Bruce Charlton's Notions

I have always (since age about 14) wanted a concertina, but instead I played different free-reed squeeze-boxes; the piano accordion because I could borrow one free from school; and later I got a melodeon, because it was similar to the accordion. 

And at the time when I was keenest to get a concertina - there were only available cheap semi-toys, and very expensive hand-made or refurbished antique instruments.  "Intermediate" quality concertinas - such as the one I just bought - either did not exist, or were inaccessible. 

You may think the melodeon experience ought to help me play the anglo-concertina because they are both push-pull instruments, giving a different note in and out - both use the same diatonic (major key) system of tuning of C and G rows (with assorted accidental notes in the third row to enable playing in some other keys). 

And indeed each concertina row of 10 buttons in C or G is the same as the 10 buttons in each row of my melodeon except being arranged with five buttons going up the left side, and down the right side of the concertina - as if the melodeon's right hand buttons had been folded over and cut in half! 

But I am actually rather intimidated by this little box! Because I have such a lot to un-learn - which is always much more difficult than merely learning. I am embarrassingly inept, considering the decades of similar experience. Everything I try to play - even the simplest scales or tunes - goes wrong...

It is already apparent that I will need to go right back to basics, and build a technique from the ground upwards. It's going to be a long-haul, no doubt. 

That is the challenge - my new quest. 

Maybe the most difficult challenge of living as a Romantic Christian is to bridge the gap between theory and practice. 

As Owen Barfield so often explained; by socialization, training and societal practice we all have deeply-ingrained habits of positivism/ materialism/ scientism/ reductionism (termed Residual Unresolved Positivism - RUP). 

Thus - while in theory I am confident that here-and-now, we live in an era of unprecedented spiritual warfare; where the powers of purposive evil are dominant in the world, and are engaged in a vast plan for corrupting the world to desire evil instead of Good - by the inversion of valuations of evil and Good... 

Nonetheless, the pressure of evil propaganda and practices is continuous and unrelenting and much of the time I fail to live-up-to my best understandings. 

As I say, all this I acknowledge in principle; and in principle I recognize that we should therefore be always alert to the spirit  and be aiming to keep the spiritual at the forefront of thinking and experiencing - yet in when it comes to daily functioning, I mostly fall back into going-along with the mainstream materialism/ positivism of explanations and understandings... 

This means that when something bad happens in my environment, or when I feel bad - all-too-often I spontaneously reach for material-causal explanations; and I strongly tend either to regard the spiritual as a secondary explanation (e.g. when material reasons do not suffice), or else I forget and neglect the spirit altogether.

Yet, surely, in 2022 especially, we ought to be considering spiritual explanations first? - and only when they do not seem to apply or suffice, then moving onto material explanations? 

If I am feeling bad in some way - demotivated, fatigued, in some kind of pain or dysphoric state - should I not immediately - and as a first-line - consider that this may be something like a manifestation of evil from myself, or an evil spiritual attack?

Should I not start my making a spiritual hypothesis for life's problems? 

(I mean, instead of jumping to explain my dysphoria or other problem by thinking first of physical or psychological sickness, or some environmental or political factor - or blaming other-people.)

This mini-insight came to me with an immediate power of intuitive conviction; and so far (when I have remembered to implement it!) I have found it to be astonishingly and rapidly effective in alleviating problems. 

As soon as I think something like - "Could this - now - be a spiritual phenomenon, caused by some spiritual problem?" I have sometimes found an instant clarification of spirit. 

This would fit with my (theoretical) conviction that the single most important thing we can do at present is to understand. 

Because that understanding is not merely theoretical but also effectual.

To understand-truly, is to fight the spiritual war; and sometimes to win it. 

I was browsing the Project Avalon Forum yestereve, looking at some threads concerning (a friend from the late 1970s) Bill Ryan, its founder. 

(Bill was the man who recommended and lent me Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - which had a big and positive effect through my early adulthood.)

