. I disliked being told that God was 'my' Father when I had one already, with whom I was more than happy.

I didn't like the Bible stories, I didn't like going to the nearby church, where the words were incomprehensible and the hymns even more dirge-like when accompanied by the droning organ.


It was clear to me that there was this thing called Christianity, religion, that wanted me and everybody else to fit-into standard shapes it already had waiting for us; that there was a pattern and it was supposed to be my business to squeeze into this shape and pretend to be happy about it - despite that the shape was designed for some other, some 'average' person - somebody, at any rate, who was not me, nor anything-like.

Christianity was not interested in me, as I saw myself; me as an individual with an intense self-awareness. It just wanted me to say and do a pre-specified set of things.

And there was a clear assertion that this was what Christianity is; that this whole set of social practises, the assemblies, hymns, prayers, talks, church visits etc - was Christianity: take it or leave it. I left it. 


Such are the reasons why I became an explicit atheist aged about six and - on grounds of conscience - was (intermittently) excused from RS classes (along with a Roman Catholic boy). I never saw any reason to change this decision as a child; although I was a relaxed kind of atheist, and participated in musical and social events at the church, was friendly with the Rector (priest) etc.

Such was wrong with the Old Time Religion, and such is perhaps what was intrinsically wrong with it - and perhaps why it can't ever come back: so many people don't want it back.

The modern consciousness (which we are stuck-with, for better, as well as for worst) cannot bear to be treated as something that society merely moulds-into pre-determined, standard shapes. And that is not negotiable.

Yet Christianity is true, and necessary; and the greatest possible life enhancement. Since we cannot live without it, we will have to find a way forward - a new way, or perish.  

The importance of coming to a decision concerning the relative authority of parts of the Bible, parts of the New Testament, and between the Gospels; can be seen by comparing the accounts of (apparently) the same event in the Fourth Gospel ('John') and Luke. (These are quoted in full at the end of this post*.)


Now, although these accounts apparently refer to the same incident, they differ in many details - in particular they differ in terms of the identity of the woman - for 'John' the woman is someone well known and loved by Jesus, sister of his beloved friend Lazarus; for Luke she is just identified as an anonymous woman and someone regarded as leading a publicly-ungodly life ('a sinner').

Most importantly, the 'moral' of the story is different in each - For 'John' it references, I believe, some 'lost' ceremonies of a spiritual wedding of Jesus with Mary (who is, presumably, the woman he married in Cana - in an ordinary Jewish wedding) and a foreshadowing of the deal of the incarnate Jesus, and his burial - and linked with Mary (Magdalene) being the first to speak with the resurrected Jesus. And/ or the moral is about the eternal versus the worldly.

(Since 'John' was writing shortly after the ascension of Jesus, all such contextual details will have been well known to his intended audience.)


But for Luke the story is 'about' the infinite forgiveness or atonement of Jesus, and how this means the most for those with 'the most' sin, those whose lives are built-upon the denial of God - emphasising that Jesus (unlike the Pharisees, and those who regarded adherence to The Law as the only path to salvation) came to save sinners (which is everybody, but particularly those who were furthest from The Law and - up to that point - the most vehemently atheist, selfish, self-indulgent etc).


So, how can we makes sense of these apparent discrepancies? So far as I can tell, we need to assume one of four basic possibilities:
1. 'John' is more authoritative, or
2. Luke is more authoritative; or
3. Both are equally authoritative, and are authoritative (both being valid alternative descriptions of the same event and meaning); or that  
4. Neither are correct: neither is authentic, both equally wrong (and therefore nothing of this kind ever actually-happened).

If we regard 'John' as authoritative and the account of a recent eyewitness, then we make sense of Luke in terms of him later collecting scattered accounts of Jesus's life and teachings and - under divine inspiration - making the best sense of him that he could. In this account Luke has done something like conflating several stories into one. This Luke's account of the essential teachings and meanings of Jesus's life is correct (because divinely-inspired); but the historical details are sometimes mixed-up. This is - pretty much - what I believe is correct.

If Luke is authoritative, then 'John' - writing much later, and from a faulty memory, or via an unreliable scribe, or a representative of his division of the early church - has made a mistake based on a partial memory, and perhaps the conflation of various Marys with perhaps unnamed others.

The mainstream view is probably a mixture of giving Luke priority, and also using all available scriptural material pretty-equally, trying to triangulate upon the truth. Perhaps the two accounts are partly complementary, and partly selective. This also goes along with ideas of Biblical inerrancy, or 'literalism' or 'fundamentalism' - which generally assumes that the whole Bible, or, at least, the whole New Testament - or at least the Gospels and Paul's Epistles; are equally valid.

(Indeed, in practice - especially among traditionalist creedal Protestants, Paul's Epistles, rather than any of the Gospels, may be given Primary Authority - and the Gospels are interpreted in their light.)

Rejecting both 'John' and Luke in favour of some unknown, perhaps lost, primary text, variously garbled through several independent lines of transmission, is another possibility, in principle.


My point is that each approach represents different assumptions, and leads to different answers.

We therefore need to be clear about our assumptions - and, I would argue, to trace these assumptions back to our primary intuitions - which may be related to larger units of meaning.

For example many mainstream church-going Christians have a intuition of the validity and authority of a particular Christian denomination or church - and they accepts their detailed evaluations from that particular source of authority.

Others, like myself, try to discover more specific intuitions derived from scripture, church teachng and practice, theology... or whatever - including the prime intuition that these specific intuitions are ultimately valid.... 



*References:

John 12: 1: Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. 

