Bruce Charlton's Notions

It was in its spiritual optimism that New Age spirituality was most deeply and dangerously in error - an optimism that derived from the middle 1960s hippie movement (or perhaps from the middle 1950s Beats/ beatniks).

The basic stance of this movement was that modern people had spiritually progressed beyond those of the past; that there had been and was ongoing a transformation and advance in human consciousness - with all kinds of new information, experiences, possibilities.

Crudely, but accurately, the New Age assumption was (and is) that the younger generations were spiritually better than the older. This was unwarrented self-congratulation, self-congratulation for one's actual defects! It was indeed spiritual Pride - which is one of the most dangerous of sins. 


I believe that New Age optimism is almost-completely wrong - or more exactly is based on a deep confusion (often a deliberate confusion).

Modern Man has a destiny, possible now but not in earlier eras; but that destiny has not been embraced - and was not embraced by the New Age, but was merely claimed to have been embraced, while the truth of the matter was a deepening materialism (especially political) and pleasure-seeking (esepcially sexual). 

They understood themselves to be people aiming high and achieving new heights; but in contrast, I see people who consistently and with great stubbornness refuse to aim high - who are reductive and disenchanted in all areas of life - at home, at work, in spirit, in church and other groups.

They are people who deny the fact that We, including the New Age people themselves, are more 'this worldly', more materialistic (reductionistic, positivistic, scientistic) than ever before in the history of Man - and it is getting worse.


When I look at the New Age movement over the past fifty years; I see supposedly-spiritual people who are either merely engaged in mundane, petty gossip and bureaucracy 'about' spiritual matters; and/ or people who engage in covert personal hedonism (usually sexual, and/ or financial exploitation) superficially dressed-up in a spiritual garb. 


Our current situation is actually one in which spirituality has been refused; for generation upon generation. This continues; and therefore our situation is getting progressively worse.

Each generation declines from the earlier, because the refusal of the necessity of spiritual progression gets more deeply entrenched.

When spiritual progression is necessary yet does not happen, the gap between where we are and where should be increases - it has increased from a gap to a gulf.

There is an ever-greater distortion of the relationship between our-selves and reality. New Age optimism is one aspect of this distortion.


We ought, therefore, to be pessimistic about the future unless or until there is a massive, qualitative, wrenching and world-shaking change in our basic spiritual stance; until we acknowledge the spiritual as primary at a macro- and micro-level.

This would, obviously, entail a transformation of human thinking. Which is not the kind of thing that happens without people noticing; it is not the kind of thing that happens gradually.

Of course transformation could not happen in a permanent way (not in mortal life) so transformation would be intermittent (perhaps brief, certainly unstable) - but at any given moment it either is, or is not.


The dishonest claim of permanent and solid transformation has been a plague of modern spirituality. While we ought to strive for the spiritual as much and as often as possible; the situation can only improve when people are clear about the times when they (and others) are Not attaining the primacy of the spiritual.

We must recognise that modern man had-and-has a destiny to become consciously spiritual - to become as spiritual as hunter-gatherers but to do so consciously. It is because such conscious spirituality must be chosen, voluntarily and in full freedom that we have not done it.

The spiritual has not happened. As things actually are, optimism is not just mistaken but harmful.


Despite New Age claims; Man's destiny has not even begun to happen at a societal level. The basic nature of our world is one of increasing evil consequent upon the fact that we have refused, and continue to refuse, to recognise the reality of the spiritual and live-by the reality of the spiritual - to make this our life-priority, to seek it to the best of our (limited) ability.

Continuing the recent theme against 'mass media', Francis Berger discusses the pros and cons of Christians writing 'outrage de jour' blog posts:

I have not and have never intended to make “outrage du jour” posts the focus of this blog. Nonetheless, I have indulged in a few posts of this kind over the past few months. 

The classic “outrage du jour” post is a raw reactionary rant railing against some controversy or other that has flared up in the mainstream media. Rage and disgust (often justifiable) fuel these posts. More often than not, they aim to instill rage and disgust into the reader. 

“Outrage du jour” posts serve a definite purpose – whether or not this purpose is beneficial or harmful depends on the topic addressed and the manner in which the writer has approached it. As with most things in life, outrage posts have their pros and cons. 

On the pro side, outrage posts draw attention to abuses and evildoing. Posts of this kind can be quite informative. Depending on a writer’s perspective, they can also be rather entertaining, perhaps even humorous. 

On the con side, outrage posts can breed smoldering anger, paranoia, and resentment...

Francis concludes that it is overall a bad idea to produce such topical, reactive posts - at least on a regualr basis. I concur, mostly because 'resentment' is a toxic emotion for a Christian - indeed one of the worst of sins, since it feeds upon itself and never can be assuaged.

