Bruce Charlton's Notions

Unless we are cotent for life simply to be less; to experience 2020 as pure subtraction; we need to consider how to replace what has been taken and destroyed.

(I'm assuming that what we have now is - pretty much - what is in store; assuming the present System continues.) 

There is a lot to replace! Culture has substantially gone - theatre, opera, art galleries, orchestras, museums, libraries, bookshops, singing, dancing, church bells - whatever culture you valued, chances are it has either gone-altogether or been substantially diminished in volume and quality.

With heavy and prescriptive social control, social separation etc; the replacement must be something we can do 'on our own' - or rather, what we do will be between our-selves and God.

I would say that we may wish to create - draw, sing, write poems - but for our-selves and God. A very pure act of divinely-oriented creation.

And, in the same direction, we may strive to become more of the nature of mystics, romantics; we may consciously value, intensify, make-more-frequent those times of contact with the divine - from all causes and in the most creative, participative, ways.

Not just contemplation - although that is essential - but acts of creative consecration. The lack of a human audience may be something we can learn to set-aside - to become like the legendary medieval stone masons who carved their non-visible roof ornaments for the Glory of God.

If you have ever done any sustained metaphysical thinking - i.e. thinking about the ultimate nature of reality - then you will soon have reached the point of either 'It Just Is', or an infinite regress - infinities of infinities...


I don't think there can be any other terminus of thinking.

If we keep asking why, seeking explanations; it seems we must always reach a point at which we just must accept 'because that's the way things are'. Or, if we cannot or will not accept some kind of 'first cause' that Just Is; then we arrive at some kind of infinite regress along the lines of of :"this, because that, because another, and another, and another - without end...".


What does this mean? Well, for Philip K Dick (at least in some moods) it meant that infinite-regression was how God appeared to us; it was the evidence for God - but not evidence in the form of a conclusive proof; but as a kind of soft, probablistic, practical matter.

Since this problem does not go-away and cannot be eluded, we must either engage in a kind of systematic self-blinding and refusal even to ask the questions (which is the course taken by the modern world) - or else must consciously make an assumption relating to the purpose and meaning of reality (or the lack of purpose and meaning).


The problem does not go away, the assumptions stay 'assumed' - we are always pushed-back onto our own responsibility - or, most often,  our own refusal to take responsibility; our self-chosen enslavement of soul.


On November 17, 1980; Philip K Dick made this exploration in his Exegesis notebooks (1:262) - published 2011. I have lightly edited this for clarity: 


God manifested himself to me as the infinite void; but it was not the abyss; it was the vault of heaven, with blue sky and wisps of white clouds. He was not some foreign God but the God of my fathers. He was loving and kind and he had personality. 

He said, “You suffer a little now in life; it is little compared with the great joys, the bliss that awaits you. Do you think I in my theodicy [i.e. that discourse on the justic of God, relating to goodness and suffering] would allow you to suffer greatly in proportion to your reward?” He made me aware, then, of the bliss that would come; it was infinite and sweet. 


He said, “I am the infinite. I will show you. Where I am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. Construct lines of reasoning by which to understand your mystical-religious experience in 1974. I will enter the field against their shifting nature. You think they are logical but they are not; they are infinitely creative.” 

I thought a thought and then an infinite regression of theses and countertheses came into being. God said, “Here I am; here is infinity.” 

I thought another explanation; again an infinite series of thoughts split-off in dialectical antithetical interaction. God said, “Here is infinity; here I am.” 

I thought, then, an infinite number of explanations, in succession, that explained the experiences of 1974; each single one of them yielded up an infinite progression of flipflops, of thesis and antithesis, forever. Each time, God said, “Here is infin- ity. Here, then, I am.” 

I tried for an infinite number of times; each time an infinite regress was set off and each time God said, “Infinity. Hence I am here.” 


Then he said, “Every thought loads to infinity, does it not? Find one that doesn’t.” I tried forever. All led to an infinitude of regress, of the dialectic, of thesis, antithe- sis and new synthesis. Each time, God said, “Here is infinity; here am I. Try again.” 

I tried forever. Always it ended with God saying, “Infinity and myself; I am here.” 

I saw, then, a Hebrew letter with many shafts, and all the shafts led to a common outlet; that outlet or conclusion was infinity. God said, “That is myself. I am infinity. Where infinity is, there am I; where I am, there is infinity. 

"All roads - all explanations for 1974 - lead to an infinity of Yes-No, This or That, On-Off, One- Zero, Yin-Yang, the dialectic, infinity upon infinity; an infinity of infinities. 

"I am everywhere and all roads lead to me; omniae viae ad Deum ducent [all roads lead to God]. Try again. Think of another possible explanation for 1974.” I did; it led to an infinity of regress, of thesis and antithesis and new synthesis. 


"This is not logic,” God said. “Do not think in terms of absolute theories; think instead in terms of probabilities. Watch where the piles heap-up, of the same theory essentially repeating itself. Count the number of punch cards in each pile. Which pile is highest? 

"You can never know for sure what 1974 was. What, then, is statistically most probable? Which is to say, which pile is highest? 

"Here is your clue: every theory leads to an infinity (of regression, of thesis and antithesis and new synthesis). 

"What, then, is the probability that I am the cause of 1974, since, where infinity is, there I am? 


"You doubt; you are the doubt as in: They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly I am the wings. I am the doubter and the doubt [From the poem “Brahma” by Ralph Waldo Emerson]. 

“You are not the doubter; you are the doubt itself. So do not try to know; you cannot know. 

"Guess on the basis of the highest pile of computer punch cards. There is an infinite stack in the heap marked INFINITY, and I have equated infinity with me. What, then, in the chance that it is me? 


"You cannot be positive; you will doubt. But what is your guess?” 

I said, “Probably it is you, since there is an infinity of Infinities forming before me.” 

“There is the answer, the only one you will ever have,” God said.