Luke 7:36 And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Leaving aside the actively-misleading irrelevance that is Bible scholarship (which almost-always has been based-on the secular assumption that Scripture is Not divinely inspired, nor divinely protected, nor sustained and transmitted with divine assistance... In other words, Bible 'scholarship' operates on the basis that Scripture is Not scripture)... Leaving that aside:

The Fourth Gospel is, uniquely, an eye-witness account of the life and teachings of Jesus - written by Jesus's most beloved friend and disciple; the first written and most important Gospel; written independently-from the other three 'synoptic' Gospels (none of which claim to be eye-witness accounts, and which were, from internal evidence, compiled and created some time after Jesus's death).

But when was the Fourth Gospel written? From internal evidence (with a qualification, which I will mention) it was written soon after the ascension of Jesus, while the events were still fresh and vivid in the mind of the author; accounting for the detailed and extremely convincing vignettes that jump-across the millennia into the mind of the reader...

The exception is the last chapter of the Gospel. The early-written Gospel finished at the end of Chapter 20 with the words: "³⁰ And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: ³¹ But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."

The words of the final verse (coming after the 'Doubting Thomas' episode) complete and summarise the message of, and reason for, this Gospel: all throughout. Who Jesus was, and what this means for each of us: what we need to do-about Jesus.

Chapter 21 was written later, after the death of Peter; and is mostly 'about' Peter, his relationship with Jesus; including and the mission Peter was given by Jesus. (That is, when Jesus once says feed my lambs, and twice repeats feed my sheep. (The meaning of this episode needs to be the subject of a separate post.)

Chapter 21 concludes with a reference to Jesus having correctly foretold the manner of Peter's death - signing-off with a reference to the Fourth Gospel author's apparent immortality, and a reassertion of his identity and eye-witness status. 

Chapter 21 is therefore of the nature of an appendix to the main body of the Fourth Gospel - in terms of its discrete subject matter - and was presumably added some decades later than the bulk of the gospel. 

Is this stuff important? Well, yes - because a late date for the whole Fourth Gospel has been a major source of error in understanding the New Testament; relegating what truly is the single most important (and the only essential) part of the Bible, to the status of a late commentary upon The Synoptics. 

Knowing the early date and unique authoritativeness of the Fourth Gospel (which is really only a matter of taking Scripture seriously, in its own terms) transforms the way we read the rest of the New Testament; and indeed greatly clarifies the nature and meaning of Jesus. 

 

William Wildblood discusses this at Albion Awakening.

Of course, it all depends on one's assumptions about the nature of good and evil.

By the mainstream materialist standards of the modern West; we are the best people that have ever lived, by far - and getting better! And our leadership class are the best of the best...

But by the spiritual and religious standards of any other time or place, and specifically by a Christian calculus... well, that's a very different story.

I have said this before her, but it is probably worth repeating that I regard the Authorised Version of the Bible - or 'King James' Bible, as truly divinely inspired. Indeed, very obviously so!

This means that the KJB should never be treated as if it was a 'translation' of an 'original' text - and that the KJB has equal and independent validity with any other inspired version of the Bible Texts.

This means that Biblical 'scholarship' - non-religious academic speciality, dating back to around the early 1800s, and which uses the same methods as were developed for dealing with ordinary, not-divinely-inspired historical texts, is worthless nonsense.

Indeed, Biblical Scholarship is worse than nonsense, it is profoundly and actively wrong; and has been extremely damaging to the Christian religion.  

When I read the King James Bible, I am getting the word of God as refracted through the minds and pens of Men - it is (therefore) a communication of truth, not itself the truth... But I am Not reading a secondary/ translated version of a primary-communication. I am instead reading words that were produced by an inspiration of truth that was as direct as the people who wrote the original texts.

I am not saying that the KJB, or any other version, is infallible - I am saying that the KJB has equal validity with any other divinely-inspired version such as the original, and (probably) the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and Luther's Bible.

This means that when I cannot understand a part of the KJB - or when I suspect an error or omission on the part of the authors of the KJB, it does Not help to look at the original language version - since this is no more valid, no more likely to be correct, than the KJB.

Instead, with a divinely inspired text, the reading needs to be done in a state that is receptive-to, empathic-with, inspiration. So that reading the text will lead me to a direct understanding... So that reading the KJB I will be as directly aware of the truth and reality of what is being said, as were the KJB authors, or the author of the first known text. 

Such a way of reading is limited by my own range of sympathy, my own seriousness, my capacities, my goodness... so there is nothing 'infallible' about my reading. Nonetheless, it is the only proper way of reading scripture - I must know it for and from myself.

If I merely read an interpretation of 'what the Bible means' (whether popular low brow or scholarly and done by a great 'expert') - then this is analogous to reading a prose summary of some great poetry... like reading 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare' instead of experiencing the play, or reading a Hamlet soliloquy done-into bureaucratic bullet points... it is something altogether different and qualitatively inferior.

If you are an English speaker, you have the great (potential) privilege of being able, in principle, to read one of the true, direct, inspired versions of the Bible. If you are serious about your faith; it does not make much sense to read translations (of which there are hundreds, and more every year) when you can read the real thing - except insofar as translations of the Bible may help prepare you for reading the directly-inspired word of God.

Adam G at Junior Ganymede has posted a transcript of a great talk he gave at church. This is both realistic, and very inspiring! In it Adam references the 'great and spacious building' which comes from a vision described in The Book of Mormon (see my note at the end); G&SB means much the same as the Liberal Elites/ the Establishment or The Cathedral. Here is an abbreviated version:

OK, let’s talk about Journalism and the Media.  These people are incredibly socially liberal, they don’t share our values, and the  higher up and more powerful and elite the journalist, the more they don’t.  They don’t go to church, they may not even know someone who goes to church, they are pretty much all in favor of gay marriage and transgender and all that and they may not even know someone who isn’t.  They are hostile to the idea that men and women are different, they are hostile to Christianity and organized religion.  That really matters.  Just to give you an idea,  though its about politics, studies estimate that the media changes elections in the direction of Democrats by as much as 5%.  Without them, purple states would be red and red states would be Saudi  Arabia.  If they can have that kind of effect on politics, what kind of effect do you think they have on culture and people’s attitudes about life?