Resentment is the opposite of forgiveness, and the point of forgiveness is primarily that it is necessary to the forgiver, not the forgiven.

My experience of topical, political blog posts is that they get the most page views - but make no difference to expanding the long-term core readership of the blog. The people who come to read and respond to a rant about the latest Leftist outrage, don't hang-around for the only possible answer: a Romantic Christian revival among Westerners in The West.

Just to mark the passing of the latest milestone - five million page views for this blog mostly from the past nine years of daily blogging (after I was sacked from editing Medical Hypotheses). Last month was c. 79,000 views; which is on an upward trajectory.

But I'm very dubious whether these numbers reflect readers, since some of the traffic sources make no sense - 158 views in the past week from a high-school 'science field trip' page! - presumably these are 'bots' of some kind.

The main thing is that I am getting plenty of stimulating comments these days, which is very encouraging - so thanks!

There is all the difference in the world according to whether I know something for myself or have merely read about it with assent. I don't know it until I have thought-it-through.

I think it is the same for nearly everybody. Things that are implied merely, or stated merely, do not have life, do not have influence.

The implications of a fact... that is what is hard to know. That is the difference between scholarship and holiness.


At any rate, I have certain 'issues' that are important for me, and I have never seen the fact that we used to know Jesus given as an explanation for why everybody therefore knows Jesus without being told about him. For example, why the plan of salvation worked and works and will work without any church (and despite some/ most churches).

Because, taken seriously - the fact that each person knew Jesus means that learning the history of Jesus is not necessary - nor is the accuracy of the history we are told. Knowledge of scripture is not necessary; nor is the existence of scripture - we do not need the Bible.

All of which is very important in a world where (and increasingly) history is anti-Christian by assumption, where scripture is being deliberately mistranslated, and where scriptural teaching is mostly false and inverted.


I have, from at least age 4, had a spontaneous aversion to the fact that Jesus was born at a time and place that was not my own - I don't like the Middle East setting.

I am deeply troubled about insisting on the absolute (verse by verse) accuracy of the Bible (especially when ignoring the specifics of translation) when I can see for myself new 'translations' being systematically distorted and inverted in front of my eyes (eg. in the 'gender neutral' versions officially used in the Church of England).

I need to known Jesus directly.


Yes Jesus is alive here and now, but that is not sufficient when 'everything' really does hinge upon the truth of historical facts, including that Jesus did something at a particular time and in a particular place.

(Note: I nowadays regard the philosophical - Platonically-derived - stuff about God being 'outside time' as self delusion/ rationalisation. So, I believe that really Jesus did do what he did at a particular point in history; with a before and an after.)

That we knew Jesus premortally means that we each already know the plan of salvation by which Jesus would enable Men to become gods (resurrected immortals). We therefore know the historicity of his incarnation and its purpose.

We don't know the specific details (dates) of his life and death from this source - because these were not pre-ordained, and depended on agency. But we do know Jesus's nature, why he was chosen, what it was all for; and therefore we know enough to decide to love, trust and follow him...

Each and every one of us already knows enough. What is needed (as usual) is to become aware of what we already-know...

This only struck me today - I have only just realised that every single person that has lived, lives now, or will live - knew of Jesus and his 'mission' during his pre-mortal spirit life.

This has many and very important implications. One is that after death, when we encounter Jesus again 'face to face'; and when we make the choice of Heaven or Hell, resurrected eternal life participating in divine creation or its rejection - this will not come as a surprise.

Even if we never encountered the name of Jesus during mortal life, even if we disbelieved what we were told or discovered about Jesus during mortal life; we will then remember what we had-known of him before our mortal life; and remember also why we chose to incarnate and biologically-die.

Even it our knowledge of Jesus had been forgotten, suppressed or denied; we will then recall that we always have known it - that it was built-into us.

We all knew Jesus... I can't think of any source that has specifically articulated this fact to me - I have had to work it out for myself, joining the dots; but it strikes me as something of great importance.

 

The title reveals my assumption that these souls experiences a pre-mortal life, which extended back far beyond the existence of Man. Therefore, all Men, whenever and wherever they were born and lived, will have known about the 'plan of salvation' involving Jesus; and when each soul incarnates as a mortal Man, will have known the range of possibilities for that time and place.

Until Jesus became divine (when he was baptised by John) Men's souls could not become divine - they could not be resurrected to eternal and Heavenly life. From this point all souls of Men could become divine, by believing/ having-faith-in/ following Jesus - and all souls knew-about Jesus from their experiences in pre-mortal life.

Before the divinity of Jesus, souls were 'waiting' - at least, that seems to be the essence of pagan beliefs. It may be that some dead-souls (after mortal death) simply awaited in an unconscious and dreamlike state; probably some souls reincarnated to gain further mortal experience (in that probably the majority of pre-Christian 'religions' assume some kind of reincarnation).