If you are interested in hearing a one-hour radio dramatization of Charles Williams's novel The Place of the Lion (1931); then pop-across to my Notion Club Papers blog for a description and link...

Which election? Any election, anywhere - but perhaps one in particular: the US. As usual, this election is being regarded as the most important ever, different from any before, etc. But now, in 2020, we know that on the contrary this is the least important election in the history of the world.

Why so trivial? Simply because we now know for sure (it isn't just a theory any more) that the whole world is being run by a Global Establishment for whom elections are no barrier to doing what They want.

After all, a supposedly radically-different, supposedly political-Outsider, supposedly-nationalist and common-sensical - apparently (by their hysterical reaction) genuinely anti-Leftist US President [Trade Mark: Most Powerful Individual in the World] was (allegedly) 'in power' when that nation, along with every other in the world, succumbed to an international, extreme Leftist coup.

And all nations (so far as I know), 'ruled' by all of the various different flavours of mainstream politics across a spectrum from nationalist, conservative, republican etc. to various types of explicit radical, socialist, progressive; and including first-world, third-world and whatever lies between... All of them conformed (almost simultaneously) to the same set of priorities and policies; and all of them are now en route to the same destination.

So now We Know, if we were previously in doubt, how stupid it was for so many anti-Left people to put hope in elections, to hope that any mainstream option could achieve any significant good.

(And, incidentally, how equally stupid were the angry Leftists, who were so utterly terrified about pseudo-opposition parties and leaders getting power! What fools to be at all worried by such a pathetic bunch of fakes, cowards and quislings!) 

If not exactly marching in lock-step, the entire world is currently shambling-chaotically towards precisely the same Agenda 2030/ Great Reset destination; at somewhat varying speeds - true; but none are pushing-back against the mass movement.

The lesson has been given us - whether or not we choose to learn from it. And we should be thankful for such a revelation, such an apocalypse.

Just think how much time and effort you can now save by refusing to allow your consciousness to be colonised by the political Punch and Judy show that is democratic politics! - now you know that both 'antagonists' are controlled by the same puppeteer.

We are already living in the Black Iron Prison; and since earlier this year we know that this jail is global - with nowhere to escape into (only places where the restrictions and rules are currently somewhat less onerous).

Once you have taken this on board, you will realise that this ought to put to an end all this talk of socio-politically 'resisting' the imposition of worldwide totalitarianism. So far as our socio-political status is concerned; we are 'assimilated' into The Borg/ The Matrix/ The System; and Resistance Is Futile

Too late: it's happened.  It has been imposed. (Past tense.)


The revolution has won. Any action to do more than delay the Great Reset - any action to change to a fundamentally different and better direction - would entail a counter-revolution; and seeing the broad support of the BIP it could not be a 'mass' revolution.

The ruling classes are on-board with the programme; and far too many of the masses are clamouring for more oppression, faster, please!

And anyway, a counter-rev to what we had before 2020 would not be worth having - since it was pointing and pushing this way. So it would need to be a new revolution. And to be better; it would need to be a new and Christian revolution.


But it turns-out that the Christian church leadership are in-bed-with the new regime, support the program, and have closed the churches and all-but ceased their activities (gathering, worship, singing, ritual... and - most significantly - sacraments).

There are individual real Christians distributed across and outside-of the pseudo-Christian churches; but when did scattered individuals ever mount a successful revolution? And (more importantly) when was such a revolution ever a change for the better?

So, let's stop pretending that there is any meaningful hope of resistance, revolution or any other socio-political mechanism for fundamental change. The System will have-to unfold according to its own evil, and thus self-loathing and self-destructive, tendencies.


Let us instead do what actually can be done - what our religion insists that we ought to be doing; as individual Christians, working on our selves and with those we love; and any real Christians that happen to be in our vicinity.

We are compelled, for lack of any viable alternative, to stop being political and to put everything into being spiritual. And is that such a bad thing?

In the Fourth Gospel it is said that part of the mission of Jesus was to enable us to become Sons of God, as resurrected Men in Heaven.

Yet Jesus also makes clear that we are already children of God: God being both our father and Jesus's father, in what seems to be a literal rather than a metaphorical sense. Indeed, it is a new teaching of Jesus that God is our father in a personal sense, not only a tribal patriarch.

I make sense of this by assuming that we are born as spiritually-young children, and Jesus offers us the possibility of choosing to become spiritually grown-up children in our resurrected state. 


This leads on to the question: why grow-up? Children are wonderful - and perfect in their way; so why go to the bother and hazard of growing-up? - especially as it requires negotiating the (extreme) spiritual dangers of adolescence.

This has to do with the Christian understanding of creation - which I take to be a more like a continual dynamic work-in-progress (a process) than a finished perfection. If creation were instead regarded as complete, then Man would have no active role... Man could at most aspire to contemplate the finished-work of creation (in some kind of blissful state) - and for this there would be no need to become spiritually grown-up.

Indeed, if contemplation was the ultimate goal; there would be no need for Man to incarnate - he would be better to remain a spirit; nor would there be any need for mortal life - he would be better to be created directly-into Heaven (like an 'angel'), and stay there.

And this is, indeed, the goal of some Eastern (oneness) religious ideas, and the Platonic tradition in the West - even within Christianity. These systems have no necessary function for mortal incarnate life, and no active role for Men: the ideal is passive, inactive, absorbed (ego-less, self-less) contemplation - for which angelic spirits in Heaven are presumably better suited than incarnate mortal Men on earth.

And it is hard to see even why such a God would want to create Men, or indeed angels, or anything else - so complete, self-sufficient, perfect, inclusive and desire-less is this God understood to be... Such a God is better described in terms of an abstract deity, defined in terms of divine properties (such as omnipotence and omniscience). But the God that Jesus speaks-with and speaks-of is addressed as a person - so it is hard to see why Christians should go down the path towards abstract deity...


