Bruce Charlton's Notions

I was watching the most recent 'Terminator' movie and I wondered - not for the first time - why 'Hollywood' has been so keen on 'warning' us about the perils of takeover by evil AIs (Artificial Intelligences). Probably my first recollection of this theme was the computer HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey; and there have been many examples since.

These cannot really be intended as serious warnings, since the same Establishment that funds major media is also engaged in a massive, unrelenting programme to introduce AI (e.g. the interlinked 'internet of things' aka. smart devices) - whether we like it or not. So what is going on?


The first idea might be along the lines of that apparent 'law' by which evil is 'required' to tell us what it is going to do to us, before it does it - as if our tacit consent is necessary.

I suppose this is the origin of the 'monologuing' of all the villains of stage and screen, who almost invariably do this to the hero before attempting to kill him (So, Mr Bond; after I have rushed off to deal with some urgent problem elsewhere, you will be cut in two by this slowly-moving laser beam which I have linked to...); and are then (notoriously) thwarted as a consequence of the delay.

But I think there must be more to it than that, particularly since AI is 'not a real thing'. Computers cannot think, have no will nor personality - and are never under any circumstances going to become living, conscious Beings...

So what is it all about?


My understanding is that the triumph of AI will not be when it becomes sentient, but when people believe it is sentient.

This is the crucial step in mass populations consenting to their own thought-control; which is the ultimate aim of the vast totalitarian bureaucratic System that already covers the world, and is continuously narrowing the mesh of its net to embrace as much of Life as possible.

Therefore my theory is that the evil AI is simply a plausible 'soft sell' of the core idea that there is such-a-real-thing as AI.


Given that it would be nigh impossible to convince modern people into believing that an AI could be the benign controller of a Utopian, it may be that dystopian movies about evil AIs are an indirect and more-plausible way of brainwashing the populace into believing that machines can become alive and conscious and potentially do nearly all of the things that humans currently do.

Once that crucial point has been got-across, then the next stage would be to get people to accept that things-called-AIs could be trusted to do things like drive cars and trains, pilot delivery drones,  fight enemies, do police and government surveillance etc. - so long as there is some kind of human 'supervision'.

Which would - inevitably, nowadays - be bureaucratic surveillance; since demon-serving Establishment seeks - ASAP and as a matter of urgent priority - to monitor and control everybody in the world by one single linked bureaucracy.


In a nutshell - the intent is that things-called-AIs would-be/ will-continue-to-be integrated int The Bureaucracy.

Then things would be set-up for the AIs to be blamed for whatever nasty things the world government bureaucracy has in store for us.

AI: the ultimate fall-guy! (i.e. one who is utterly obedient and who never answers back)


Note: This post is not arguing that AI is impossible. It assume it is impossible and I believe it is impossible; but I am not arguing the case here. The argument is a deep one, to do with the fundamental nature of life and consciousness - and it is not a matter of science; because scientific proof or demonstration depends on prior assumptions as to the nature of life and consciousness. We can't prove or disprove AI with 'evidence' until after we know what counts as evidence and how to interpret it.

The key to the meaning of Life is purpose - to know what Life is For. 

Most discussions of the meaning of life (including most Christian discussions) ignore as unimportant the truly vast diversity of actual human lives. Yet these are extremely variable - even from a purely biological and socio-political 'materialist' perspective.

Some people die immediately after the fertilised egg is formed; others die in the womb as embryos or as a more developed foetus; some die at the time of birth, or as infants; others die in childhood or as adolescents. Taken together - these 'premature' deaths account for a large majority of humans throughout history.

Then among the adults, there is a wide range of life expectancy. Then there is the variety of societies - hunter-gatherers, farmers or post-industrial revolution. There are widely different climates - between the Arctic and the Deserts, with all kinds of temperate and tropical environments in between.

There have been huge differences in human life through history, illiterate and literate, small scale and very large organisation. There are differences between political systems and regimes. And even when all such distinctions have been noticed, there are massive differences between classes, races, degrees of health and types of disability and illness.

Finally there is the specific family situation - parent/s or some other form of care, sibling/s or not, extended family or not, neighbours...


So, there are two aspects to life - the generic and the specific; the aspects that we all share and those which are partially or wholly distinctive to our own situation. Any satisfactory description of the meaning of life either needs to encompass both - or else to explain why one universal meaning of Life comes to be associated with such a vast range of individual variety.

My understanding is therefore that there are (at least) two different meanings of life:

1. Life. A single and universal meaning of 'human life' that applies to everyone who ever lived or will live.

2. My Life. An unique meaning of specific lives, that applies only to each individual person and their unique nature and circumstances.


My further understanding is that the meaning of Life is related to incarnation - to 'getting a body'. In brief - we all live this mortal life because we need to have a mortal (temporary) body, in order that after this life we are able to choose to accept the gift of resurrected eternal life, that Jesus brought.

In other words, we need a mortal body in order to be able to have a resurrected and eternal body. This meaning is universal: there is one meaning for all.

In sum the purpose of Life is incarnation, and the meaning of Life is to make possible resurrection into Heaven (for those who choose it, who choose to follow Jesus - i.e. those who choose the path of salvation).


The meaning of My Life - by contrast - is unique; just as my life situation is unique. I need to add a further assumption at this point: that each incarnated soul is already unique. Therefore, the uniqueness of our nature and life situation is a consequence of our uniqueness as newly incarnated souls.

So, I am assuming that we existed pre-mortally, as a wide range of unique not-incarnated spirits. This uniqueness is partly from distinctive experiences in pre-mortal life; but is ultimately founded on our origins as unique primordial Beings, potential-Men, present before creation and before we were made children of God.

In sum, the uniqueness of our mortal natures and lives derives from our original uniqueness. To put it another way; humans were never the same, at any point. We began as different from each other, we remain different from each other and our future is one in which each resurrected Man is unique.

The Self is therefore primary, and A Good Thing. God's plan for creation entails that we each are and remain unique. One consequence is that - overall - the experiences of this mortal life are intended to make us more distinctively unique.

If there was nothing else to it; the encouragement of human distinctiveness would tend to lead to disintegration of creation - everybody pursuing his or her own unique goals... But the primary reality of Christians is Love; and it is Love that enables unique individuals to live in harmony, to create in harmony.   