My general conviction is that the plan of salvation is one that allows for unique specific trajectories, tailored to the unique dispositions and potentials of each human soul, but there are a few stages in the evolutionary development which must unfold linearly.

It seems likely that some experience reincarnation (of various types) while others do not. Some choose eternal resurrected life after one mortal incarnation, and for many this incarnation is extremely brief and takes place entirely in the womb.

And within divinity, there are many levels between ordinary Men and the fullness attained by Jesus, and some will probably choose to remain at lower levels.

And some Men choose damnation - quite likely these souls were already very-probably corrupt, and mortal life was a kind of 'last chance' for them. I suspect there are a large number of such premortally evil souls incarnated at present - at least, that's how it appears to me. Modernity is, overall, perhaps designed to make the issue of salvation versus damnation as clear as possible to such souls (the phenomenon CS Lewis called 'things coming to a point').

As for the souls born before Christ; and indeed until modernity - I don't think we need 'worry' too much about their hopes of salvation. Each will have known Jesus in pre-mortal life (as well all did) and almost all will have lived in a society sufficiently 'Good' that they can make the right choices - there was a great core of commonality in perspective, including morals, (what CS Lewis called The Tao) between all known traditional religions.

The kind of mainstream, official, inversion of Truth, Beauty and Virtue which we Westerners (and increasingly everybody else) experience as our everyday life, was extremely rare during past times; but has become the prime shared experience and the main challenge of our mortal lives.

Wonderful music - of course - but I have heard this old warhorse so many times that I pretty much take it for granted.

Then something made me look at this YouTube video - recorded with wonderful resonance in the church of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London, just round the corner from where I briefly worked in a laboratory... and it is the very best performance I have ever heard.

It had me holding my breath, while tears rolled down my cheeks.



Note: This performance confirms for me that adult women trebles are now, and have been for some four decades, the highest quality choral sopranos of our age; superseding pre-pubescent boys. The alto line is perhaps more controversial, with adult women and adult male counter-tenors both having superseded boys whose voices are beginning to break. But my preference in early choral music is now for adult women trained to sing as those in the Tenebrae choir - in a pure tone and without vibrato. However, I prefer counter-tenors for solo work in pre-18th century music, due to the superior cutting edge and masculinity of the voice.

The marital problems between Ronald and Edith were probably linked to Tolkien's nervous breakdown of late 1945 and early 1946 (mostly due to over-work), when he took time off his Professorial duties and lived in a pub with Christopher to seek a better frame of mind.

He was also, at this point, suffering writers' block with Lord of the Rings, and was instead exploring psychological and spiritual issues via the The Notion Club Papers - a projected novel of time travel, loosely based on The Inklings.

I discuss these matters over at the Notion Club Papers blog - also requesting further information from scholars with knowledge of unpublished material.

Is the lesson to create 'our own' mass media? 

Well, I don't think so - partly because all mass media are vulnerable to being destroyed by the new multi-level nature of deplatforming, in which everything from financial services to the law (via the police as well as lawyers), is weaponised in defence of The System of evil bureaucratic Leftism.

There are So Many ways a mass organisation can be destroyed - and the Left controls all the major social institutions.

'We' might create media, but they cannot be, will not be allowed to be, 'mass'. As soon as they get mass - become visible - they will be clipped.  It takes a lot of work to build a mass medium, but it is trivially easy to destroy one.

(I've seen it with this blog; whenever it starts building up official page views - something-happens - and overnight the page views plummet. I'm expecting another such, as the current page views are over 2500 per day, which seems to be something of a threshold. Back when I used to edit Medical Hypotheses, the journal was safe until I had built it into a success; at which point I was swiftly sacked and the non-peer-reviewed journal was destroyed - while keeping the same name. There can be 'alternative' media, but these cannot be 'mass'...)


No, the true lesson of deplatforming is not to make new (supposedly better) mass media, but to stop using mass media. 

A Media Strike! 


A mass consumer strike on mass media; because it is crystal clear that The System wants us addicted to mass media; wants us to attend-to, be engaged-with, the MM 24/7.

Since we cannot and will not get the mass media we want and need; we should stop using mass media. Permanently.

It is ot necessary, and is in fact imnpossible, that the strikje should be complete - since a 100% withdrawal cannot be attained due to the penetration of media into public and workplaces. And the usage of other people around and about (and in the home).

But any significant degree of reduction in media usage would be effective - 50%, 75%, 95%, 99%... and such withdrawal of attention would be felt by The System as an axe blow at its roots.


As usual; any significant positive action, such as a consumer strike against mass media, will do harm in the short-term before it does good in the long term.

In the short term a strike would (if it happened, which seems very unlikely indeed!) mean that the evillest mass media had it 'all their own way' without any 'alternative' opposition. This down-phase should be anticipated, and weathered as a necessary price that must be paid.