OK, let’s talk about Academics and Education.  That is super important in today’s world.  Getting a degree is your ticket to the good life and it gives you status.  We don’t think about it that way, but its true.  People are proud of their degrees, it’s a status thing.  So when we send our kids to college, who are we sending them too.  Well, these people are incredibly socially liberal, they don’t share our values, and the  higher up and more powerful and elite the academic or the professor, the more they don’t.  They don’t go to church, they may not even know someone who goes to church, they are pretty much all in favor of gay marriage and transgender and all that and they may not even know someone who isn’t.  They are hostile to the idea that men and women are different, they are hostile to Christianity and organized religion etc. etc.

Entertainment.  Hollywood, singers, all that.  Ditto.  Socially liberal, don’t share our values, all of that.  Even the occasional actor who comes out as conservative is still careful to be socially liberal.  To them, thinking like us is unthinkable.  They make sex and violence into entertainment, they teach that nothing really matters and right and wrong is just up to you, they teach that women are the same as men and/or are sex objects, they teach that life is just about finding yourself.  Obedience to God isn’t on the radar.  This is our entertainment.

Social media.  Its everywhere, and its designed to hack your brain.  Its designed to make you think you are having a real social experience when you are not.  There are valid uses for it, obviously.  But there are also reasons why some of the billionaires who created this stuff won’t let their kids use it. So here they are, the rich and the influential and the famous, and they’re against us, and their influence is everywhere.  Look at the centers of power of our civilization, look at where all the decisions are made, go to New York or LA or DC, are they on our side?  We live in a world that is increasingly organized against us, even to the point of persecution, and where incessant propaganda fills every corner of our lives attacking what is sacred and precious to us.  Absolutely the Great and Spacious Building was for our day.

I don’t watch horror movies because I’m a big scaredy-cat with an overactive imagination.  But basically we live in a horror movie.  We are surrounded by monsters who want to swallow your soul. The thing is, most horror movies rely on people doing stupid stuff.  If it were real life, if the monsters were real, we’d cope.

The thing is, the Mormon home is a powerful thing.  It may sometimes feel like a fortress where we are holed up, surrounded by the world.  But if so, it’s the kind of fortress that is a base we use to launch strikes deep into enemy territory.  You are amazing people.  You are stronger than you know. Protecting my family against the world is something I brood about a lot.  It seems overwhelming.  How can I possibly win?  I will not give up, even for a moment, because losing my kids is unacceptable.  But its overwhelming. It’s me against everyone who matters in the world. 

So I went to the church General Conference brooding about this.  How am I going to protect my kids against overwhelming odds?  How can I do the impossible? Then one of the church leaders gave a talk about being a Dad and the Spirit whispered to listen up, this talk was my answer.  I did.  So what did he talk about?  He talked about having silly games at Family Home Evening.  He talked about praying for your kids and telling them you love them.

It’s that easy.

Imagine it like this.  Its like in a movie.  You are in your castle surrounded by your enemies.  Tomorrow is the Last Battle.  Maybe imagine a battle from Lord of the Rings.  The thing is, there’s no one the castle but you.  You’ve got your wife and your kids and that’s it.  And the enemies around you, they’re orcs or monsters and you can’t even count them, you can’t even see all of them they stretch so far out, there are millions of them, and its just you.  In the early hours, it’s the very early morning, you are getting on your armor and getting your sword and you are praying.  You have no idea what to do.  Because charging out and dying heroically in some kind of big last stand is not acceptable.  This is not a drama, this is real.  You have to win.  You have to fight and fight and fight and live and fight and fight and fight, you have to win, but there are millions of them, and its just you.  So you’re praying.  And God says, well, say family prayers with real intent.  OK.  And He says, read some scriptures.  OK.  And then have some family councils and family games and those little jokes that families have and mess around with your wife and kids.  OK, you say, but what then?  That’s basically it, God says.  Do that, you win.

Which is hysterically, hilariously easy.  It makes you want to laugh.  Imagine that Last Battle, all the nasty orcs spreading out to the horizon, and up there at dawn on the castle walls is Brother G. half-dressed in his armor, capering around, dancing around with glee, laughing his fool head off.

We should all be laughing our fool heads off.

It’s that easy.

**


Here is the main section in which the nature of the G&SB is defined. This excerpt is edited from the First Book of Nephi, Chapter 8:

And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood. And I also beheld a strait and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood; and it also led by the head of the fountain, unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world.

And I saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward, that they might obtain the path which led unto the tree by which I stood. And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path did lose their way, that they wandered off and were lost.

I beheld others pressing forward, and they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree. And after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed.

And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth. And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit.

And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.

Long-term readers of this blog will know that I am trying to understand Christianity using only the fourth Gospel, as if it was my only source; because I regard it as qualitatively the most authoritative scripture.

On that basis I have come to regard the author (the disciple who 'Jesus loved') of the gospel as the resurrected Lazarus (and that Lazarus was resurrected, not just brought back to life); that Lazarus's sister Mary (of Bethany) was married to Jesus in Cana (in an 'ordinary' Jewish ceremony) when the first miracle was performed, and that there was a further mystical marriage at the time of the anointing of Jesus's feet with Spikenard on Mary's hair, and that this Mary is the same person as Mary Magdalene ('both' Mary's treating Jesus with loving but respectful familiarity, and 'both' engaging in physical contact appropriate only to a wife)...


Anyway; this is the background for trying to interpret an anomalous verse John 2: 4 - when Jesus says to his mother "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is yet to come."