To my mind, matters are clarified when it is assumed that God wants us to become active participants in the on-going-work of his creation.

That makes sense of why we are encouraged grow-up; we need to grow-up if we aspire to become our-selves active creators, rather than remaining as children - who are absorbed-in life, and are not creative.

My understanding is that we are all born as children of God - in a personal and 'literal' sense. We are initially passively-absorbed-in the ongoing creation. But by stages we separate from it and become self-aware; so that we may mature and consciously-choose to return to participating-in creation - but this time as active, contributing, co-creators with God.

(And indeed with Jesus - since this active co-creation is what Jesus did, first as a mortal Man from the advent of his divine mission at the baptism by John; then after his resurrection to eternal life, and ascension. Examples of co-creation by Jesus include, but are not restricted to, his miracles.)

Thus, the definition of spiritual adulthood or maturity, is one who participates actively in creation, who consciously contributes some-thing from-themselves - and this is to be a Son or Daughter of God in the sense that Jesus promised to those who follow him.


We may do such active participating during mortal life, in a temporary way, as a part of our learning.

We may, for instance, learn (as I have) that active participation in creation is the single most satisfying experience of life (outside of family love); and may wish to continue it fully rather than partially.

And such active participation is the life of those grown-up children of God who choose - after biological death - to commit themselves eternally to resurrected Heavenly life. If we want this, we can have it; and that is to grow-up, spiritually.

My personal definition of 'God' is The Creator. This entails that we inhabit a created reality - a created universe; and that this was created by a 'person'.

That definition is my understanding of what A God is.

While not universal, this basic definition is pretty widespread.


Then comes the nature of this personal God; which is perhaps unique to myself and has developed from a personal, intutive-revealed process. So I do not try to persuade others of the truth of it; it is up to each individual to discover such matters for himself. But for those who are interested...

My understanding is that God is not one individual but a dyad - specifically the eternal and loving creative relationship of Heavenly Father and Mother; our divine (actual, spiritual) parents.

This understanding also informs me of the motivation and method of God; in that the love of our Heavenly parents is what led to the purpose of creation being the procreation of spiritual children of God, and their developmental growth (via mortal life) into divine Sons and Daughters of God (as described in the Fourth Gospel). That is the motive.

The method is love: love is what makes creation possible, because it is love that transforms the primordial chaos into creation.

I keep returning to the fact that it is motivation that is primary; and/but real motivation must be inferred (since it is so easily denied, disguised or concealed). Such inference is called discernment, and it is unavoidable.

If you obey somebody or some-thing (e.g. some institution, including a church) then this does not absolve you of responsibility; rather it means that you have taken responsibility for that person or thing.

Specifically, when your belief in specifics is obedient to some external person-thing, then you are responsible for the motivations of that which you have chosen to obey.

Because you have-chosen that obedience (including having chosen not to choose, but just going-along).

For example; if you have chosen to make a master of an habitual or manipulative liar, and to obey a liar; and if you then believe the lies, defend the lies, propagandise for the lies --- then you yourself are a liar, and you are spiritually-responsible for those lies.

That's just the way it is; whether you like it or not.

I tried to explain a couple of days ago why Jesus affirms in the New Testament that Love of God must come first - and what it means to 'come first'. But the picture is incomplete without the knowledge that God loves us, each and individually, as children.

Firstly, God is the creator; so that this world is God's work - and 'creation' includes create-ing, moment to moment.

Then God loves us as ideal parents love their children - all and each. God wants for each and all children to grow, spiritually, each in his own way - to become 'Sons of God'.

This means that the world has meaning, being organised around this principle and aimed-at this result; raising Men to become Sons of God by their experiences and choices; which means dwelling in Heaven and (at least some Men) growing-up spiritually towards greater divinity.

So this Love by God (who is creator) structures the world. Then comes our personal love for God. What this means is that we come to know that God is creator and loving parent; and, knowing this, we ourselves come to love this reality.

It is a close analogy with human families of the best sort. The parents will love the children - but for the family to work requires that the children also love the parents - which means the children wish to join with the work and purposes of the family. This is decided by each child as he matures - will I, do I, love my parents?

The wishes of the individual children are all the while being harmonised by their love for each other (i.e. love of neighbour) as well as the (primary) love of God (i.e. love of God: love of the basic set-up, full accord with Gods basic motivations in creation).

So love by God is a fact; but love for God is our decision. 

And that's it.

We all have our weaknesses! And - after decades, centuries, of developing The System - the Antichrist spirit has something to lure everyone.

I am intensely aware of this nowadays, with the ramping-up of evil in the world: a greater dominance by evil-motivated persons, their ideology more widely and deeply spread by the media and bureaucracies; more passively obeyed and passionately endorsed by the mass majority...


One of my weaknesses is on display just here: explaining social trends, thereby trying to define, understand and predict The System; thereby increasing my attention and involvement.

Following which; I become an advocate and defender of my latest 'model' of what-is-happening/ what-will-happen - despite that even the best model is always wrong (because a model is always - by its nature - grossly simplified and distorted compared with reality).

On the other hand, through the Gospels and Paul's Letters - as well as the teaching of the Holy Ghost, it is clear that we shouldn't be thinking this way - or, at least, if we do so think this way, it ought to be done lightly and without attachment.


Mostly we actually spend our lives alternating between worries and schemes for the future, and nostalgia and regrets about the past: oscillating between anticipation and memory.

But mostly we need (as always) to try and live here-and-now in the context of eternity: to live in the present and life-everlasting.


There are many snares of many kinds intending to stop this; but if we know what we ought to do, we can at least repent our (inevitable) failures and keep trying...

And that is something anybody can accomplish - if they wish; and (for salvation, albeit not for theosis) it is all that Jesus requires of us, after all.

What is the true category of a person, an institution, nation or civilization? The answer is that all of these can and should can be divided - and this division is clean - in terms of whether it is organised by 'Love of God' -- or Not.