But in the longer term, the reduction of influence of mass media would be A Good Thing. Indeed, since the mass media is vital to the secular-Left totalitarian project, it would a strong blow against that project. 


But as always, it is about inner motivation. The reason for a media strike must be the right reason; which is a recognition that the mass media is - overall and overwhelmingly - actively and strategically evil. And therefore ought to be eschewed even though some parts of it are tending to good.  

Therefore, such a strike would need to be something arising from a mass of individual decisions; and Not be some-thing institutionally organised. And it would need to be permanent. An institutionally-led media strike would be just another part of The System...

Indeed, regardless of the mass consequences of a mass strike, the individual decision to embark upon a media strike is itself perhaps the most valuable effect of all.

...Can be found at The Notion Club Papers blog.

William Wildblood has set of a train of thinking with his latest post.

He highlights that there is a spiritually-lethal moral self satisfaction among the mass of (mostly) well behaved people; and he discusses how genuine Christianity is attacked so viciously, and in ways that are hard to resist - probably because there are important lessons for us to learn from overcoming such attacks.

This paragraph, in particular, provokes me to ponder:

You may have been told that you only have to believe in God and your salvation is assured. It's not that simple. Belief without inner transformation is nothing. After all, as James famously says in his 2nd epistle, even the devils believe. You have to convert that belief, which can be likened to an architect's blueprint for a house, into the actual building and you must construct that yourself. So, belief is something that must be constantly tended and deepened.

I have a somewhat different way of thinking about this, because it seems to me that there are some people - perhaps many people - who are constitutionally unable to make solid progress in their behaviour. They are maybe impulsive, maybe addicted, maybe over-influcned by others - but for whatever reason they are repeatedly backsliding, to the extent that they make no overall spiritual progress.

Such people are no use, indeed dangerous, as spiritual or lreligious leaders; and they are probably people that we would be happy to avoid; yet they are nonetheless, 'saved' so long as they believe and follow Jesus - at least, that is my understanding of what the Fourth Gospel tells us.


One common pattern of this is repentance. If such a backslider knows that it what they are, if they acknowledged that they are of this nature - if they repent their weakness and wickedness and remain followers of Jesus (and do Not deny, excuse or advocate their sins as virtues - so common a practice in modern mainstream culture) - then they are assured of resurrection to eternal life - every bit as solidly as a lifelong saint of exemplary behaviour.

It is even possible that such a chaotic and badly-behaved person may learn more, in a spiritual sense, from his mortal life; than does one who is (apparently) blessed with steadiness of purpose and absence of temptation.

(This could, presumably, be why such pre-mortal souls have chosen such mortal lives; and why our creator has provided such lives. For instance, these may be souls that most need to experience repeated failure.)

But this positive outcome would only be the case insofar as he genuinely acknowledged his own problems and failures and continues to aim at the highest ideals.

As always, it is what we learn from experience that is primary: no experience has value in itself (after all, Judas Iscariot knew Jesus personally); any experience may have value when learned-from.


Note: As always, it is he inner motivation and the world of thinking that is primary; and the observable world of behaviour and language is secondary. 

Yet - despite this inwardness of reality - we must each and all judge and act-upon the spiritual state of others, in order to navigate through life. 

And although we cannot infer from his behaviour and language alone, the state of another Man's soul; we can (to the degree necessary, and insofar as our own motivations are honest, and truth-seeking) intuit that state: we have (if we can locate and acknowledge it) the knowledge we need.

In a hard-hitting pot, Francis Berger draws a line under pseudonymous blogging, and states that he personally has decided not to read any more pseudonymous blogs:

I cannot shake my deeply held belief that writers and thinkers who write such blogs under assumed pen names essentially lack moral courage. In my mind, their unwillingness to support their ideas with their true, natural identities reveals a failure of character. 

I have become increasingly convinced that the failure of character and lack of moral courage inherent in pseudonymous authorship likely causes spiritual harm for both the writer and the reader. 

Hence, I will no longer expose myself to anything written by anyone who works under a fictitious name online.

I am much of the same view as Francis, although I do read a few blogs where I personally know the identity of the bloggers; even though this is not known publicly.

But I think we ought to take seriously the warning that it is often an insidiously harmful practice to conceal identity. Insidious means that it does harm over time.

Of course, blogging under one's real name does limit what can be said in the public space, but perhaps it is better (overall, in the long-run) to acknowledge that limit.

For example, if - because of 'hate crime' and other laws - we are deterred from explicitly and freely discussing non-Christian monotheistic religions, or non-biological forms of sexuality, then we should simply say that these cannot be discussed - because illegal, or prohibited with Establishment-supported sanctions.

Which is the case.