My particular nature and circumstances in My Life are related to the particular needs of my soul. Each life offers experience; and my assumption is that (since this is a God-created world, and we are each a beloved child of God) the actual experience of My Life is intended for that learning from which I would most benefit.

This specific mortal life is therefore for learning - at one extreme some need to learn a lot (i.e. would benefit from significant learning) and may have long and complex lives. At the other extreme, other individuals do not need to learn anything specific beyond the bare facts of physical incarnation, and perhaps certain simple realities to do with being alive, dependence, basic sensation... and these would include some of those who die in very early, perhaps as zygotes, embryos or a foetus - even without the womb.


In sum, the purpose of My Life is to provide the experiences necessary for me to learn what I most need to learn in taking up my post-mortal life in Heaven.

This further means that My Life, this actual mortal life, does not have any meaning for those who reject salvation.

In other words, when mainstream atheistic, God, rejecting, Christ rejecting, people often express a  belief that 'life has no meaning' - they are correct. From their point of view, their specific lives do not have any specific meaning.


The specific details of actual human lives are only necessary for that specific person, and only in relation to the destination of resurrected eternal life. If that is not going to happen; then life truly is pointless.

Bluntly: if you don't want resurrection, if you don't want to dwell in Heaven, if you don't want to follow Jesus... then actual mortal life is indeed a waste of your time, as you probably suspect already.

Not many people believe (as I do) in the evolutionary-development of human consciousness. If this is true, our current situation is unique and unprecedented, and we can only move forward to something fundamentally new (i.e. Final Participation).

I would like to contrast this with two other alternatives being put forward: New Culture and Benedict Option.


New Culture is a term I am coining here to describe an archetypal 'American' kind of positive thinking, can-do, we-will-win attitude; which is that we need to tackle the evils of Establishment Leftism by building a new culture, politics, economy...

This involves detaching ourselves from the mainstream (so as to cease supporting them with our money and life efforts) and instead to build a new Western Christian culture. This involves creating and expanding alternative mass media, re-booting the arts and sciences, distinctive financial institutions, new political parties and alliances, new forms of employment and community...

Rebuilding the Whole Thing on a new basis.

What is distinctive is that that this is a positive and creative programme - and that it intends to be a money-making, powerful culture: more profitable, more technologically capable, more militarily formidable etc.


What are the problems? The first is practical.

Since New Culture is a head-on attack on the Establishment, and since the Establishment is much more powerful at present - it is hard to believe that the Establishment would not be able to nip it in the bud - by expansion of what is already happening: media censorship and propaganda, lawfare and bureaucratic harassment, economic attacks from deplatforming, blocking the use of finance and software, deniable/ official physical attacks on persons and destruction of property etc. Just more of what we already have.

But these may be overcome - especially as the Mainstream is incrementally destroying its own efficiency and capability, and this suicide is not easily reversible.

The bigger problem is that the New Culture is a materialist plan of reform and reconstruction; it is positivism, reductionism, scientism - it is just another version of this-worldly utilitarianism; whose appeal is primarily a promise to enhance the health and happiness of the population, to minimise suffering and misery.

New Culture is essentially a type of Modernity - one that claims to be more sustainable because more efficient and effective. New Culture requires the vast apparatus of division of labour, specialisation and coordination of function; it requires the way of thinking that goes with such a world view: it entails a preservation of the global trade, managerialism and bureaucracy which go with the industrial society.


The Benedict Option came from the traditionalist Roman Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue, 1981) and from an idea in the sci-fi novel A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller (1959) - and is based on an analogy between the current situation and that prevailing in the collapsing Western Roman Empire from the early 400s AD.

The argument is that Western Civilisation was preserved mainly in remote, cut-off monasteries and among hermits. The intention is that traditional forms of Christianity might cut themselves off from modern, Western culture - in small scale, minority societies - and survive until such a time that they can prove seedbeds for a re-birth of Western civilisation at some point in the future.

Thus, while the New Culture is positive, constructive and creative in intent; the Benedict Option is negative, preservative and defensive in intent. The idea is that there is an irreplaceable body of culture (based mainly on a fixed corpus of divine revelation) that must be kept intact and pure; and from which future societies may draw.

There are, again, practical difficulties - in that modern Leftism is demonically motivated in a way that post-Roman paganism was not; so that Leftism seeks-out and destroys its enemies. It would be presumed that no monastery, no hermit, would be allowed to exists in defiance of the Mainstream Establishment - but would be (one way or another) subverted, destroyed or inverted by the dominant power and propaganda structures.

But assuming these problems could be overcome; even as an ideal, there are problems with the Benedict Option. One is that the desirability of a reversion to traditionalist religion is not generally acknowledged.

Another is that it may prove impossible. The Benedict Option is based on a cyclical model of history; but if history is linear (as I believe) then there is no reason to believe that we can ever revert to an earlier stage.

If the modern post-industrial-revolution growth-orientated societies really are something new and unprecedented; if the problems of modernity (i.e. endemic and growing suicidal self-hatred; manifested by chosen anti-natalism and sub-fertility, and an active, subsidised program of native/ white/ Western population self-replacement) - then our main problems are likewise unprecedented, and there is no reason to suppose that what worked 1600 years ago will work again now.


So, I find myself left with the third alternative of Final Participation by means of Romantic Christianity - which is a positive and creative programme (like New Culture) - but a minority and social-transforming intention like the Benedict Option.

And unlike both: it is non-abstract and instead personal, being based on love; which I take to be a phenomenon that is real and strong mainly in families and marriages.

Romantic Christianity implies a bottom-up, family-clan basis for social organisation - such as I believe is the situation in Heaven. That is why it is called 'Final' Participation - it is the mortal, temporary, partial, corruptible attempt to live on earth the the same loving and creative participation with God that Christians hope to live in Heaven.

At any rate, FP requires that we set-aside generalised plans, programmes and blueprints for the future.

We need to start with a person-by-person Christian awakening, work on developing our own faith and consciousness; and... well... see what emerges from that on a small scale (at a personal, loving and familial level).


I think if we can develop anything Good, as 'raw material'; then we can rely upon God to ensure that this is amplified and disseminated as widely as necessary. After all, word of mouth is potentially an exponentially accelerating process of amplification (one person tells two, who tell four etc.).

Therefore we do not need the mass media and propaganda systems of the modern state; nor do we need the formal, hierarchical, sub-specialised institutions of tradition. We do not need a New Culture or the defence and preservation of Monastic preserves.