Other attempted categorical divisions such as 'Left and Right', or subdivisions or refinements of such, are invariably partial selections and distortions of this reality...

Either we are trying to put Love of God (and everything to do with LoG - such as understanding the nature of God, and what loving God entails for us personally) as the focus; or Not.

And if not Love of God; then ultimately it matters little what different principle is primary: whether economic growth, equality, freedom, nation, diversity, political power, antiracism, social stability, the environment, human health or happiness...


Of course; if Love of God is primary; then this may differ between individuals, between denominations and religions, and over time - nonetheless it constitutes a category of life.

For those who acknowledge Love of God is the primary and proper First Thing; then any society that fails to put Love of God as its First Thing is wrong, is evil.

And this is a very easy discernment to make in the modern world! Because those who do not love God first and foremost, no longer even pretend to do so; but they are quite explicit about their other and different ideologies.

And even when they attempt to deceive on this point and pretend (for a moment) to be putting God first, their underlying true Not-God priorities are easily seen from their behaviours.


But the great characteristic of these times is their simplicity and clarity. It is easy to perceive, to know, that Love of God does Not motivate those who have greatest power, welath, status and influence... because they are increasingly explicit about the fact. Neither does Love of God motivate the great majority of the Western Masses. We live in a Godless/ God-denying and increasingly explicitly anti-God world.

Furthermore, such observations are not difficult and feel absolutely solid.


But it is confusing and over-complex, it is indeed a snare, to try to describe (and prove) just exactly what specifcially and explicitly does motivate the mass of modern people and their leaders... since (superficially at least) all this seems very changeable and incoherent, complex, multi-layered and deceptive...

Yet this difficulty in stating what People Really Do Believe (here-and-now) does not matter and should not delay us nor distract us.

It does not matter because we know for sure that whatever it is, it Certainly is not the Love of God.


All we need to know (at least as a beginning, but this is vital) is where sombody, some society, stands on this one issue of Love of God.

If they are not For it, then they are Against it; and if they are indeed against the primacy of Love of God, then it does not really matter in what exact and specific way they are against it...

By not being For the Love of God; they are on The Other Side. And that is what it is necessary to know.


After that? After one has decided to make Love of God the primary principle of one's Life?

Well then a whole new set of matters unfolds itself, varying between persons.

Love of God is a beginning, not a solution. 

Indeed, Love of God is the beginning of the reality of purposive human Life - and anything else than this, is a refusal even to enter the arena of living.

The Empire Never Ended is a maxim used often by Philip K Dick, especially in his novel Valis (1978), but also throughout the philosophical journal the Exegesis (2011).

The Black Iron Prison (BIP) was PKD's term for the manipulative, modern, totalitarian System based on bureaucracy and propaganda.


What I personally derive from this is that The Roman Empire was an institutional structure, a System, that has continued to this day. But, while continuous in The West; The Empire has changed considerably - especially in response to the breaking-in of Christianity; which was profoundly at odds with The Empire.

My summary understanding of what happened (not that of PKD) is as follows: Jesus Christ and his posthumous followers were a transformative force acting upon The Empire. Initially there was no 'church' but Jesus's followers worked like a family, based on loving personal relationships and without any abstract institutional structure.

The first stage in assimilating Christianity was to create an institutional church which could take its place among the other institutions of The Empire (the Emperor and his bureaucracy, the Military, the state religion etc). But such was the spiritual power of Christianity, that its church rapidly grew to take-over the Empire as its primary system.

Over the centuries, however, The Empire first assimilated then dominated Christianity - in multiple ways; until from the 19th century The Empire began to eliminate Christianty from the public realm altogether - first with the Communist and Socialist totalitarian Systems, then with the whole of the  world.

At this point - where Christianity became almost-wholly corrupt, of fully assimilated at the institutional level - The Empire became The Black Iron Prison - an atheist totalitarian and global bureaucracy.

Just this year of 2020; the process came to near completion, with Christian churches closed and suspending core activities across the whole world.

The Black Iron Prison has won.


Edited from Exegesis 19:34-5:

The BIP is a vast complex life form which protects itself by inducing a negative hallucination of it: muddled thinking, loss of faculties and perception (as a protective mechanism).  It has come here and because of its defensive devices we are not aware of it.

This BIP a sinister life form indeed... 

1. First it takes power over us, reducing us to slaves.
2. Then it causes us to forget our former state
3 And to be unable to see or think straight so that the BIP becomes invisible to us, by reason of what it has done to us.
4. But we don't even know that we cannot think straight. 
5. We cannot even monitor our own deformity, our own impairment. 

Even the edifice of the church has been subverted by the BIP and made into an instrument of its occlusion of us. Ii is interesting how effectively the impairment works. If you derange the brain in precise ways, not only will it be damaged, but it will be unaware that it is impaired and will not seek to rectify the damage. 


My note: At this point the BIP has become a single, global, exclusive and self-perpetuating system - based on the positive feedback of mutual reinforcement.

There is a primary concealment of the BIP controllers by using human puppets; true motives are hidden by a labile-rotating and incoherent pseudo-morality (e.g. healthism, environmentalism, antiracism, sexual revolution etc...) to mask the true selfish and exploitative nature of The System.

All autonomous institutions or groups are destroyed or assimilated - including the primary, natural and spontaneous human groupings of marriage and family, neighbourhood and nation.  

The defences of the system are manyfold and are underpinned by a false metaphysical monopoly; such that all 'evidence' (itself heavily controlled, and overwhelming in volume) is seen to conform to the rigid cultural assumption that excludes God/ Spirit/ Objective values; and the whole BIP functions on the exclusive assumption that this is a materialistic, positivistic, meaningless and purposeless world - in which autonomous life and consciousness are essentially epiphenomenal illusions.