NOTE ADDED: The above is not intended as a deterrent to pseudonymous commenters! Your comments are still welcome. But it is a suggestion that they examine their reasons for pseudonymity; and whether it is having, has had, adverse consequences. 

As for impetuous commenters - I have often declined to publish, or edited, comments when individuals get too reckless for their own good. After all, net-anonymity is an illusion under pressure, when the chips are down, or when powerful individuals or institutions are involved. 

Certainly, young people are prone to get carried away with themselves, especially when they imagine themselves to be anonymous - likewise people with various innate dispositions and medical conditions. So in moderating I try to help them avoid nasty consequences. But this is only useful to them if they learn from the experience. 

But there is no safe strategy for being alive, here-and-now. We are like the USSR in that (cowardly) obedience to evil and avoidance of controversy is no defence against persecution. And on the other side, some high profile dissenters operate for many years without being nobbled. 

If They happen-to want-to Get You, for whatever temporary reason currently fits their agenda; and if there is no available 'evidence'; then 'evidence' can and will simply be fabricated. This is just as effective. 

Paradoxically, in a world that is fundamentally incoherent from its pervasive evil; courage on those subjects you personally value as primary in importance, is just as 'expedient' as any other possible strategy! 

(Because nothing is safe, you 'might as well' have integrity!)
 

Romantic Christianity can be seen as in terms of a micro- and macro- level of experiencing reality.

Romantic refers to the micro, moment to moment, daily experiencing of our own personal life. The great impulse towards romanticism is alienation - that experience of life as shallow, mundane, impersonal, meaningless, uninvolving, irrelevant...

Stuff like bureaucracy, the mass media, the world of organisations and corporations; the bleak oppression of modern cities, modernist art and architecture. Feeling dead inside, cut-off from life.

We seek a Romantic cure for alienation. We seek involvement, participation - we want to be in-life, involved-by life, part-of life.

And this is a micro business; we are Not talking about big schemes and general plans - we crave this as soon as we wake up, here-and-now and whenever we think about it, and all kinds of situations.

By contrast, normal, mainstream, classical Christianity typically references the macro-scale, the Big Picture - it is about the overall nature and organisation of reality; creation, orders of being. The nature and relations of God, Christ, angels and men.

Christianity is about meaning and purpose; how things cohere and where they are going - and how we each fit-into the evolving pattern.

Without Romanticism, macro-Christianity is too remote, abstract and generalised to satisfy our micro-needs - it is analogous to politics without psychology; material without mind.

And without Christianity, Romanticism is disconnected from that which makes it really-real - it becomes just a matter of momentary and subjective 'states of mind'; with no conception of where these states of mind are going, or why states of mind have any value.

Conversely; Christians are prone to suppose that the Big Picture is all that really matters - that following Jesus is wholly about salvation, and not-at-all about theosis (i.e. aiming to become more divine during mortal life).

But the Fourth Gospel shows us that the Big Picture is only of value when personally and actively loved, affiliated-to, trusted, had-faith-in. The specific and unique individual - his experience, learning, choices; is an indispensable component of the Christian scheme - a part of The Universe.

Of course, ultimately the division into micro and macro, and the distinction between Romanticism and Christianity is artificial - since both are perspectives, ways of knowing the same indivisible one-ness.

However, I have often observed a tendency for rejection of one or the other - for the Romantic to reject the need-for and reality-of the Big Picture (to regard Christianity as getting-in-the-way, blocking enlightenment); for Christians to regard a Romantic yearning for 'participation' as merely a snare and a sin (better done-without).

But I am convinced that both are not only beneficial but necessary; and that any attempt to grasp one without the other will fail. Romantic Christianity is not just desirable, but necessary.

Can be found at the Notion Club Papers blog.

In a video with one view, the indomitable and inimitable Keri Ford follows up on his 'promise' to recommend some favourite YouTube videos with less than two hundred views. I've checked out the first one he mentions - Shugborough and the Earthly Paradise - and can endorse it; especially for the ex-Albion Awakening readership, and fans of John Michell.


Readers with similar suggestions of worthwhile but not-popular videos are invited to comment - but please name and explain your choices (I won't publish bare URLs).

Because the Left are in power, their ideology is mainstream and so they choose the ground of debate.

The provides a very powerful advantage, which is that while the reality is that they are using the Global Bureaucracy coercively to implement totalitarian Leftism; they can present their policies idealistically, as if occupying the moral high ground.

To argue from Christian premises is impossible, because the assumptions are not shared. This means that Christians often get manoeuvred into arguing against Leftist policies on grounds of expediency, on the grounds that the policy is ineffective, counter productive - on the grounds such that the policy will reduce wealth or increase poverty; reduce freedom or increase tyranny; will impair happiness or increase human suffering.

But when Christians argue for the Christian perspective using mainstream secular criteria of 'bad consequences'; this mode of argument itself has bad consequences. 