In a thread; Bill discussed the idea that there were three kinds of people on the planet - a small minority of Good-affiliated/ 'awakened' people, a larger minority of those in service to the evil globalist establishment - these being the two sides in the spiritual war. 

And then there is the third group, by far the largest, the majority whom Bill jokingly termed Muggles. 

The perspective from which this three-part division was derived was broadly gnostic-Christian; in that it accorded a primary position to Christ, but in a philosophical framework derived from the dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library. 

This is not my own understanding - nonetheless, the simple division brought to mind this question of the spiritual status of the spirit-denying/ spiritually-insensitive Muggle majority - especially in this post-international-totalitarian era. 

The mass of Muggles are now on the side of Establishment evil. From the perspective of the Establishment the Muggles are functionally regarded as a mixture of useful-idiots and useless-eaters. 

The useful-idiot Muggles generate the wealth and do the work upon which the Establishment parasitize. The useless-eaters are regarded as a waste of resources; and the plan is to keep them docile in the short-term and eliminate them - as soon as (deniably) possible.

Spiritually speaking, however, it is the Muggles over whom the spiritual war is being fought. 

From my perspective; the awakening are the real Christian, who are 'saved' because they have decided (at least as-of-now, but this may change) to accept Jesus Christ's offer of resurrected eternal life - and who therefore the their lives in that context. They naturally want as many as possible of the Muggles to join them in Heaven, because the more (and more various) the inhabitants of Heaven - the bigger, and better - more loving and divinely-creative it will be. 

The Establishment want as many as possible of the Muggles to reject Heaven, to live and die in fear, resentment and despair; and therefore eventually to adopt the value inversions of purposive evil and affiliate against God and creation. 

Meanwhile, the Muggles become less and less spiritual, more and more mundane and materialistic in their perspective. Indeed the mainstream 'evil plan' seems to be that the Muggles will in the short-term regard themselves as purely material, and therefore become controllable by material manipulation - but once attained, they will be induced into an inversion of Christian spirituality, with an inverted value system which sees Heaven as evil, and will therefore (with open eyes) deliberately choose their own damnation. 

In other words - the two minorities are engaged in recruiting Muggles to their own sides; the difference being that (as of now) the evil side is doing so by pretending that there is no spiritual war, and that the sides are therefore purely material - ie. socio-political. 

This is Leftism in its many facets, which now wholly occupies all the mainstream of politics and public discourse. There is only leftism in mainstream public life - whether that Leftism self-labels as socialism, feminism, antiracism etc - or self-labels as conservative, republican, libertarian, fascist or whatever: all are Leftism, all just parts of the anti-God mundane-materialist ideology. 

Leftism is (in essence) the dominant Establishment anti-spiritual ideology for the Muggles; which opposed the (variously defined) 'awakened' real-Christian spiritualties on the side of God.  

I was interesting to see that Bill's positive suggestions were not all that different from mine - although differently conceptualized. He regards the main spiritual work as clear and true understanding of the situation in this mortal life on earth. 

And the 'method' for positively influencing Muggless being primarily that of 'morphic resonance' - by which is meant that true understanding and good intent in 'awakened' individuals will have a direct beneficial effect on the mass of individual Muggles - especially insofar as there is any serious intent to understand on the part of specific persons. 

In other words; although the awakened try to communicate truth and Goodness to other people by speaking, writing etc; the primary and most powerful way that things work is by a direct influence of a spiritual (invisible, imperceptible) kind. And some of the spiritual warfare is aimed at trying to disrupt such direct influence - eg by attacking the awakened via seeding confusion, spreading doubts of reality, and encouraging fearful-insecurity. 

In sum - I was surprised and pleased to find myself broadly on-the-same-side with Bill Ryan and the Project Avalon grouping - despite innumerable difference of understanding and tactics. And this was encouraging! If indeed such very different assumptions and methods can converge onto essentially the same set of basic 'answers' and attitudes, then 'we' are stronger than I had previously suspected. 