Further interventions (justified by the metaphysics and pseudo-morality) themselves also impair thinking and suppress motivation. The BIP deploys addiction, and dependence (on distraction; stimulation, sedation, hallucination) from mass media, entertainments and actual drugs.

As a relief, and to rationalise suppression, the BIP adds intoxication (pharmacological and social - eg riots).

Most recently, there is the general strategy of imposed social isolation such that individuals are single units within the official System; by means of 'untouchable'-style social-distancing, prison-style lock-down, face-concealment, driving all of 'life' into the remote, demotivating abstractions of online communications and interaction. 

I am now reading some of the more minor works of Philip K Dick, most recently The Zap Gun from 1967. I bought and read this in, I think, 1984; expecting very little based upon its title and the cover illustration - I assumed it would be some kind of fighting adventure... Nothing of the kind!

All I could remember about the book until I took it up again a few days ago; was that it was surprisingly good, and surprisingly thought-provoking - and indeed that is the case. It is classic PKD territory, written at the height of his powers - and it is Not about a zap gun! - or, at least, the 'deadly' weapon turns-out to be very different from a gun, and very relevant for our current malaise.

Spoilers follow...


The world of The Zap Gun is one in which a cognitive elite ('cogs') rules the masses - pursaps, or 'poor saps' - by a version of the 1984 strategy of pretending perpetual war between Western and Eastern blocs. But this war is in fact a permanent state of mutual deterrence, secretly agreed by the governments, who pretend to be continually developing deadly anti-personnel, tactical weapons.

The process involves using rare individuals who have the psychic or mystical ability to go into a trance and return with accurate illustrations. These are made into blueprints and then fake weapons; shown to the masses via faked videos of them having terrible effects on human-lookalike androids.

The fake-weapons are always something else that is either useful (e.g. a household artefact) or amusing (a game), and this is reverse engineered from the plans; and the technology is 'plowshared' (referencing the proverb about turning swords into plowshares) into these new devices.

This situation is destabilised by the appearance of insect-like alien slavers in satellites who are incrementally taking the population of the planet - when a real weapon is needed to defeat them. Since this is a PKD novel - we never actually encounter the aliens (their nature is inferred); and the 'action' of their destructive slave raids, and their eventual defeat, are described only indirectly - happening 'off-stage'.


The surprising twist is that this alien-defeating weapon turns-out not to be any kind of gun, but a maze game toy; a toy made by an animated figure in a maze who cannot ever escape.

The game player comes (by a telepathic empathic field) to identify with the creature in the toy maze; and with trying to help it escape this unsolvable, because pre-emptively shifting, maze. The earth maze toy was originally manufactured with only a mild empathic field, to function as an enjoyable, educative pastime.

But to make it a weapon, the strength of the empathic involvement is amped-up. The mazes are put into the possession of the alien creatures, who cannot resist trying-out the game, by which they are quickly trapped in the endless, changing loop or this artifical world from which escape is impossible. The invaders soon lapse into a cut-off, psychotic state; and the invasion is defeated.


This maze game now seems exactly like an allegory for the many hand-held 'entertainments' of recent decades, beginning with the 'Game Boy' devices in the 1980s, and culminating in the smart phone - by a process of empathic amplification...

But of course this was actually PKD using his own remarkable intuitive 'precog' abilities to foresee and describe how individually- and socially-lethal such technology could be in a spiritually-empty world that has no motivating values higher than personal comfort, convenience and distraction.

Much of my kind of blogging is a matter of pointing-out the obvious; the idea being that (at least for Modern Man) we need to be explicitly aware of that which is important - that it is not sufficient to operate on the basic of unconscious, unarticulated and implicit knowledge.

However, it seems pretty obvious that if this is indeed a creat-ed world; then it is one where God wants us to do most things for ourselves, and from ourselves. (That is how this world is set-up.) Learning which is merely passively-absorbed from other people, other sources, is not really the point.

So, unless (as RW Emerson correctly saw) we are stimulated to think for our-selves by it; reading generally does harm rather than good, even when what is said is true and well-motivated.


Such are these times. What good is done by pointing-out to people during many weeks of lockdown that they are now living under a totalitarian system of government?

If people confined to their houses for 23/24 hours for weeks on end, and who must daily engage with the mass media to be told of the latest (oscillating) change to the laws - if such people are not able to notice the fact from their own resources; then why try to impose this knowledge upon them by argument?

The same question on a civilizational scale arises when we try laboriously to demonstrate (perhaps with statistics!) that policy X (and Y and Z, simultaneously) will destroy our village, town, nation, civilization...

This stuff is typically blazingly obvious to the meanest intellect - and those who cannot see obvious harm, who indeed actively-deny and argue-against the obvious, do so because they desire that harm.

And that is the situation.

Nobody needs to be told that the changes of 2020 constitute totalitarian tyranny, which will lead to more bad things, because it is obvious; and when a person/ an institution/ a nation does not perceive the obvious, this situation is not helped by making it Even-More Obvious.


What must be addressed is that covert, implicit desire which underlies the denial and block.

I mean such desires as the widespread conviction of the futility of our actual, experienced life; and a hatred of that nation and civilization which imposes such a life upon us; and the inner blankness, fear and despair resulting from such convictions.

We would understand this if we observed it in animals kept in factory farm, zoo or laboratory conditions on an artificial and unnatural (increasingly artificial and unnatural) regime. When (despite plenty of food and comfortable shelter) such alienated and captive animals cease to reproduce and essentially Give-Up on living, we may be saddened but we are not surprised.

The fact that Modern Man has similarly Given-Up under conditions of ever-increasing phsyical, psychological and spiritual alienation, should likewise be easy to understand.


Modern Men are creatures that have Given-Up due to their alien environment; even worse, most of them have chosen to remain in this environment, to defend their environment against all substantive criticism, and to refuse to leave. To reason-with such confined and tamed creatures is futile; to inform them of the specifics of their dire situation is somewhat cruel.