We just need each other - God Within and the Holy Ghost.

Not only do Leftists Not engage in Holiness Spirals - HSs don't exist as a phenomenon; assuming (as Christians do) there is a such a real-thing as spiritual Holiness.

There is no tendency (or, at least, it is extremely rare) for Holiness to spiral out of control. Holiness is too difficult to spiral!

The tendency goes in the opposite direction - to spiral into worldliness, not Holiness.


Of course, if Holiness is equated with hypocrisy; i.e. if all possible examples of Holiness are interpreted as being necessarily hypocritical 'virtue signalling' - then that does indeed spiral out of control, in order to cover for itself.

But if Holiness is a real and spiritual thing; then this is not so.


'Spiral' implies an innate tendency towards positive feedback; the idea that when once something has started, it will not tend to revert to the starting point (negative feedback) nor will it go to the opposite extreme (like a pendulum swing) - but will instead become more extreme with accelerating rapidity.

And indeed there is this quality about Leftism: it feeds-off-itself until...

Well what exactly?


Positive feedback mechanisms can only end by destroying themselves. Does Leftism destroy itself? In a material sense - yes; but for a Christian, the essence is spiritual. And in this spiritual sense, Leftism is a type of evil; indeed the dominant mode of evil in the modern world.

In this spiritual sense, Leftism leads to more Leftism without any necessary end-point - just as evil can always become more evil.

Neither Leftism nor evil more generally can continue to completion - because evil is purposive, and purpose has an ineradicable element of divine creation. A parasite kills itself when it consumes its host - but in the case of evil, the parasite is part of the same creation as the host. But evil can always become more evil, like an asymptotic curve.


So, Leftism may well (almost certainly will) destroy our civilisation, with the death of many billions worldwide who depend on this civilisation to sustain the seven-fold global population growth since the industrial revolution.
  
However, the spiritual harm of Leftism - the value inversion, the self-chosen damnation - could in principle just keep increasing and increasing: as evil feeds upon evil.


In sum, from a Christian (hence spiritual) perspective; Holiness is the wrong term, Spiral is actually a negative attribute; and the common assumption that Holiness Spirals are self-limiting is not necessarily true.

If there is a spiritual limit to the harm of Leftism, it comes not from intrinsic properties of Leftism; but from that which is Not Leftism: that which is Good.

God is the only antidote to Leftism.
  

From Berger Ferenc (aka Francis Berger) - an acute insight:

The West has become biggest and most effective reality-denying system the world has ever known. Acknowledging reality is not only frowned upon, but punished, whereas embracing unreality is celebrated and rewarded.

In other words, the most successful, praised, and celebrated people in the West are those who hold the uncanny ability believe in nothing but that which contradicts reality.

But do such people truly feel any sense of cognitive dissonance? Do they feel any mental discomfort or psychological stress or does that disappear when one abandons reality in favor of unreality?

If so, then cognitive dissonance might be going the way of the dodo; hand-in-hand with the West.

Read the whole thing...

There is an alluring phenomenon, whereby some person who seems clearly decent and sensible gets regarded as a wise counsellor; yet their counsel is actually sustaining and strengthening of evil.

This happens because such people (being sensible, being decent) make small and specific arguments against egregious abuses and injustices; and do so by starting-from assumptions that are widely shared. By doing so, they uphold and reinforce those assumptions; they buttress the moral framework that is already in place.


When that moral framework is - as now - evil in motivation and insane in operation; sensible, decent men do evil; and they do it in an especially insidious - because indirect and implicit - fashion.

Sensible and decent Men are soft-sell propagandists for the demonic agenda.  


In essence, SD Men lend their moral authority to The System, by upholding its premises and purposes.

When, as now, The System is intrinsically evil and directed at greater evil; sensible, decent men have become servants of evil; and are fighting the spiritual war on the side of the Enemy.

These charming and judicious speakers of ethical platitudes may be more valuable to the devil than his own enslaved demons.


If we want to be on God's side, instead of being the dupe of Satan, we must all reject The System; and this means that we will be regarded as wicked and/or foolish. And, of course - since we inhabit a world of value inversion - we will surely be regarded as objectionable, nasty, dangerous.


Therefore, beware those who appeal to a broad base of sensible and decent folk; especially when our knowledge of such figureheads comes to us via the mass media or large institutions. But even in private life (in the workplace, in committees, in casual socialisation) - we need to learn to recognise the dark-intoxication drawing us towards common consensus.

Given that our attention and energies are finite, we should shun these pseudo-sages; these Sarumans in Gandalf's clothing...

We live in an evil civilisation. On the one hand, it is destroying itself strategically and ever more rapidly; led by a global Establishment in service to Satan.

These are not-even-trying to sustain things - and are instead making an insane world of value inversion, where Good is illegal and ugliness, sin and lies are mandatory and celebrated.

The colossal and multi-inter-dependent superstructure of production, provision, distribution has had its foundations undermined until it hangs-out above a plummeting drop with no visible means of support...

On the other hand, this same corrupt and corrupting materialist and God-denying culture is the only thing capable keeping more than seven billion people alive and functioning.

And this is personal and unavoidable.

It is reality for everyone; because even if you personally happen to be one of the small minority who do not depend very directly and immediately on this vast, complex, coordinated, internationally trading, technologically micro-specialised System to keep you alive and healthy over the short term; plenty of those people whom you most love and value are exquisitely-dependent.

And everyone is vulnerable in the medium- to long-term. When epidemics, famine and warfare are universal; when psychopaths, gangsters, rogue military and feral states run amok; when giga-deaths accumulate - the environment everywhere and for everybody will become unpredictably, massively disrupted.

Then will be a great test. Those who do not know what this mortal life is truly about, what his or her own actual life is about; will quite likely be drawn rapidly into spiralling depths of depravity and damnation. The demons will have their day.

Those whose priority is to follow Jesus through death into resurrected life eternal - who know that their experiences are divinely ordained for their learning, and such learning is directed towards greater spiritual development towards divinity...

Well, any such people will surely make the best of whatever happens to them-selves, specifically.

Various dilemmas of modern life are described and discussed at Junior Ganymede - but also with relevance to Christians outwith the CJCLDS.

It strikes me that it is (or should be!) easy for Christians to know for themselves what is right and wrong nowadays - because evil is becomes so extreme and insane as to unmask itself.