For instance, Same Sex Marriage was proposed by the Left on idealistic grounds, but usually opposed by Christians on the grounds that it was inexpedient... that SSM would lead to bad outcomes for children and for society.

By bad outcomes - the Christians, here, meant that SSM would have adverse psychological and physical consequences of children; that children would ('on average', probably...) suffer impairments to their happiness and health.

Although the arguments were correct; these are the utilitarian arguments of a social policy analyst - not Christian arguments! Hence they were counterproductive - as well as ineffective. 


Or 'Traditional' marriage was defended by Christians as an Institution, not just a personal decision.

That the Institution was built-into society - with implications for law. That we needed the marriage Institution in order to prevent worse outcomes... But the cultural context is that all Institutions - including marriage - have deep, intractable, problems of legitimacy.

We we live in a world in which institutional authority has been crumbling for several generations. So defending marriage as an institution, is to defend marriage as part of a world-view that has been crumbling with increasing rapidity since the middle 1960s.

Unsurprisingly, the Institution argument was ineffective. But worse - it reinforced an idea that the individual's judgment, and his essential life, should be subordinated to external 'social requirements'... a deeply anti-Christian perspective.


By contrast; in secular society and within Christian churches; the sexual revolution agenda is proposed on idealistic grounds! Proposed as A Good Thing in and of itself - because SSM is more-Equal, and Equality is Good.

'Good' as such, and whatever the outcome...

In effect, the advocates say that SSM is a good thing, and damn the consequences! They don't 'argue', but instead they state that 'we' ought to introduce SSM because it is Good; because it is (supposedly) More Christian (because 'Love'...) - and without regard for 'what happens next'.

So the anti-Christian radicals have claimed the higher moral ground; and the real Christians have - by arguing on the secular ground - undermined their own moral authority.

And what the average person sees here is Leftists being idealistic and moral; while Christians are arguing that there will be bad materialist consequences.


So what should real Christians do? More exactly - since we do not get to choose the context - what can we do, and what can't we do?

Well, Christians cannot argue.

Christians can only - like the Leftists - state our convictions.


So, the opposition to SSM would need to be stated in terms of the positive, Christian convictions that SSM violates. In a form such as 'We believe XYZ, therefore oppose SSM'.

If there is going to be any 'argument' it will need to be about XYZ - which is about fundamental assumptions, which is a metaphysical discussion - and any such discourse ought to benefit Christians, since mainstream modern Leftism denies the reality of metaphysics; and denies that there are fundamental assumptions that need to be chosen.

Any discussion that shows that mainstream materialist Leftism is itself based on assumptions, is a plus. 

So, Christians must stop acting like pragmatists or social scientists; and start revealing their idealism... Must stop arguing, and start stating their convictions.

Take the example of not voting, refusing to vote - opting-out of all systems of votes - not because it often/ inevitably leads to bad-outcomes, but because it is intrinsically evil...

(But the same arguments could be applied to many other decisions, and most things to do with a bureaucracy.)

People say things like - But what if everybody with principles didn't vote - then... Or conversely, But one person not voting makes no difference, so you might as well...


The main point is that morality cannot truly be consequential; first because we can never know the consequences - therefore it is, at best, probabilistic. And the probabilities are usually not knowable.

But even if they were, outcomes are always mixtures of good and bad consequences, so an absolute (non-consequential) morality is still required to decide what is right or best given the mixed-picture.

Consequential arguments merely kick the can further down the road... So we ought to do what is right in the first place.


But what if we do agree that not voting-in - not participating-in, this committee meeting, or election, or peer review, or promotions panel... will indeed have a bad outcome, immediately. (As it very likely would.)

What then? Is it being proposed that we should always do what is best (from our perspective) in the immediate short-term?

That kind of blind, short-termism would - of course - be a recipe for disaster in any battle/ war/ sustained conflict.

And if a battle/ war/ sustained conflict is exactly what we are engaged-in... well, then we ought Not to be doing what is best in the short-term.


Especially when the opposition are already winning and have been for a long-time.

If we are serious about turning the trend when it has been for so long against us - then we must (surely?) be prepared to accept short-term, probably medium-term disadvantage in order to give any realistic hope of long-term victory?

So if a system without voting - a system based upon responsible individual human judgement - is what we hope for eventually, then maybe we should be starting work on implementing it straight away?

And we should be prepared to accept the inevitable short-medium term problems - because if we aren't prepared for short-term problems en route to a better situation - then nothing good, valuable or positive can possibly happen.

If we aren't prepared to accept short term disadvantage to reach a long term virtuous goal, we will be trapped on the down-escalator to damnation. 

This strategy began almost twenty years ago - before I was a Christian; but has been greatly reinforced since. And I am sure it is the correct attitude - especially in this 'Ahrimanic' era.