What such creatures most need is to be shown someplace better to live and how to get there. As Christians we can try to do that - but that is all we can do.

We cannot make people want the better world, we cannot even make them pay attention for long enough to understand what is on offer...


In fact there is not much we can do!

But what little we can do - we should do. DO it, and then pass-on to continuing our primary work in this mortal life, which is ourselves to do exactly what we recommend to the lost souls.

Because the fact is that we ourselves are in a situation almost exactly as bad as the deluded Masses...

Just that We know why this is bad, that there really is somewhere Good where we aim to be; and that we know how to get there.

For us; knowing is Not the problem, but Doing.


In sum - our modern Western situation is indeed analogous to a wild animal in a factory farm, zoo or laboratory; but where the door to escape is open, and the animals could - if they turned and looked - see the world outside their captivity...

But some fear to leave their comfortable captivity, others find reality boring. Yet others among the confined creatures are so deep in despair that they prefer not even to look at the free and wild world outside, and assert it is just an hallucination, or a tormenting trick of their captors.

Ultimately, the captivity of Modern Man is self-chosen, self-imposed; which is why they cannot see the obvious.   


Thus they despair, and pine, and soon become extinct amidst material abundance; thus they insist upon doing-so; thus they hate those who clarify that all this is their own doing.

The situation is what Christians often call 'Sin'.

I have found extremely few people who share my conviction of the centrality of metaphysics in life! (Metaphysics being one's primary understanding of the basic nature of reality.)

For most people who can even bother to think about such matters for ten minutes (and these are extremely few!), metaphysics seems like almost the definition of that which is most remote and irrelevant to actual life. But to me, nothing is more relevant - and never a day - hardly a waking hour - passes in which I do not think about such matters.

The reason is that I see metaphysical assumptions behind almost everything of interest to me; and that I am continually aware that the basic understanding of others is nearly always very different from my own.

Here is an example (in italics; which I have edited for clarity and explicitness), from John Michell, at the end of his (excellent and inspiring!) book from 1990: New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury. :

One of the conventional symbols of earthly paradise is the union between two cities: the heavenly Jerusalem and the actual city of Jerusalem below. William Blake drew on that image in prophesying that the New Jerusalem would first become manifest in England... 

Plato was more practical-minded than Blake. His imaginary republic was based on the archetype of heavenly paradise, and from there he descended into the world of matter; interpreting the ideal in the form of a social order which he considered to be its best possible reflection. 

Due to its material nature, Plato's republic was necessarily structured, and was governed, by a code of laws. 

It was, as Plato admitted, a mere third-hand version of the ideal; for the original is the heavenly archetype, and its clearest secondhand reflection on earth is that primordial paradise remembered in the Garden of Eden [and substantially experienced by historical nomadic tribespeople...]

From this secondhand version of paradise we have long been barred due to the necessary inhibitions of civilization. 

Most people today enjoy the civilized state and its comforts, and therefore - like Plato - we are concerned in practice with the [third hand] reflection of paradise: a perfectly ordered, permanently settled human society. 

This is not the innocent paradise of Eden, but is the next best thing; and Plato promised that, if its standards were scrupulously maintained, it would be almost as good and long-lasting as the original.

Thus we have the original and best - because perfect, permanent and unchanging - reality located in the transcendental realm of spirit; and all possible earthly and material manifestations as symbolic, temporary secondary and symbolic.

We are removed a step further by 'civilization' - which constrains the originally natural and spontaneous order of Eden (approximated by nomadic hunter-gatherer life) into hierarchy and law: a system into-which individual humans must be conformed.

By my understanding; this Platonic metaphysics has been adopted by mainstream Christian theology; and its assumptions underpin the Christian churches from most of the earliest records - because the Christian churches were themselves of a civilized nature, secondary and symbolic, hierarchical and derived-from laws - and expressing Christianity in the form of hierarchy and law. 

In different words; this is an abstract metaphysics; in which reality is regarded as primarily spiritual and metaphysical. And so dominant is this way of thinking that few people can even imagine any alternative.

But that is the focus of my life work: I mean, to imagine and describe, and then to try and live-by, a different basic understanding of the nature of reality.

That is what I mean when I assert (over and again) the primacy of the Fourth Gospel, and emphasise that it embodies a profoundly, indeed qualitatively, different basic understanding of the nature of reality; and records this as being the teaching of Jesus.

This is the metaphysics in which Beings and their relationships are primary; reality is seen as developmental ('evolutionary'), with mortal life on earth as - not secondary, but a part of this primary reality.

Thus earthly material life is not secondary, nor is it ultimately abstract, nor symbolic; but part of a developmental 'process' (but 'process makes it too abstract) - a history of groth and development - which began before mortal life and continues after biological death.

And this very different metaphysics affects (or ought to affect, if believed and lived-by) pretty much everything that happens in every persons' life; in the most immediate and practical sense of transforming its meaning and relevance.

Tremendous post from Frank Berger today! Read the whole thing; but here are some choice snippets (lightly edited):

It's important to keep in mind that everything we are experiencing today in relation to the birdemic crisis is purposively designed to demoralize, depress, devitalize, destroy, and de-spirit in pursuit of one objective - damnation...


Our new totalitarian overlords want to break us because they want to break God. The campaign they have unleashed comes at us from multiple fronts and from every conceivable angle. It attacks the mind, restricts the body, and, most significantly tempts the soul.

What we are currently experiencing, ladies and gentlemen, is intense spiritual warfare...

This is what it looks like. This is what it feels like.


Our overlords have pressurized everything and they are working to make this pressure ubiquitous and inescapable. This relentless demonic pressure is our new normal. With it, they wish to make the pain threshold the sole measure of our existence.

How much can you take? How far are you willing to go? 

Everyone's got a breaking point. What's yours?


Energy and elevation is the natural default setting for all serious Christians. How can it not be? After all, consciously recognizing and freely accepting the Truth is an energizing and elevating metaphysical phenomenon - a metaphysical phenomenon the forces of darkness hate with their entire being. 