The problem then becomes 'what to do about it' or 'what to say to people' - and to this there is no general answer: we should not be looking for rules.

The characteristic of these times is that - when corruption is all around, and all institutions (including all and even the best Christian churches) are corrupted to a significant extent; we must learn to rely more than ever before upon personal discernment.

Obedience (which was a virtue when the best institutions and people were highly pure in their motivations) is counter-productive when obedience is directed at those who (overall) serve a demonic agenda (i.e. those who ally with the totalitarian bureaucratic transhumanist globalist agenda - in its various manifestations) - whether knowingly or unconsciously.

But the demonic agenda is itself easy to detect - indeed almost stereotyped in its manifestations; if we allow our intuitions and common sense (grounded in God) a proper role.

If - on the other hand - we try to defend institutions and people that are corrupting; if we 'rationalise' and explain-away corrupt secular leftist behaviours among leaders and colleagues - instead of identifying and rejecting their true motivations  - then we ourselves will soon be drawn into the downward spiral, one way or another.

It is much less important what we do than how we think. Behaviour is always constrained by circumstance, and can be compelled. By contrast, thought is free - assuming we are real Christians. 

But we must not allow our compelled behaviours to affect our understanding and knowledge of what is virtuous, beautiful and true. Temptations to rationalising and explaining-away must be shunned.

If we are compelled to be hypocrites (or too weak to resist), then we need to admit we are hypocrites (to ourselves and those we love and respect) - acknowledge that our behaviour fails to match our ideals, and repent of our behaviour.

(Even when we cannot, or will not, do anything about it - if we will persist in our sins - still wemust acknowledge and repent.)

There needs to be a clear demarcation between thought and action, in order to preserve the integrity of thought. 

But behavioural perfection is always difficult and usually impossible, and getting harder every month; so we need to distinguish what we do from what we know; and give priority to what we know.

One aspect of the bureaucratic takeover of British universities I experienced, was the annual demand to revise the course descriptions; and to define both the Aims and Objectives.

The idea was that - suddenly - courses needed 'clear' Aims and Objectives if they were to be good; indeed, the assumption was that good courses derived-from Aims and Objectives...

700 years-worth of counter-examples made no impact on this assumption, precisely because it was an assumption. And the assumption behind this assumption was that universities must be remade as bureaucracies - to be monitored and controlled by managers.

Part of this was that academic courses must be first re-described in bureaucratic language, en route to being re-conceptualised as such - with the destination of becoming bureaucracies in actuality - in which academic subjects were constructed, from bottom-up under top-down supervision, as bureaucratic entities.

...So that they could be managed by managers; and management is generic - not specific. The assumption behind management is that there is such a thing as management and it is necessary.  

Anyway, one aspect of this process was that there were Aims and Objectives for each course (and each degree, and the rest), and Aims were distinct from from Objectives. As and Os were distinct in some way that was vital to the 'quality' of the Teaching and Learning (another of the new bureaucratic distinction) but in some way that somehow could neither be articulated nor understood...

There were actually short courses run by The Managers about the difference between Aims and Objectives, and how important was this difference, and how a clear understanding of this distinction  would lead to Better Teaching (Managers being, of course, the acknowledged experts on Better Teaching).

Yet the matter somehow remained confused... Honest and diligent academics never could distinguish Aims and Objectives in any coherent and principled way - it became merely a business of filling-in forms, of saying the same thing twice - first as Aims then as Objectives, with two different orderings of synonymous words.

Because, naturally, Os and As had no real world relevance to anything important. No course ever was better for having correctly articulated and complementary Aims and Objectives (unless it was appallingly bad to begin-with) - although plenty were damaged by the process of which As and Os were a part.

...Yet if it was not important, why the insistence upon Aims and Objectives - over many years and academic cycles? Why compel academics to go through this process, when there was no right answer, and no positive value?

The answer is a deep one - and it is an insight into the modus operandi of the demonic forces that themselves lie behind the rise of managerialism and the world-takeover by bureaucracy - which is intrinsically evil in its motivation.

(Bureaucracy is the means by which totalitarianism is implemented - and totalitarianism is the main and increasing form of organised, top-down evil in the past two centuries.)

The fundamental and ineradicable incoherence of Aims and Objectives, combined with the mandatory imposition of the distinction, were one part of a large scale assault on reality.

Evil is unreal. Good, by contrast, is real - although not the totality of reality. Evil is dishonesty (not truth), ugliness (not beauty), and sin (not virtue). And in its small way; Aims and Objectives are institutional lies that are part of the ugly activity of form-filling, and aiming at the evil assimilation into generic, unified bureaucracy of teaching (what used to go-on between specific academics and specific students).

In its small way, to compel academics to define and implement Aims and Objectives, was to make them collude in lies, to lie that there was importance and meaning in such distinctions; to encourage the denial of incoherence... To get people used-to stating solemn nonsense, then doubling-down on the lie that it was meaning-ful and vitally important.

As and Os were a microcosm of the submission of individuals to The System - and an invitation to the academic to deny personal responsibility, and to subordinate himself to The System. It was to induce an assertion that System was primary; and (most important) that System was generic - such that the System for my university course was part of the System for the degree, for the universities, for all the other management Systems of the university; and these Systems themselves brought into one System that was linked to other university Systems, and those of politics, law, finance etc - and these National systems to the European Union, and the United Nations...

Aims and Objectives were a first step, therefore, in integrating my teaching into a single and all-pervasive and micro-divided System of World Government.

And this single-unified-universal bureaucracy is the primary and most effective manifestation of purposive supernatural evil in the world today; the mechanism for implementation of the (demonically driven) agenda for subversion, destruction and inversion of values.

When I first encountered the Aims and Objectives distinction, I certainly could not then have articulated the above interpretation. But my spontaneous intuition did tell me that this was not right, - ought not to be done, should be resisted.

Of course; such is the near total corruption of British people, and especially British academics; such is the habitual cowardice and dishonesty; that almost everybody concerned either grudgingly or (more often) eagerly embraced their own assimilation and subordination.