To me, there is something clearly wrong with this verse - certainly it does Not mean any kind of rejection of Jesus's mother, since she accompanies Jesus (and his brothers) to Capernum in verse 12. The verse might be garbled, or interposed - but my guess is that - since Jesus is the 'bridegroom' of the marriage feast, it may refer to Jesus's new allegiance to his wife.


And this may answer another puzzle about the fourth Gospel: why did Jesus's ministry start when it did? The answer seems to be that Jesus's ministry began when he was baptised by John the Baptist, and JtB recognised Jesus as the Christ, as the divine Spirit descended upon him and stayed - causing Jesus's new self-awareness as Son of God (to become Son of Man, at his ascension), and his new powers.

But why did Jesus get baptised by JtB? Well, the author doesn't say that Jesus and John are cousins  (that is in another gospel) - which seems like a strange omission, since the author of the fourth gospel - Lazarus - was a disciple first of John then of Jesus. So, if they were cousins, then he would know!

However, I think we can assume that it was Lazarus who brought his future brother-in-law Jesus to be baptised by his then-Master John the Baptist, just two days before the wedding. Perhaps (as in my own extended family) terms like 'sister' (referring to John's and Jesus's mothers), did not necessarily mean sharing the same parents - and perhaps the real link was the marriage-link between Lazarus's and Jesus's families, and that was underpinned by some childhood relation between the mothers of Jesus and Lazarus... (The beloved disciple is asked, by Jesus on the cross, to look-after Jesus's mother.)

Thus it was Lazarus who was responsible for the timing of  Jesus's ministry; and Lazarus was present at his sister's wedding to Jesus in Cana two days later when Jesus's new status as the Messiah became explicit with the first miracle - in which water to wine is both literal and deeply symbolic (the symbolism - which is itself literal - being multiply expressed in other parts of the fourth Gospel).


The second omission is more obvious and important than the garbled comment of Jesus to his mother; and it is the dispute among the Jewish leaders about whether Jesus could be the Messiah given that he had not been born in Bethlehem.

John 7: 41-3 - Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh out of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where Davis was? So there was a division among the people because of him.

Having raised this as an important issue, the author of the fourth Gospel does not resolve it for us. Of course, we are told in Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born in Bethlehem... But we are not told this in the fourth Gospel, where the issue is left 'up in the air' and (so far as I can see) never resolved for the reader.

This could be some omission from the Gospel, something that was lost - a statement that Jesus was born in Bethlehem; because it seems strange that, if Jesus was indeed born in Bethelehem, the dispute reported in the fourth Gospel was not simply settled.

Or, if nothing was lost; and since I regard the fourth Gospel as more authoritative than any of the Synoptics (or Epistles); perhaps this really was one way in which Jesus did not fulfil all the prophecies - but one which was later patched-up by oral history and legend...

After all, the fourth Gospel provides in abundance all the evidence necessary to prove that Jesus really was the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah... There is, in particular, the testimony of John the Baptist (the most authoritative witness of that time and place); the miracles - especially the raising of Lazarus; and of course Jesus's resurrection, ascension, and his sending of the Holy Ghost.

There is a general plan of salvation - requiring the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus; and there is a general plan of theosis - by which we are all intended to strive for greater degrees of divinity, to become grown-up, mature Sons and Daughters of God...

But we know that God's attention goes down to the level of each person, and - presumably - everything that happens to and around us (given that nothing is random, and all determinism is actually do do with the purposes of beings) is intended (although not necessarily or usually intended for our own personal salvation and theosis - often for others).

Maybe this aspect is neglected by most Christians? - it is by me. It could be that the 'standard' model for salvation and theosis is more of the nature of an average description, than it is a simple categorical scheme into-which all-must-fit... or, at least, there will surely be such standard elements in sequence;  but it may be that our personal lives are much more 'targeted' on the spiritual needs of our pre-mortal spirit selves than is usually understood...

This would start with when and where we were born, and to whom; it may extend to the matter of God having encouraged several types of society and civilisation and circumstance to help with the needs of different types of people, of different levels of spiritual maturity...

And it may extend to a detailed level of the things that happen, and do not happen, to us each day.

Of course, we personally will not be able to know or understand most of what is going-on; but just knowing that 'something of the kind' is always going-on, is potentially a very helpful attitude to Life.

It is all very well for me to call Jordan Peterson an antichrist, and to warn people off taking seriously someone who is a merely a psychotherapist, left-libertarian, atheist... but the rejoinder is that 'who else' is there in the modern world getting mainstream coverage that is talking as much common sense?

And the answer is: nobody. Nobody else who has comparable fame and impact is any better than Jordan Peterson  - and yet Jordan Peterson is qualitatively inadequate for the needs of this time: he is a waste of time, a blind alley, a red herring; thus, in our state-of-emergency - he does more harm than good...

There just isn't anybody who has anything significantly worth listening to that most people have heard of, or who has power or fame. That is the nature of our time and place...

Surely this is not surprising? What do you expect - we live in an evil-dominated totalitarian society! What public figures, 'public intellectuals', people with a high impact 'platform' were there in Stalin's USSR or Mao's China or current North Korea? Exactly the same number that we have in the UK, the US and Western Europe.

For people to regard JP as a significant thinker is evidence that they have no idea of the severity of the situation here and now.  They have no idea of the pervasiveness and depth of corruption in a society that officially advocates and enforces moral and aesthetic inversion; which punishes truth and systematically generates an interlocking structure of lies. We are in a very bad way indeed - advanced en route to self-chosen damnation on a mass scale.

Put it this way; if our situation was such that Jordan Peterson really was a valuable public voice saying something we needed to hear; then we would not need him.