Is it any wonder that they seek to deaden this energy and prevent this elevation?


Whenever the demonic powers succeed in dragging us down, they succeed in dragging down the Divine... 

Whenever we succeed in energizing and elevating our state of existence, we succeed in energizing and elevating the Divine.

The response of the main Christian churches to the birdemic was to close churches and cease all sacraments, communal and personal ministry. In both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches of Britain, the Bishops agreed to shut-down without protest (but instead endorsement); indeed chose to impose (and continue to impose) greatly more extreme (and destructive) behavioural restrictions than even the government asked-of-them.

Thus Christianity - here and worldwide - has suffered the greatest destruction in its history; greatly accelerating the long-term process of secularisation driven on the one hand by corrupt, dishonest and anti-Christian leaders, and embraced by a majority of the laity.

The losers have been serious, devout Christians of all denominations.


But what should have happened? The church leaders should have objected to churches being closed and stopped from functioning; and should have made these objections clear to the laity.

They should have made clear that they complied unwillingly, and that serious Christians ought to be allowed to choose to continue worship, ritual, sacraments, group meetings and prayers - even if they believed that this increased their risk of illness.

The Christian leaders ought to have said that - for Christians - some things are infinitely more important than avoiding illness and/or death; and they and their churches ought to have been willing to accept the criticism and persecution that any such statement of principle/ desire/ intent would be likely to draw.

Among themselves, Christians would have made this clear in their interactions. That, for them, their faith was more important than issues of Health and Safety - and especially more important than the kind of dishonest, incompetent, incoherent, manipulative and counter-productive Fake Health and Safety rules that are imposed worldwide now (and, apparently - the intent is, forever).

But even if the rulers were honest and competent in pursuit of Healthism - impossible though that seems! - Christians would have been clear that this is Not the most important thing in life. Mortal life should be lived in the context of eternal life, not aiming primarily at extending our finite mortal life by a few days, weeks or years at any cost...  


If something like this had happened; at a stroke, suddenly, Christians would have become the bravest and most autonomous group in The West. Genuinely Radical. They would have become self-identified as people of conviction, principle, courage; who were prepared to put Love above fear - and live by it. Those capable of seeing this, would have had a Great Example. 


However, such a course of action was in fact not even considered and rejected; it was not even considered as a genuine possibility. It was not considered because the church leadership and mass of the Christian laity are corrupt hypocrites. That is now crystal clear.

Even worse - much worse - they are not even aware, indeed deny, that they are corrupt hypocrites. They continue to double-down on their corrupt cowardice and worldly enslavement.

Because Christianity is primarily a religion of repentance. Even if the church leaders and laity had, from fear of the birdemic, closed down and shut-up-shop but later repented; and spoken their repentance, made clear their regret, acknowledged their lack of conviction and courage - even this (so little and so late) would save them.

(Christ is always and infinitely merciful to those sinners who repent.) 


But there is no repentance visible - quite the opposite; and unrepentant evil has, as usual, led to further and greater evil - as with the current embrace of the extremity of explicitly evil, explicitly anti-Christian, anti-family,' antiracist' Establishment-sponsored terror and destruction.

Such is the extremity of unrepented evil in the Christian churches that they cannot even see The Problem with what they have done, what they are doing!

Such an extremity of widespread spiritual blindness is not excusable as ignorance, but it itself evidence of a controlling darkness and coldness of hearts that is so very common, so nearly universal, among self-identified Christians - and especially those in positions of power, high status and authority.

This is the lesson that serious Christians need to draw from what has happened, and is happening, in 2020.

People can believe almost anything, and any number of incompatible things, for their whole lives - when they are 1. dishonest, and 2. have a short attention span. That's most people - including nearly all intellectuals.

But there are deeper factors at work in my opinion. One is that modern people are different (innately) than people in the past. We nearly all start-out with direct personal experience of the spiritual world as young chidlren, but quite soon become detached from it; and must consciously choose whether to believe in the reality God and the spiritual in general, and then perhaps choose further to believe on Jesus Christ.

For us modern adults (and indeed older children and adolescents) theistic belief is not spontaneous, nor unconscious - and cannot (under recent social conditions) be imposed on us.

This fits with the heart of Christianity, which has always been supposed to be a conscious and free choice - but the purity of that teaching became contaminated by its adoption as a state religion and means of societal control (maybe that was necessary in the past, but those days are gone forever).

On top of all this, I am compelled to acknowledge that there seem to be a much higher proportion of unrepentant sinners born now than ever before; I mean the mass of people who do not acknowledge that they are sinners.

Most modern people are, in effect, psychopaths - whose basic set-up is evil.

Clearly that is encouraged from the top-down by the global, national and other leadership; but it could not be so widely and comprehesively be imposed (without any backlash) unless most people were pretty much that way inclined already.

Thus we live in the most sinful times ever known - sin being the state of turned-away-from God; working against God, The Good and Creation. So much so that the reality of God, creation, goodness and sin are all denied - and people are utterly unaware of their denial, and deny this fact - although in principle all-this can be known by anyone.

Christians are - and this is much more obvious now than six months ago - in a tiny and shrinking minority; and have been betrayed by the leadership of all the major churches.

The prospects of any institutional revival of Christianity are worse now than at any time since the day of the crucifixion. 

This is our situation, and it would be good to get used to it; and work from where we actually are.

Monotheists, who believe in a God who is the creator - often see no necessity for Jesus.

They assume that God is capable of anything that is possible; so Jesus cannot be necessary; because there is nothing for Jesus to do that God could not do.


This argument is based on the idea of God as defined by attributes, specifically abstract attributes (such as unity, omnipotence and omniscience). Such a conceptualised God is not a Being primarily.