Note: After simply not filling-in forms for a while; my usual method of push-back (which amused me) was to write a single sentence with the exact same words describing Aims and Objectives. If the Committee requested that I make a distinction I would decline to do so, and invited the Committee to write-in whatever They thought was suitable. I felt this expressed my contempt for the whole business! It is sad to realise that if such non-cooperation has been widespread, in this and all other respects, these Systems could not have been implemented. But that would have required a population capable of intuition, learning and coherent thought - and who had transcendental motivations for their work. But none of this has been the case for many decades, due to the mass apostasy and the triumph of Leftist materialism. And if or until there is a Christian awakening, there is no hope that the universal takeover by Systematic Evil via bureaucracy will even be resisted, let alone reversed. 

Note about the above Note: I realise that the above seems pretty smug and self-satisfied... But I firmly believe I was right, and that my sustained solo campaign of non-cooperation and push-back against bureaucracy in the workplace was A Good Thing; and the rarity of such behaviour is an indictment of modernity. My motivations, for most of the time, were not Christian - but were idealistic with respect to proper academic and scientific ethics: these were my highest values and ideals, at that  time (truth-seeking, truth-telling, an aesthetic of work, that I should strive to do the best work of which I was capable etc); and I knew that these ought not to be sacrificed for inferior or actively-evil goals. Indeed, it was my search to find coherent and objective justification for these ideals that ultimately led me (as the pressure of bureaucracy on my values ideals increased, year on year; and I needed to articulate them explicitly) first to theism, then to Christianity.   

There is a lot of misleading stuff which tries to say that Leftism is 'a religion' (usually, implicitly meaning that religion is A Bad Thing) - and there are a bunch of political theorists who like to explain the increasingly anti-Good destructiveness and inversion of Leftism in terms of 'Holiness Spirals' - as if Leftism was a religion, in which there was such a thing as Holiness.

(And as if Holiness was a good thing only 'up to a point', beyond which we would be 'too Holy'?... In Christianity, this is nonsense - and the Holier we are, the better, without limit.)

Such rhetoric is either deliberately or ignorantly subversive of Christianity.

Serious Christians would not be keen on trying to prove that the very obviously demonic ideology of modern Western Leftism is 'A Religion'; nor would real Christians want to call the increasing evil of the Left a kind of 'Holiness'.


Christianity and Leftism are in essence opposites; religion and ideology are opposites, increasing-holiness and increasing-evil are opposites.

(This is surely obvious, yes? Not rocket science!)

A real Christian wants society to be organised on Christian principles (everything else fitted-around); but a Leftist wants society organised on political, economic, sexual, racial, environmental or some other Not-Christian principles.


Now, it is trivially-true that there are resemblances between almost any two things or people or groups - but so what? It is by ultimates that we discern: and between Christianity and Leftism there is opposition of metaphysics, motivation, ideals - they are as different as things can be (despite that there is Good and evil in every person and group, and that there is deception and error in all    understanding).

They are different because Christianity and Leftism are on opposite sides, because Leftism is demonic.

There is no overlap between the view that God is real, and that of materialism; that Jesus was divine versus that he was an ordinary human (and probably did not exist) (and that there is indeed nothing divine); that death is a transformation versus that death is annihilation; that those who follow Jesus will live eternally and resurrected in Heaven with the divine family versus that everybody who dies will merely burn or rot. And so on...

Why then go to such lengths to use religious terminology, concepts, analogies for what is in essence and reality the ultimate anti-religion?


For the modern Christian; we are in a spiritual war, a war between Heaven and Hell, between God and Satan; and this war is hotting-up by the month. The two sides are becoming more clearly differentiated, and more easily detected. The gloves are coming-off...

The Christian side is in favour of God, Good, and Creation - the demonic side is against all of these and not in favour of anything specifically, except what helps (here-and-now) in the strategy of destroying GG&C.

The evil of Leftism (as it exists here and now in The West) is Not about creating some alternative-Heaven; it is not about making a utopia, a Heaven on Earth. That is a lie.

Instead evil is defined negatively; evil is about the subversion and destruction of Good, and ultimately it is about the inversion of Good.


Consider the sexual revolution. The post-middle-sixties developing agenda of divorce, promiscuity, perversion, homosexuality, trans, paedophilia and whatever comes after... is not aiming-at any specific ultimate alternative form of human sex and sexuality.

There is no Leftist utopia of sex/ ulaity towards-which Leftism is moving us. Instead there is merely a series of dishonest, expediently subversive, incoherent stances: adopted tactically, then set-aside when convenient.

The sexual revolution (like Leftism in general) it is a negative program. Any positive elements are merely expedient, temporary, discarded when the next stage of destruction is ready to proceed; just as 60s style 'free love' (heterosexual extramarital promiscuity) was discarded in favour of feminism; and feminism discarded in favour of trans.

The sexual revolution is directed against Christian Goods such as celibacy, marriage, and family. Leftism in general is directed against real Christianity and real Christians ('real' regardless of denomination, church or no-church).

Leftism is opposed to holiness and real Christian religion. So, to deploy religious language and concepts to analyse Leftism is to serve the agenda of evil; to take the wrong side in the ongoing spiritual war*.


*Of course - we all err and sin, and we can find ourselves fighting on the wrong side. I certainly have found this to be the case, more than once. But then the situation is remediable. Any Christian can repent at any time - it is never too late (this side of death).  

When beauty, truth and virtue become separated, they pretty soon die.

Indeed (as I have implied before, in my books on the corruption of science, and the decline of genius) - when there is a move from the unity of the traditional Christian religiousness (with residues of Original Participation) to a concentration of life-energies upon just-beauty (artistic romanticism), just-truth (science and the Wissenschaftlich factual-systematic academic subjects) or just-virtue (some types of Protestant) - then there is at first an enhanced achievement in that specialised field.

The exceptional productivity of first generation atheists (i.e. childhood traditional Christians, who become atheist and then channel their religious energies into 'their subject') provides a misleading, ultimately false, impression of a wonderful future of enhanced attainment from rejecting religion and specialising in some narrower aspect of Culture. 

Thus, first-generation atheists who become commited artists, scientists and ethicists (such as 'fundamentalist' Protestants, or the existentialists) may achieve genius-level work, when they have been brought-up as traditionalists, and assimilated and retained a unified thought structure from that.

But with the next generation, brought-up as atheists, and without any coherent unity of world-view, the specialised art, science and religion withers and begins to die - because separate organs cannot live independently of the whole organism.

Art for arts sake, science-as-religion, purely ethical philosophy (or Christianity indifferent to beauty and truth) are all non-viable; and will sustain in-name-only, only by assimilating to mainstream secularity - bureaucracy and the mass media...