But as things are, to find what we need, we must (and must means must) look outside the scope of the mainstream mass media - that is: we need to look to writers and thinkers from the past or other places, or who operate in relative or extreme obscurity.

What we need to know will not be given us - we need to seek for it. And if we haven't sought for it, then we can be sure that it is not what we need... That's what it means to live in a totalitarian society.   

I was asked a question yesterday by commenter NW, about what qualifies a person to be regarded as a Christian - and this led to the following reflections...

I don't like the implications of being 'qualified' to be a Christian! I think that gives the impression we are trying to plead before a judge, or satisfy and examiner. But our God is a loving Father, who wants the best for us - wants us to accept his gift of creation and join with him in the great work.

The way I regard definitions of being a Christian is that we need to 'believe' in Jesus - that is to have faith and trust in him; we need to believe that he was the Son of God and was creator of this world; that his incarnation, deeath and resurrection enabled us to have 'life eternal' which involves our own resurrection.

The above passage contains several key bits of terminology, and I don't think it is crucial to being a Christian that everybody agrees on them all... it is mostly (as usual) a matter of motivation. I think one can be a Christian by accepting that Jesus is 'in some way' personally essential to our salvation - without being sure of exactly how it works, or being sure of exactly what salvation consists in.

As you know, I am reading and re-reading the fourth Gospel ('John') as an eyewittness account by the beloved disciple. What Jesus teaches is very simple, and is mostly about 'belief' - the impression I get is that Jesus will lead us to salvation like a shepherd leads his flock... the flock trusts the shepherd (who will sacrifice his life for the least of the sheep) - and follows him to safety.

In a simple and profound sense, it is by trusting Jesus that we *follow* him through death and into the life eternal. I think that we need to ensure during mortal life that we are ready to do this after death, that we trust Jesus to lead us.

This implies that non-Christians, who have never even heard of Jesus, can also meet him after death and recognise him and trust him, and follow him to eternal life.

Indeed, it is probable that thsoe who have never heard of Jesus are more likely to trust and follow him after death than the typical modern person who has been poisoned-against Jesus.

(This is our particular test in the modern world, and why these times and this place is particularly hazardous to salvation.) 

I think Jesus understood this double-edged aspect of his incarnation, and refers to it several times in the Gospels. In that sense Jesus brought Hell as well as Heaven, and an unavoidable decision - because since the incarnation, many/ most people have *hated* Jesus, when they encountered him. So they actively-reject his gift.

And if we do not trust the Good Shepherd when we encounter him after death, then we will not follow him to life eternal - we will reject Heaven, and prefer the Hell of isolation-from love.


(This choice of Hell may not be irreversible, in principle. For example, I think that the dead may be reached by prayers from those who love them, and may 'change their minds', may revise their choice and accept the gift of Christ. Thus our love of neighbour, love of fellow-men, (when genuine) is potentially an instrument of salvation. But everything suggests that the decision whether or not to believe in Jesus Christ during our mortal life is extremely important - and I think we must assume that in practice such decisions are not easily or often reversed; even though the door to salvation is always kept-open by our loving Father in Heaven.)

A recent blog post by William M Briggs collects together just some of the evidence that has been coming into the open about the fact that the Global Establishment, near the apex of its hierarchy, is quite literally (although - as yet - deniably) a cult of supernatural evil, of demon worship and systematic desecration.

(Many other such reports can be found at Vox Day's blog; and have, indeed, been disseminated over the past three decades by David Icke. This is, of course, the dreaded 'conspiracy theory' material! - but all serious Christians must believe in the real conspiracy of supernatural evil, since it is repeatedly referenced in the New Testament.) 

Such monstrous activities as sex abduction and slavery, paedophilia, ritual torture, murder, and cannibalism; are utterly alien to many or most people - but they are apparently mainstream, protected and - probably - compulsory; among the Global Establishment (whether among national rulers, the UN, the international banks, or the BBC and Hollywood).


This ought not to be surprising to Christians who must acknowledge the reality and power of Satan and his minions in this world, and who can recognise the very obvious strategic evil intent of the Global Establishment in its manifestations among the international institutions of politics, government, economics, education, the mass media, the military etc.

Since the system is run by demons and is pursuing a demonic agenda; those humans near the apex must naturally be corrupted and inculcated (more or less explicitly, and presumably incrementally) with a religion of inversion in which the dark forces and motives are regarded as good; and truth, beauty and virtue are vilified, subverted, attacked and destroyed.


There is - from a Christian perspective - an irony about this; in that the 'hard-nosed' realists of bureaucracy, media and so-called science; are being played as useful-idiots by those who know that their this-worldly-utilitarianism and universalist-altruism are merely a disposable smoke screen for the implementation of their opposites. Any 'system' of individuals each pursuing selfish hedonism is intrinsically going to be self-contradicting. 

At present, the great majority of the educated middle class commissars who implement the secular Leftist agenda of evil (in its aspects such as sexual revolution, diversity, antiracism, feminism, egalitarianism etc.) hold fast to what they assume is scientific rationalism, and are utterly scornful of those less-educated and less-powerful ('idiots, crazies and lying manipulators') who 'cling' to belief in Jesus Christ and the reality of the spiritual.

But it is not just the middle management who are dupes - indeed the entire hierarchy of evil are all self-deceived fools striving for the impossible; right up to the very apex where Satan's burning resentment against God drives him to seek the destruction of all Good, ultimately all of his worshippers, and all of creation including his own (divinely-made) soul.

(Because, since evil is the negation of good, there can be no unmixed evil - there is good in everything by the fact of its existence; so the destruction of good - which is the aim of evil - aims at the futile impossibility of total annihilation...)


It is God's love which holds-together, makes sense of, and gives-direction-to reality which is his creation; and only by trust and faith in Jesus can we participate in the endlessly life of Heaven...