I came to this insight by learning from my interactions with managers and bureaucrats, who would say one thing and then do almost the opposite, while picking apart their words to deny the contradiction - or else claiming that they were compelled to do what they said they would not, or prevented from doing that which had been promised.

I realised that words were routinely being used to manipulate; and that the only guide to my own decision-making was to infer motivation - perhaps by examining the trend of action and inaction, by examining the use of language (e.g. the presence of managerial buzz words, or concepts - the implicit priorities).

What I am saying is that the 'quality' of spoken or written language (especially the feeling it evokes in my heart) is a much better guide to motivation than the asserted content.

In a nutshell - I began to practise a kind of 'veterinary medicine' when it came to 'diagnosing' what people in authority are doing. The analogy being that while doctors base their diagnosis on what patients (or their relatives) say, vets must use more indirect means.

In a world of systematic and pervasive dishonesty, where people in authority are 'not even trying' to be truthful; we are all like vets making a diagnosis; we cannot find reliable words to inform us, because the subject's 'families' are also likely to be corrupted.

The same applies throughout society - locally, nationally, globally. We do not know of any informed source that we can trust, so we must each form our own judgements based upon inferred motivations.

No matter how polite I am, officials have often been offended by my refusal to believe what they assert, simply on the basis that they assert it. Clearly, despite their lives being a tissue of elaborately-constructed dishonesty, they were in a state of denial about that fact - and it looked as if nearly everybody was prepared to go along with the lies.

(Which is why things became as bad as they are, and continue to worsen.)

Very fortunately, we do have a divinely-implanted inner guidance system; which can - in principle - tell us each everything we need to know. But most people deny the existence of this system, and all of us get confused between the true inner guidance and more superficial, expedient, manipulated desires.

We can each of us find the truth of things, if we honestly want it and persist; but none of us are always honest, we can be misled, and will often resist learning from our experiences - so we will often need to admit error and sin, and so repent; and our path towards truth will usually be zag-zag.

Could Jesus be 'found' purely from meditation, without external knowledge?

I tend to think that this 'must' be the case; in that I find it hard to imagine that God would have placed his children on earth in a situation where their salvation depended wholly upon 'other people' providing them with specific information on the identity and role of Jesus.

Conversely, it would seem almost certain that our loving Father wouldn't have failed to provide ways in which each person individually could come to know what he must know; whatever his individual circumstances.

The most obvious way that we might learn about Jesus is after our mortal death; when we could be told and shown what we need in order to choose the gift of resurrection and life eternal: post-morten direct revelation. And I am confident that something of that sort must happen.

However, without some preparation in mortal life, and in a situation when (for us, here and now) mortal life is likely to poison our minds against Jesus - in which moral inversion is a mainstream fact of life, post-mortem direct revelation may seem to be insufficient. Our mortal habits may be deeply ingrained, and evil choices more likely.

But how - even in principle - might an individual plausibly comes to knowledge of Jesus without any external source of information, or (more likely, perhaps) despite an abundance of false information about the nature and teachings of Jesus?


I believe there is a way; and that it is the Argument from Desire - which was often articulated by CS Lewis, and seems to have been shared by his great friend JRR Tolkien.

The AfD says that when humans profoundly and spontaneously desire something not of this world, the experience suggests the reality of another world; a yearning for that which 'nature' cannot supply suggests its super-natural existence.

An example is given by Tolkien in his story ‘Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth’, translated as ‘The Debate of Finrod and Andreth’ and published in Morgoth's Ring, Volume 10 of the History of Middle Earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien. The subject is death, and the debate is over whether the fear of death is an indication that the world has been marred by Morgoth, or (and this is the argument from desire) whether it suggests that death is not inevitable, and that Man is destined for immortality.

Since immortality is not possible in this world, then the universal fear of death (and perhaps the sense that death, when understood as the absolute end of the soul, is unnatural) can be taken as a kind of 'evidence' that in fact Man is, or can be, immortal in another world (i.e. a world beyond death).

Whether you personally find the Argument from Desire to be powerful is - presumably - a matter of disposition or habit. Like Lewis and Tolkien, I do find it powerful - and potentially decisive.


My intuitive feeling is that when - over a long period of time when I am thinking 'at my best' - my desire recurs to some-thing; that that thing represents a reality. It is probably not a literal reality in the exact way I formulate it; but I have the conviction that the reality of what I yearn-for, is an actual (and potentially attainable) reality.

On that basis, I think it perfectly possible that a person utterly ignorant of Jesus, or a Person who has learned nothing but falsehoods about Jesus, could - from the nature of his own deepest desires - come to know the truth about Jesus: who he was, what he gave us.

I don't think this would happen to everybody, because not-everybody wants what Jesus offers us; but it could certainly happen for some people. Those of us who deeply and spontaneously want resurrected, divine, creative, life eternal; in the divine presence and among other souls who want the same, some of whom we love in mortal life...