OK, but what then? Above all others, Owen Barfield pointed the way forward; perhaps because he was born in 1897; yet (ahead of his time, in this respect) he was brought-up in a thoroughly secular fashion - as an atheist, in an atheistic leftist radical household. Therefore Barfield could not revert to a childhood Original Participation religiousness; but in seeking to overcome the fragmentation and death of Life, he could only move forward.

Barfield was able to move forward, because he had extreme appreciation and ability in all three of the main specialised capacities (art, science, ethics). He had an intense appreciation of poetry and music and great ability as a writer; a brilliantly philosophical rigour; and an two-sided sensitivity to contemporary ethical collapse (he saw both the profound faults of the past, and the utter inadequacy of contemporary 'solutions').

Then, Barfield had the intellectual honesty to recognise that the prevalent situation was unacceptable and non-viable - it was, in a word, evil. The only possible answer to this gathering, unavoidable crisis and denied-decline into damnation, was that the separation of life into 'watertight compartments' must be overcome. A new synthesis was required.

Barfield had also the rare insight that going-back was simply not an option. Barfield argued that a reversion to earlier forms was undesirable, because it was precisely analogous to an adult trying to become a child; and for the same reason it was anyway impossible.

Since an atavistic reversion to past unity was not going to happen, and the present disunity was evil and unsustainable; we simply must move forward to a new kind of unity. 


Barfield saw that the broken threads of Culture must be rewoven, if we personally and socially were to avoid an incremental descent into hell-on-earth; but rewoven in a new and unprecedented way. Specifically, re-woven in full consciousness and with full choice.

Past unity was essentially traditional, hence unconscious and unexamined; the future unity could only be freely chosen, and as such conscious.

Future unity - which he called Final Participation - was not something that would happen-to us, but something we must each make-happen. So, if we did not make that choice and effort, it will not happen. We must know what we are doing, and then do it.

Moving on to a new unity and synthesis of Good is - unavoidably - up to each of us, personally: starting now.   


References: Owen Barfield's main books on this theme are are probably Romanticism Comes of Age, Saving the Appearances, World's Apart, and Unancestral Voice. All are equally good, although all take sustained effort to understand - each has a different character. 

Rudolf Steiner's The Philosophy of Freedom (PoF; 1894) played a very important role in my personal development - indeed, it was perhaps vital. Nonetheless it is ultimately wrong and can cause serious problems if not (after understanding it) one fails to discard or transcend it. .

This is because PoF explains itself in terms of an abstract, simplified, and grossly incomplete model of human thinking. It is A Model (Percept + Concept = united by Thinking).

And any model is false - because simplified compared with complex reality; and false because abstract when reality is 'animistic' (about Beings and their Relationships).

The PoF is, in fact, Ahrimanic in structure: it divides the world into categories of percepts and concepts, and suggests that these are united in thinking. Yet the world is not really divided into percepts; not is thinking objectively divisible into concepts.

Therefore if we begin in Ahrimanic materialist alienation; if we then understand PoF which tells us how it works, and how to escape it...

But if we stop at that point; assume the validity of PoF and try to live by the model of PoF - then we will be stuck in just another kind of abstract materialism: we will loop back into the demonic traps of Ahriman.

We will just create yet-another bureaucratic religion - as happened with Rudolf Steiner's Anothroposophy: which consists merely in learning stuff (studying the scriptures of The Doctor) and doing Anthroposophic stuff (education, medicine, agriculture etc) according to the usual Ahrimanic vocabulary/ lexicon, blueprints, flow charts, recipes, rules and regulations...); as defined by the usual Ahrimanic hierarchy or authority and temple structure with sacred places and rituals...

The Philosophy of Freedom does not, therefore, in itself give us freedom, not even a little bit - unless it is seen as a first step; as a ladder that is ascended then discarded. We need an alternative to Ahriman, not merely a different kind of Ahriman; nor a reaction back to seek an impossible to Luciferic unconscious instinct - or Original Participation...

We need, in other words, to move forward to what Steiner called the Intuitive Soul and Barfield called Final Participation - and this entails something qualitatively different-from the analysis, theories and methods of Steiner's Anthroposophy, and different too from the philosophical abstractions of Barfield.

They are perhaps essential - at least for some people such as myself, but they are a starting-point merely.  

This is very sweet and charming, in its way; and seems absolutely sincere. It is also so funny that I cried with laughter. Yet I wasn't laughing 'at' her because she was 'ridiculous' - it was more a kind of admiration at a spontaneously surreal world view...

I don't think she was trying be funny, as such - I would guess that this is just how Bjork is/ was; this is how she thinks/ thunk. I would guess she opens her mouth and this is the sort of thing that comes-out. Plain crazy, or a five year old in a 25 years old body? I don't know.

Also a very soothing speaking voice and accent. 

While some humans seek Nirvana - in most Eastern religions this entails a discarding of the self, the ego; a reduction of self-awareness to the absolute minimum such that we cease to be aware of time, space, or our division from God and from other-things.

This is a pretty much neutral desire for people; neither Good nor evil; neither virtuous/ beautiful/ truthful - nor yet sinful/ ugly/ a lie. This is to say No to the self, but to say Yes to God. It is to wish for union with God.

But to be the devil or a demon is to refuse to yield-up consciousness, to hold fast to ego; yet to reject creation.

Such seek Anti-Nirvana = an eternal static-state of pure self, pure ego; to be the only known Being forever and everywhere. And this is Hell.


When the divine self is denied there is isolation.

It is the (shared, universal) divine self which makes possible love; because our real self has both our primordial individual self and God-within - inherited because we are God's Children.

It is this divine inheritance that enables us to love one another (as well as love God) - because we all share it. 

Beings that have rejected God, hence the divine self, cannot love. They cannot love God; and also they cannot love one another. Since they have rejected God and Creation, they have also rejected the divine within them-selves.

Rejecting love; the devil and the demons can only relate to each other (and God) in terms of instrumentality; of being manipulative and exploitative.

To live in isolation in such an environment of exploitation is Hell. 

One error I see among those who interpret Rudolf Steiner - and perhaps it is in Steiner himself, although I am not sure - is that we need to become conscious of, aware of, the content of our own thinking - and by thinking is meant essential deep intuitive thinking.

It is sometimes asserted that we should turn our attention around (from outside to inside) to perceive our own thoughts forming. The idea being that until we are aware of 'how' our thinking is constructed, we cannot be free - because freedom requires such knowledge.