Any and all other options are sub-optimal - but we are free to choose them, and take the consequences.

Not all the consequences of rejecting Jesus are terrible, in terms of suffering - but active support and advocacy of supernatural evil brings its own entailed punishment; later if not sooner, everyone becomes a victim.

And some of these consequences are increasingly on display in the reported actions of the Global Elites. Things are coming to a point, evil being revealed, the time for decision is upon us; as I keep saying...

The idea that we already (in childhood, spontaneously) know everything truly-knowable, but are unconscious of the fact - and that learning is a kind of remembering and making-explicit and understanding....

That idea has a complementary aspect, which is that our spontaneous childhood beliefs and wishes have a validity, even and especially when these Bs &Ws have no correspondence with earthly reality, experience or apparent possibility.

An example is flying. I have clear memories of not just yearning to be able to fly (fly by 'levitation', without wings or propulsion - just moving through the air), of knowing what it would be like to fly, and the conviction that it was possible for me to fly... if only I could discover the 'knack'.

More profoundly, I - like most people - was apparently born into this world with the belief that it ought to be a paradise; and that any departure from paradisal conditions was a kind of violation: unjust, against the order of things.

Now, obviously there is no biological basis for human flying, nor any social basis for life as paradise; and therefore such in-built hopes and beliefs are either extraordinary yet common delusions or reality-distortions; or else they relate to a reality that is different from our own, but of which we have memory.

My assumption is that this reality is of pre-mortal spirit life - when we could indeed fly, and life was indeed paradisal. And at an unconscious, implicit, but effective level - we remember this...

We could also, as spirits, do many other things that I believed (against the evidence) was possible; such as read minds, communicate telepathically, change the world by thinking a thing, have my thoughts compelled, move things by a kind of telekinesis, and 'talk' with animals and befriend them.

(Interestingly, such beliefs also re-emerge in people with psychosis and altered states of consciousness.)

In sum, I think that we could reflect more on these childhood, and - in our culture - child-ish, counter-evidential beliefs and desires. And could regard them as destined paths to truth - things we need to become aware of, and to understand.


Note: The above is a version of the 'argument from desire' which was used often by CS Lewis, and also by JRR Tolkien - and which I personally find compelling. I refer to it and provide references in this essay.

Does he have to be either? - you ask. And the answer is, in principle, of course not.

But in practice Jordan Peterson is indeed being treated as if a saviour, or potentially such; therefore - since he is nothing of the kind! - in practice JP is indeed an antichrist.. and such by a precise definition of being a person who rhetorically uses aspects of a Christianity he disbelieves and opposes to deny Christ; someone who advertises to superficially-Christian agenda but who is fundamentally pursuing an un-Christian agenda.

(An antichrist is not supposed to be explicity against Christ - as some people mistakenly imagine; an antichrist is someone who seems a Christian or Christian supporter; who might indeed appear 99% Christian - but the missing percent is their real agenda. Because the Antichrist is a deceiver, in-practice. Whether an antichrist is a purposive deceiver, or has deceived himself before he deceives other people, is not a crucial distinction - an antichrist can do his evil work even if he is unaware of his own true motivations; and perhaps more effectively. For example: antichrists abound among 'Liberal Christian' church leaders - who may speak 99% Christian-talk, but whose real agenda is an aspect of Leftist materialsm, such as progressing the sexual revolution.)


But is Jordan Peterson really being treated as a saviour? Well, yes! Obviously!

Now of course anyone who - in their hearts - is regarding JP as a saviour may deny it to themselves or others; but my personal experience over the past year or so has been to have an unprecedented number of individuals write to me to recommend Jordan Peterson.

It was not just the fact of them having written to inform and enlist me; it was the starry eyed enthusiasm of their advocacy that was so striking. The tone was that 'Here, at last!" was someone to inspire faith and hope, someone to get-behind... (CoughAntichristCough)

By unprecedented, I mean that this has never happened before with any other person, nothing like it; yet these letters were frequent enough that I at first assumed that there was an organised campaign, or that they all emanated from a single besotted 'troll'... however, it became apparent that there was indeed a 'movement' who regarded JP as their personal saviour and the world's potential saviour.


Am I sure that Jordan Peterson is not a saviour? Yes! Of course he isn't! He lacks the 'one thing needful' - which is to be a Christian; and the other linked needful, which is to advocate a non-materialist, a transcendental metaphysics that acknowledges the objective reality of the spiritual.

What Peterson advocates is merely a moderately libertarian variant of modern, mainstream, Leftism - and those who can't see that fact at a glance are merely revealing their own unconscious complicity in the assumptions of secular, hedonic/ utilitarian materialism.

To base a world-view, a morality in (this-worldly) psychology just-is Leftism; and the disagreements and differences among Leftists are merely quibbling over the most effective means to that end.

This is a plain fact of categorisation: Peterson is a Leftist and a materialist - and there is absolutely no way in which yet-another Leftist materialist is going to awaken, inspire or lead anybody in the direction they need to be going... except, perhaps, in seeing-through and understanding the deception being practiced, and reacting-against JP.


In principle, of course, one can read/ watch/ listen to JP for what he is worth - just as we do with any other non-Christian materialist. I personally have read a great deal of Jung and his disciples and followers, and there is certainly value in it.

Yet this is not what is needed. No psychology addresses what is fundamentally wrong in us, or in modern society. And if we overvalue any kind of psychology as an aim in life, it will block what is needed. Sometimes a half-correct, semi-satisfying, moderately-useful answer becomes a trap that does more harm to us than an answer that is more-obviously inadequate and impels us to continue seeking the truth.

However, if/ because/ when circumstances force us to make a choice between embracing Jordan Peterson as saviour or rejecting him as antichrist; well, the answer is a no-brainer.