Well, those of us who want that reality which underlies this experience of desire, may well believe that satisfaction of this desire has-been made possible to us-personally, by the divine person of 'Jesus' - even without knowing his name, or anything else about him.

I have read a lot of books about 'consciousness', and of a broadly 'self-help' kind (I mean, non-fiction books that broadly intend to help the reader improve life) - and I have noticed that they tend to focus on:

1. States of mind
2. Methods and Techniques

So, they critique mainstream/ normal states of mind; describe the aimed-at/ desirable state of mind - and then they focus on the methods or techniques by which the reader might move from the mainstream to the desired state of mind.

Of course, 'States & Methods' is a greatly reductionist way of analysing a multitude of books; but it fits almost all of these books that do Not have an explicitly religious perspective, and especially those that (explicitly or simply by implication, by how they proceed) reject the religious viewpoint. States & Methods even fits those books that only specifically reject Christianity; because in our society the anything-but-Christianity type of spirituality is - in practice - indistinguishable from mainstream Leftist materialism.

My point is that most such books have no explicit reference to the purpose of life beyond being-in some desirable state of mind. The problem is that a 'state of mind' isn't the kind of thing that can actually be a purpose of life.

Because states of mind are temporary, cannot be held-onto, they will change, and will sooner or later be terminated - ultimately by by disease or death. Many have tried, all have failed to live well in the way implicitly required by the State & Methods structure.

The idea that we decide how we want to 'be', that we should aim at this state of being and hold-onto it... it's a bizarre and implausible way of looking at things! Yet it has become almost the only way of looking at things that Godless modern man can imagine!

As an alternative to States & methods, we could regard life as having a purpose; and regard both states of mind and methods/ techniques as means towards that purpose: means to an end.

So we are not ruled by specific methods or techniques, nor do we find ourselves trying to attain and hold some particular state of mind. Instead we aim to live in creative awareness or where we are going; and regard each day, each hour - each state of mind - as more or less valuable experiences and challenges on this path.

Knowing where we are aimed-at; we seek creative ways of dealing with the states of mind and other situations that life deals us. 

The main thing in life is Purpose; and everything else is relative to that.

And it seems that in modern life, we must have a conscious and explicit purpose that we have personally chosen - or else we will have no purpose at all...

Well, we are not truly blind - rather we are self-blinded; which is much worse state - one immune to learning; one which is as bad as any state can be...

Everybody 'feels' the evil of materialist bureaucracy, managerialism, reductionism ('nothing but-ism', the accountancy culture) as it is applied to the workplace, the family, marriage etc. We feel it when in the presence of recent architecture and design; or when filling-in long, tendentious forms that are based-upon assumptions we oppose.

When I say 'feeling' I mean exactly that. It is a cold, suffocating or crushing feeling. We can feel the life being squeezed out of us, our humanity filtered or crystallised. Weber termed bureaucracy the 'iron cage' - that is true, but the worst of the cage is that we know it as a cage yet have chosen to inhabit it, and that we disbelieve in the possibility of a life outside of the cage.   


We all feel this - or have felt it when we were younger (the horror of compulsory schooling is a foretaste), yet fail to recognise its intrinsic evil to the extent that a large majority of people support it by their votes, their arguments, ideology - and their docile compliance.

We feel the iron cage is necessary; and by this simple choice we become self-blinded to its evil - because we are saying, in our hearts, that evil is necessary, and that this fact over-rides other.

We sense evil, but choose not to oppose evil; because we believe a System of evil to be necessary.


If you consider what this decision entails - to feel evil in one's heart, and yet nonetheless to embrace that felt-evil because we want some of its consequences - we can then understand the pervasive and increasing nature of evil in modern societies everywhere. 

The evil of bureaucracy is therefore not so much in the System itself (which is indeed evil, but this mortal life is - after all - full of evils). The evil of bureaucracy is that we have embraced its evil, and built our society, and our lives, upon it. So much that the evil has become invisible.

Is there an alternative? Yes, if we really believe that there is a larger world than that of materialist mortality - then there is no reason why we need to regard this world's 'inevitable' features as also Good.

If Life is measured by eternal and transcendent goals, then there is no irrationality in rejecting bureaucracy even if the probable consequences (so far as we can determine) were deleterious for health and happiness in this world.


The question of bureaucracy is, then, not merely a matter of optimising this-worldly gratification...

By knowing that bureaucracy is evil, by deciding it is inevitable, and then by joining-with The System and 'making the most and best of it in our lives - We have In Fact crossed over to the Dark Side, and chosen the path of active damnation and the corruption, not merely of our-selves, but of our fellow Men. 

So, when it comes to bureaucracy 'the stakes' are as high as stakes can possibly be.