I have come to regard this as wrong - and impossible.


Our deepest, true-est, divine thinking emerges-from the real self - and how it is formed is intrinsically unknowable.

Thinking is part of what Beings do. Beings think (yes, all beings, including what we suppose to be the dead 'mineral' world). Thinking - this primary, un-analysable thinking - is an attribute of Being.


What varies is consciousness.

Consciousness is also a universal attribute of being, but its magnitude varies very widely - degrees of consciousness are the main measure of evolutionary-development.

So everything thinks, and everything is to some (perhaps very minimal extent) also aware of its thinking; but the direction of evolution is towards greater and greater consciousness of this thinking.


Our consciousness is always, necessarily, outside that which thinks. What we should be seeking to do in turning awareness inward - is to observe thinking as-it-emerges-from the real self.

Thius is to make intuition conscious - and that is perhaps our main goal, here-and-now. 

But we cannot, and nothing ever can, 'see inside' the self, to analyse or understand the actual process of primary thinking.  

When it comes to matters such a sex education in particular, and ethical education in general (eg attitudes to alcohol, drugs, violence...); the mainstream view is that in raising and preparing children for life, the best idea is to 'equip' them with skills for difficult life situations; so that when they confront difficulties, they will be able to cope.

A more traditional approach is to avoid the situations in the first place, as much as possible.

Of course, some combination is required - but avoidance is far more effective than coping skills; as ought to be very obvious from history. But perhaps the analogy of the racing driver will help.


A professional racing driver, for example in Formula One, is a supremely skilled driver - as he must be, because Formula One racing is extremely difficult and dangerous.

By contrast, a Little Old Lady who, after passing her test, drives only a few hundred miles per year (mostly on Sunday afternoons) is a very low skill driver.

If the LOL was forced into a Formula One race, she would be killed very quickly (and probably kill some others), if she could even get her car moved off the starting line.


But who is most likely to be killed, or have a serious accident? The racing driver, of course!


Many of the greatest racing drivers in history were killed, while racing. The racing environment is many thousands, or millions, of times more hazardous than a 30mph putter through the countryside for a few miles. By contrast, little old ladies with low mileage are a very low risk group - as reflected in their low insurance premiums.

Clearly it would be better to be somewhat more skilled than the LOL, but how much is worthwhile, especially if/ when increasing skills is also likely to increase exposure to risk?

Of course, the racing drivers would be even safer than the LOL - but would a dedicated driver with thousands of hours of training and experience be willing - after all that - to have such low mileage at such low speeds? Unlikely. And he might be killed during the training.

So training all drivers to the highest possible standard is Not a way to reduce death and injury IF those drivers are then inserted into a high risk environment. In practice, it will kill more than it helps.


(Mathematically; we could say that skill increased linearly with training, but hazards increase exponentially - so with increasing training-hazards the hazards increasingly outstrip the gains from training.)


The ethical analogy is that we might be trying to reduce sexual promiscuity, teen pregnancy, venereal disease, dangerous drug usage, alcohol binge drinking, or some such. The mainstream modern idea is that this is done by increasing 'coping skills'. It Does not Work - obviously...

Yet such people mock those who advocate abstinence and avoidance, which do work - and also are relatively robust. Complete avoidance may not be achievable, just as zero mileage in a car is impossible for many people. But low exposure (lower frequency, lower severity) is lower risk than frequent exposure; just as moderate mileage (10,000 miles per year) is lower risk than high mileage (100,000 miles per year).

As a strong generalisation, avoidance and risk minimisation is the only powerfully effective way of reducing the harms of risk. 

A highly selected and superbly trained Marine or Paratrooper is much more likely to be killed than a feeble stay-at-home; and one who lives in a frequent environment of promiscuity, drug use, alcohol overconsumption is much more likely to become a promiscuous junkie alcoholic than someone who tries to avoid such situations.   


In high risk situations, skills, training, coping mechanisms are never enough. Reducing the exposure to high risk situations is far more effective.

And at a social level, although complete risk removal is very seldom possible; nonetheless reducing the pervasiveness and severity of morally hazardous situations is the best way of promoting ethical behaviour. 

Obviously! - one would have thought...

If you want to avoid being killed in a road traffic accident, the little old lady is a better role model than Lewis Hamilton. But not so 'cool' - and therein lies the problem...

William Wildblood has a new book published - the second this year! Bought my copy, sight unseen, because WW is always worth reading. I've gone for the Kindle version for the sake of portability.

This is the version I own - part of a boxed LP set of all six solo violin sonatas and partitas by JS Bach played by Sigiswald Kuijken, that I bought in 1984-5.


I should say upfront that this perfomance, which I regard as truly great in its intensity and musicality; is not the most tonally beautiful you can find; because Kuijken uses a restored ancient instrument, held without use of the chin, with an 18th century bow - and deploying the kind of techniques for playing that Bach will have known and himself deployed.

Therefore the sound produced is more rasping and less rich than we are used to since the technical innovations of the 19th century. You will either adjust to this, or not.

But the sheer concentration and insight into the music is incredible. The piece is - as you can see from the score - extremely difficult to play at all; but of course the point is to play it such that the greatness of the music itself comes-through (not as a virtuoso exercise). This perfomance merits total concentration on the part of the listener - and the reward is that it is so moving as almost to be unbearable in its unearthly strivings at the limit of what is expressible by Man.

Also it just gets better and better; up to the very last, single, note.

Note: I have previously posted two transcriptions of this piece: one for saxophone quartet and the other (first rate quality - Bach-Busoni, played by Ogdon) for piano.

I believe that symbolism has all-but broken down as a way of attaining the transcendental, especially the divine. I would see symbolism as including creeds, rituals, icons, scripture and all holy writings, spoken language (forms of words,  in ceremony,blessing, prayer etc.), priesthood: the church itself (all churches that are regarded as having an essential role or authority in some aspect of Christianity).

Indeed, as soon as symbolism was understood, it was already breaking-down - because when symbolism really works (as it did up towards the end of the Middle Ages) it is regarded as reality, not symbolism.

The symbol is not seen 'literally' (that is a modern distortion) - rather the literal symbol and the transcendental reality are seen as inseparably one.