At first sight this seems a ridiculous idea, that has apparently been refuted by the great accumulation of knowledge through human history; but I believe there is a sense in which the broader argument is indicative of a profound insight - and this is why the argument has been taken seriously for more than 2000 years (ie. since Plato).

The sense is that life is two curves running from childhood to maturity - a rising line of self-consciousness which increases from childhood to a maximum plateau attained at adolescence. And a descending line of innate and spontaneous knowing which is high in childhood (albeit it is an unconscious knowing), and reaches a nadir in at adolescence.

In modern society adolescence is (spiritually) usually where matters stop - what we call adulthood is not 'maturity' but merely a sustained and degenerate adolescence. Modern 'adults' have lost their  spontaneous natural knowledge (instead just passively absorbing propaganda and hypothesies from 'society') and they live in a cut-off state of self-consciousness (so cut-off that it doubts and denies even itself). 

The task of adolescence ought-to-be to change that descending line of knowing into an arc - rising in adult maturity to reach the same kind of spontaneous and universal knowing that we began-with - but this time it is conscious knowing.

Thus, children know everything but are unaware of the fact, adolescents know nothing and are aware of the fact; but spiritually-mature grown-ups potentially know everything, and know-what-they-know.

I say adults potentially know everything, because the process of discovering-what-you-already-know is linear and happens in-time; so it would be more accurate to say that knowledge is un-bounded, open-ended, and tends-towards a situation of knowing everything-that-can-be-known - always from the perspective of a single self.

This scenario is, presumably, why all real learning - all knowing of truth - has the distinct feeling of being a realising, a remembering, a recognition... true knowledge is always 'familiar' - we always feel that we 'always knew that' but had never articulated it. I'm saying that we always Did know that - but did not realise we knew it, and could not use that knowing until after we had articulated it.

In terms of knowledge the trajectory is therefore from unconscious knowledge to conscious knowledge; from the implicit to the explicit; from immersion-in knowledge to standing outside it; from passivity through contemplation to creativity.

Edited from Equations of Being: notes on the nature of love - by William Arkle:

The God we are trying to understand is a living God.

There are many dead gods in our culture. The most common one is never described in any specific way and yet it is a part of the attitude which most ‘educated’ people bring to bear on our present day civilisation. This is the mechanical feedback god.

This God is ‘given worth’ or ‘worship’ through the type of thinking which sees all the phenomena of life in terms of an endless series of computer functions. Such an attitude never admits to a state of true consciousness being present in any event, but only to a series of learned responses which are truly a form of machinery.

In such a frame of understanding nothing is ever real in its own right but everything is an effect of one set of things and the cause of another, and in itself is left worthless and empty. What we would take to be our own consciousness is not admitted by this thought.

Instead we are taught that what appeared to us to be consciousness is in fact a series of electrical and chemical connections in the physical brain which compute from storage circuits the patterns of behaviour which have occurred to us. Such patterns are therefore the complete effectiveness of our identity so that we have become the sum of what has happened to us. Thus we ourselves are nothing but a playback system to other playback systems, and all and everything is thus made out to be a complex build-up of accidents which are remembered by the system.

There can be no such thing as individual effort or merit in this ‘scientific’ system and there is no way that we can be creative. What appears in us to be creative is merely the result of circuits of behaviour which have built-up to a degree that they then begin to give-off, in a mechanical way (because they can’t help it), further patterns for further circuits.

This is the dreadful and insidious picture of reality which knowledgeable men are teaching as the proper education for our day and age.


I have used the word dreadful in the last paragraph, because what has now become a common, but often unspoken, attitude in our way of life results in the opposite sense of values to the ones which we arrive at if we believe that we possess a non-mechanical source of consciousness from which mechanical responses to life situations can be eliminated.

It thus becomes possible for me, if living by faith in my God-like reality given to me by the living God and Creator of all creation, to know that I am inserting a deliberate and intentional expression of behaviour in amongst other patterns of behaviour which are otherwise partly mechanical or purely mechanical. 

I can then learn to observe exactly where I can inject my true autonomy into life and where I can allow life to behave in a reactive way, according to the mechanical feed-back response nature that it does possess.


The point at issue is whether I have the ‘faith’ in my identity as a God-like Being; a faith which allows me to make my responses to life from that purely numinous reality of awareness and consciousness; or alternatively whether that ability has been crippled in me by the insinuations of the culture I have grown-up-in that such free and responsible behaviour can only be an illusion.

It is the more scientific members of our society who have suggested the mechanical and accidental model of our life.

In practice, however, those who lead us in social and political matters ask a great deal more from us in terms of individual responsibility and problem-solving; but they argue their case in terms that are almost entirely concerned with a close-up, ‘second hand of the clock’ view of life’s purpose; thus throwing us our of context with the deeper and more universal attitudes of our nature, which again are treated as though they did not exist, or are governed by a system over which we have no control.


These deeper attitudes can only come to us, as a means of solving our problems, if we allow the time values that stem from a perspective of 'the minute hand' and 'the hour hand' into our deliberations. The religious and spiritual nature which deals with these more 'timeless' qualities must be seen by us to be the heart and lungs of our whole body of life - and not some strange aberration or emotional illness which has no respectable link with researched and proven data and knowledge of the physical and social sciences.

We are not arguing against these researches, but simply against mainstream discourse failing to set their findings within the context of man’s whole significance - by which failure they often add to the fragmentation rather than the integration of our sense of purpose and value.

When I first became interested in JRR Tolkien in the middle 70s, there was not much attention paid to him by the British mass media - but when there was, there was always some reference to the popularity in US college campuses, and to phenomena such as the 'Gandalf for President' lapel button, and graffiti along the lines of 'Frodo Lives'. Then The Lord of the Rings (LotR) movies in the early 2000s triggered another - much larger - wave of mass-, and the social-, media fandom.