But if we escape the paradoxes of abstract infinites, and instead examine what strict-unitary-monotheists promise to their believers; we will perceive that strict monotheists do not 'offer' what Christians offer.


Christians offer everlasting resurrected life in Heaven - that is, after biological death we remain our-selves, have eternal bodies, inhabit a world of love (and, I would argue, creativity - as 'Sons of God, thus collaborators with God) - and we live with other such persons.

To say that Jesus is necessary should - I think - be understood in terms of what Christians specifically offer - resurrection.


Thus, Jesus is not necessary for creation, but Jesus is necessary if we want to live everlastingly as resurrected selves in Heaven.

If - on the other hand - we do not want what Jesus offered, then Jesus does not have a necessary role!

Monotheists who do not aspire to take-up Jesus's offer of Heavenly resurrection, can therefore rationally assert that Jesus is not necessary (that Jesus was 'just' a prophet, a teacher, an exemplar or whatever).


By this line of reasoning, we can see that Christians are those people who assert that Jesus is necessary, because (in addition) Christians personally desire resurrected eternal life in Heaven - for which Jesus was, and is, required. 

I was pretty much a 'culture vulture' as a young man; which entailed gobbling-up the books, music, art, philosophy etc. that was regarded as canonical - or else, at least, 'relevant' and 'important' to my high-status contemporaries.

Overall, it was not good for me, and was a corrupting experience.

Because, on engaging with some artefact - for example watching a movie, or reading a novel, viewing some architecture - I would often feel a strongly negative impression being made upon me. I did not like the author, I was averse by what was being said, or the way it was being said. I felt badness...


On the one hand there was an apparent consensus of scholars and critics saying that This Is Good Stuff (even 'essential') - and on the other hand there was this hard-to-express feeling that this was Not Good, that it was of malign intent or effect...

So far as I remember, this intuitive feeling was always correct, and the impressions I got were valid; and sooner-or-later I would regret having 'given-myself' (by attention, concentration, and openness) to such and such a play, poem, philosophy, movie, artwork or whatever it might be.

Sooner-or-later I would need to dis-engage and un-learn; in order to escape from the distortion and corruption that had been seeded in me.


Maybe this is the proper and underlying source of the 'modern' way of skating-across and sampling the deluge of 'information' that comes to us each day? Perhaps what we are supposed to do is develop consciousness of these (maybe subtle, maybe fleeting) feelings of aversion (and the rarer opposite ones of validation and attraction) - and thereby be able to disengage immediately, before much harm is done?


This reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-described method of reading by skimming and homing-in on 'lustres. He warned against expending too much attention and effort on what we read; because most of it was not worth it; and also because the giving of oneself was stultifying to one's own creativity. Emerson said one ought to be reading mainly in order to 'start your own team' - that is: we should read (etc) in order to fuel our own creative activities.

Such practice leads-on-to a way of dealing with the mass media and the propaganda that cannot be avoided. Of course we should limit our exposure to it; but essentially media propaganda cannot nowadays be avoided - therefore perhaps we ought to engage with it in the skimming spirit recommended by Emerson?


And we should also develop our own awareness of these evaluative intuitions that so quickly (and reliably) arise from our true selves to tell us of the nature of what we are reading; tell us of its ultimate sources; tell us what side it is on?

This stance mostly works to unmask the foul intent behind fair words; but also may lead us to the (few) good people (i.e. people on the side of Good) who are nowadays seldom concentrated in any particular place; but who are thinly-distributed - and sometimes in unexpected places.

So many people are awaiting rescue. They hope and hope that a political party, or a leader, or a church, or a spiritual revival... will arise to save them.

Among Christians, people hope that their particular church will be cleansed of its dominant corruption (because they are all essentially corrupt now, at leadership level - as witnessed by support for their own indefinite lockdown and external control); or that there will be a new movement of highly spiritual, brave and motivated Christians that people can join.

The lesson of 2020 is that None of these will happen; no-body and no group will arise to rescue us from the lying totalitarian and insane evil that grows more dominant daily - with solid support from world and national governments, corporations, the mass media, law, schools and colleges, the police and military.


Brexit was an example. Most English people solidly want Brexit and have done so for decades; but four years after a much-delayed vote; nobody - no party, no person - will lead Britain out from the European Union.

Donald Trump is the most powerful man in the world, he was supposedly going to rescue Us from Them; but under his watch we have experienced the universal triumph of The Antichristian Left; an accomplished global totalitarian takeover; and ongoing international race-war escalation, with incremental cultural erasure.

These are the facts - whatever the explanation it is clear that nobody will save us; there will be no rescue. 


This is the nature of our situation. All people and institutions with power, influence, status, wealth - are corrupt and overall they are on the side of evil.

All Of Them.

Therefore none of them, and no selection-from them (like a new government) will rescue us.

2020 teaches us that any who claim that help will come from outside are wrong.


The lesson we are supposed to learn from 2020 is simple: that each person must cease to look to 'other people' for rescue and leadership; and must take individual, personal, freely-chosen and conscious responsibility for his own primary beliefs and assumptions.


The mainstream modern world is obviously a cult of mass damnation. If we go-along-with the mainstream, if we assimilate any of the prime assumptions of their ideology, then we are on the side of Satan. We now know that all the institutions have joined-with the forces of darkness.

If we try to vote our way out-of-trouble, we are on the side of Satan.

In general terms; if we choose to place ultimate authority in the hands of some other person, some institution, some church - we are on the side of Satan, and are embracing our own damnation.


But if we personally want salvation, if we want to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection and Heaven; then it is up to each of us individually to find it.

God our loving Heavenly Father is the creator; and therefore He is able and willing to ensure that every individual in the world always has what is needed for his own salvation; furthermore, the Holy Ghost is always and everywhere present to guide and comfort... 

If damnation is what you want - then fine. It has never been easier. If not; then you have no alternative but to take ultimate responsibility.


This is the lesson of 2020. The future of your soul depends on learning it.