But when I was first a Christian, I sought the fullest kind of symbolic Christianity. And I was shocked and dismayed that there was no single church or denomination which took symbolism seriously and thoroughly - none at at all; not a single one.

Some were strict about ritual, but not about language; some about scripture but not about words of prayer or particular 'translations' of scripture; some about vestments but not about ceremony - none at all try to provide a thoroughly consistent symbolism*.

As I say, at first I was dismayed and felt lost. Then I recognised that this was an implicit (albeit not self-aware) manifestation of the actual, objective, loss of the power and necessity of symbolism.

I now regard this as a consequence of the developmental-evolution of consciousness in Western Man, and part of the increase in self-consciousness and separation from The World; our sense of losing the spontaneous, unconscious sense of being 'in' the world, including 'in' the divine world.

(The complete loss of Original Participation and the advent of the Consciousness Soul.)

In a world without symbolism; the only possible replacement would seem to be the primacy of intuition and the necessity and possibility of direct and unmediated knowing - developing to the new situation of Final Participation: loving participation in the divine creation.

So, my argument is that the fact that no existing Western church will take symbolism seriously is evidence that symbolism has become impossible, ineffectual - and we are faced with either being stuck in our present alienation, or else (as I advocate in Romantic Christianity) moving forward to a different form of consciousness: intuitive direct knowing, Final Participation.


Note added: To be more specific: An evangelical protestant church placed priority on scripture, but the scriptural translations were chosen on the basis of 'modern scholarship' meaning that the symbolism of poetry was absent, nor were the words spoken with dignity - and was indifferent about the aesthetics of ritual and did not set-apart the time in church from mundane life. A Latin Roman Catholic mass had beautiful language - but was rushed, slapdash - including in the Eucharist. An Eastern Orthodox church had some beauty of setting, vestments, incense, iconography; but bureaucratic English, gabbled liturgy, and a casual conversational style. One Anglo Catholic church had beautiful language and an intense Eucharist-focused ritual - but was let down by the almost facetious quality of the teaching and social interaction around the service. Another Anglo Catholic setting had an intense setting, ritual, incense - but drab and functional vestments; and again bureaucratic and politically-correct language, including in the psalms - which are supposed to be poems. Etc... None, and no Western Church I have heard of anywhere, demonstrated a seriousness and thorough attitude about symbolism, which might be able to lift the church service to a higher and more divine level than our ordinary media-bureaucratic life. To be 'friendly' (or amusing) is more important than to be the Little Piece of Heaven that was the aim of some Christian gatherings of the past. Likewise, prayers are often merely topical, secular and reflecting leftist priorities. Those partial symbolic aspects that were taken seriously, therefore seemed almost arbitrary.

I don't see why full creating members of the resurrected Heavenly Family would not be able to take 'Nirvana holidays' - much as we need to sleep, and enjoy sleeping.

Indeed, since we are God's beloved children whom he naturally wishes to be happy - insofar as this is harmonious with loving creation; Nirvana is part of why Heaven is Heavenly...

In this way the Christian Heaven includes the Eastern Nirvana - whereas by contrast Nirvana-seekers regard Heaven (like the mortal earthly life) as merely maya/ illusion (due to the false perspective of self/ ego).

The situation is Not, therefore, 'symmetrical' between these traditions and aspirations.

I repeat: Christianity includes Nirvana as a valid albeit 'lower' reality; but Nirvana regards Christianity as mere illusion.

Note: This continues from yesterday's blog post...

It is my impression that there are plenty of Christians through the entire history of the faith who do not want to follow Jesus to the resurrected (embodied) life everlasting he promised; but want instead to live a spirit life outside of time and space: they want some version of Nirvana.

They do not want a body - because bodies are dynamic, differentiated and localised, and represent a point-of-view; instead they want to be homogeneous, everywhere, and to see everything, all the time, equally, from everywhere without change. For them, anything other (or less) than this is incomplete, because personal.

Such people are motivated by a strong aversion to the human condition (past, present and in any possible future) mortality, to this corruptible, illusory and intinsically flawed world; in their hearts they regard this our life and earth as a mistake; something it would be better not to have been.

Their 'Heaven' is not this life raised to divinity; but something qualitatively-other than this life - hence the tendency to express what is Good in terms of denials and negatives; what it is not.


For such people, the ideal state is an eternal present moment; their ideal is perfection - which means no change; their idea of love is an unvarying state of absolute and complete and undivided being - which means no change.

They want happiness to be absolute and unalloyed; they want nothing of desire, variation, striving, or sorrow- because these are incomplete, and finite states.

They want an end to consciousness, self-awareness, to their own separation from divinity - they want to cease being a person - an 'ego', cease being aware that they ever were a person - to be assimilated back to divinity - without a residue to memory or hope, but instead an eternal bliss-full now.

Such people want nothing more than peace*; in the sense of absolute silence, stillness, cessation... 


What such people want is always expressed either negatively or as infinites and abstractions. They emphasise that mystery is the highest understanding, because their Heaven is everything Good all at once - there can be nothing to want, nothing unsatisfied.

The difficulty is this group who don't really want what Jesus offers, but something else, have probably included plenty of the most famous, prestigious, influential Christians: great theologians, contemplatives, saints, theologians.

I suspect that this misunderstanding, this projection of what such people want onto what Jesus actually offered, is a source of sadness but not surprise to Jesus himself. I think he will be disappointed but not angry - because this is just the kind of thing that people do, and in a sense can't help doing. 

What Jesus truly offered was simple, and can be known by anybody, anywhere at any time - by direct intuitive revelation meeting the desire of a true self. It can - and shall - be known (or at least offered for knowing) to every human spirit after death.


Only at that point will the people I describe realise that they never did want what Jesus came to bring us - but wanted something qualitatively different. They will find out that they never were followers of Christ, because they do not want to go where Christ went. Their hope does not need Jesus. 

I don't seriously doubt that God will give them what they want (if they continue to want it, when given the chance to understand accurately) - but it will not be the Heavenly Life Everlasting that Jesus made possible.

Their fate will be individually-tailored, but of the same kind ('Nirvana') as is sought more straightforwardly by the Eastern deistic and theistic religions.

That Heavenly destination and life will be for other people, who do want it; and who will therefore literally follow Jesus through death, through transformation and resurrection, to reach Heaven.

*When people wish for the dead that they will Rest in Peace - and mean by it the modern understanding of 'peace' - then perhaps they do not really want what Jesus was offering.