When I consider the phenomenon of Tolkien popularity represented by the Gandalf for President button, I can find no relationship at all between that and what I value in Tolkien or LotR, with what is actually-in Tolkien; indeed the joke political slogan is the antithesis of what the LotR represents ex-plicitly, im-plicitly and every kind of plicitly... Saruman for US President/ Sauron for UN President would make a great deal more sense.

In their way, 'fans' of Tolkien are sincere; and may expend a great deal of time, money and effort in their fan activities. Yet, in the end it gets the participants nothing-at-all - it corrupts Tolkien rather than learning from him.

Fandom - by its insatiable (daily, hourly) appetite for novelty, and it mass nature, always corrupts; and always corrupts in the direction of prevalent mainstream ideology: whether that be 60s hippiedom, late 70s environmentalism, or - since the 80s and increasingly - the various facets of the sexual revolution, political correctness and 'social justice'.

Instead of learning-from Tolkien; it is quite normal for fans to read-into Tolkien whatever happens to be the current nihilism, hedonism, materialism, atheism... somehow fans find in Tolkien exactly what they seek - or else try (in effect) to 'teach' Tolkien about feminism, socialism, radical sexuality... whatever - for example via the vast mass of fan fiction (including 'slash' fiction) that quite explicitly inserts this kind of stuff into Tolkien's world.

Other fandoms are closely analogous - revealing that this is a property of fandom rather than being related to specific authors or their work. In Harry Potter, another work of Christian fantasy with traditional values at its heart; the main fan website was initially obsessed with the 'shipping' (romantic relationships between) the main characters, in all possible and inconceivable combinations. Later the web pages and fandoms were quite explicitly and systematically enlisted for a check-list of current social justice campaigns, such as agitation for same sex 'marriage' legislation. And the fans duly complied, with apparent enthusiasm and zeal.

Or Brandon Sanderson - I recently attended a talk, reading and book signing done by Sanderson; which was packed with hundreds of fans who turned-out and paid money to be there... and I say fans, because in the Q&A session every single one of the couple of dozen questions was related to the most trivial, ephemeral and superficial aspects of his work. There was not one single interesting, insightful, or challenging question asked by this mass of people; not the slightest indication that the novels were anything other than depictions of magic systems and 'cool' personalities.

Sanderson is an active Mormon, and all of his work is permeated with a serious consideration of religion and spirituality; both on the surface and as underlying structure. But it was clear that for Sanderson's fandom this was of sub-zero interest - invisible and irrelevant. 

The phenomenon of fandom is therefore at best trivial and fashion driven, there being more incommon between fans (regardless of what they are fans-of) than between fans and the subject of their fanaticism. Fandom is corrupting and destructive of whatever is good in the authors and works that get caught-up by it; and in its advanced form, fandom embodies subversion and inversion of whatever is specific and distinctive in its subject matter; the aim being to reinterpret and rewrite it in line with currently-dominant, top-down, manipulative social campaigns that ultimately emanate from (and are funded by) the global Establishment elites.

So the phenomenon of fandom is a product of evil purpose; and has a malign influence all-round. No wonder that the elderly Tolkien was so confused and appalled by its first stirrings in the 1960s, and by the 'Gandalf for President'-type expressions.

Journalists thought that this was 'ungrateful' of him, because masses of fans led to more sales and more money in Tolkien's pocket.

But Tolkien was not a 'professional author' - he wrote from the heart and for the highest motivations. And he realised that fandom had nothing to do with him or his work; but on the contrary was the attempted obliteration of his work, the attempt to harness his books for a dark agenda.

So far as I know from personal experience - people I have known before and after they attained 'power' - high position, high status, fame, influence etc - this generalisation is true: perhaps 100% true (although there may be exceptions that have slipped my mind).

The main corruption I have observed is pervasive, habitual, systematic dishonesty - with the self and with others.

Of course there is a confounding element; which is that those who seek power, who do-what-it-takes to attain power - are usually partly, or at least latently, corrupt already. And there is the factor that uncorrupt (and probably-incorruptible) people would be excluded from power - unless by some error they happened on it, when they would normally be purged from the institution. But there is not much doubt that the environment of power is itself rapidly and pervasively corrupt-ing.

I do not think that this was always the case - indeed I'm confident that it was not always the case. In my fields of professional activity - medicine, science and academic generally - there used to be (as recently a couple of generations ago) quite a lot of people who attained power and influence and who were not corrupt. Quite a few of these survived until 25 years ago; but now there are, well, none who have power. (Only a few, and all marginalised.)

(In the past - even a few politicians remained basically honest!)

One thing observation reveals is that mainstream modern people - secular people, materialists, atheists - who are known for alternative, off-beat, dissenting, cynical views; nowadays always sell-out; indeed, my impression is that they actually live in-order-to sell-out. They develop their alternative careers until they have made just enough of a nuisance that they are worth bribing to conform - and they grab the opportunity with both hands.

Hence all the 'red hot radicals', the edgy nonconformists, the avant garde, the socialists, the men/ women of-the-people... with knighthoods, peerages, awards, prizes, and Establishment pulpits.

And I have not the slightest doubt that if any of the current crop of non-Christian 'Right Wingers' or 'Libertarian's' or Free marketeers, or Nationalists in the public sphere ever get a sniff of power, they will sell-out so fast that the transitional phase will be invisible - especially when they are kept-on as pretend-conservatives or pseudo-reactionaries; as fake evidence of the broad minded tolerance of the modern Establishment.

What I am saying is that - here and now - power and integrity are incompatible; and possession of power is sufficient evidence of achieved-corruption; and desire for power is sufficient evidence of willing corruptibility.