What was the effect of Jesus Christ on subsequent reality - his 'cosmic' effect on the world?

One way of thinking about this is that Jesus established Heaven (mad it happen) - by enabling resurrection to eternal life; and to examine the effect of Heaven on the totality of things. 

A consequence was that Heaven became a possibility for all Men. This potentially affects the life of every Man - but only if the possibility of Heaven is believed.

Once established, Heaven became inhabited by (more and more) ex-mortal Men. If we assume that those in Heaven are not cut-off from mortal Men; then there is a new potential for contact between the living and 'the dead' - between mortal and immortal Men. 

Furthermore, when Jesus ascended to Heaven, this made possible the Holy Ghost - to comfort and guide all Men. From that point, no Man (wherever, at whatever time) would ever need to be alone or cut adrift from the divine.

But Heaven also had a effect on the purposive powers of evil: on Satan, the demons and their servants and slaves among mortal Men. Because heaven represents an eternal and indestructible reminder of the ultimate defeat of evil - by those who desire its defeat. 

Heaven is an eternal escape from evil, a place without evil - so whatever may happen elsewhere, evil can never triumph fully or finally. 

This means that the motivation of beings of purposive evil can only be: 

1. For themselves, a continual and recurrent hardening of their will to reject Heaven - the continual and unending justification of this rejection and the seeking of c one after another temporary compensations. 

2. Externally - to manipulate other beings to reject the eternal offer of Heaven, and to do so fully and finally. This by asserting the attractions of sin; such that sin becomes the core focus of life, and the elimination of sin a thing to be avoided at any cost. 

The last point I will mention is that after Heaven came into existence, then Men could potentially have glimpses of Heaven - and if they then came to desire Heaven for themselves, then this desire might permeate their mortal lives. 

I have often said that motivation is what is decisively lacking in modern (post-Christian, post-religious, post-spiritual, materialistic) Men; and (e.g. this morning) I inferred that the search for motivation is therefore one of the most urgent of all imperatives. 

But people often have the wrong idea about what it would be like to discover a strong and deep motivation appropriate to these times. They tend to seek an overpowering motivation - that is, they test the authenticity of a motivation by the evaluation that it is irresistible. 

I regard this as a mistake; because for Men to want this is (I infer) a covert wish to have motivation taken-from them. They want Not to have to think-about motivation, not to have to make a conscious choice. 

In other words, to seek to be overpowered is to seek the avoidance of responsibility ("I can't help myself, it is irresistible!").   

What is instead needed is a motivation that we recognize and can affirm (de profundis - from the depths) to be primary, core to our highest aspirations, and the bottom-line for how we ought to be. 

Thus we would not be overpowered; but we would acknowledge that this motivation is real/ true/ beautiful - and in general Good - and feel this as deeply and solidly as we know. 

Such a motivation need not be observed (not necessarily read, heard or seen) it may simply "come to us" or "strike us" as a thing directly-known, Just Known. 

And then consciously chosen. 

I hope this may be helpful in knowing what to look-for - and when you have found it. 

Steven Smith just after being hit in the neck by a fast bowler

In cricket, the bowler should not be allowed to target the batsman's head. 

This really ought to be common sense, because a high speed hard leather cricket ball can cause severe, permanent, or even lethal damage. But a practice has grown-up which allows this to some extent in some forms of cricket; because it can be very exciting for the spectators. 

In the longer forms of the game, even a very fast bowler is allowed to bowl at the batsman's head or neck - so long as the ball bounces first. 

(Bowling that arrives above shoulder height has usually not been permitted in the one-day types of cricket, or has been strictly limited. But not for safety reasons but because when a ball is very high it is difficult to score from.)

The problem of this kind of delivery was highlighted when the Australian batsman Philip Hughes was killed in 2014 by a ball which struck his neck and broke an artery. Hughes died soon afterwards. 

But the damage of being hit in the head or face may be more subtle. 

Edited from an article by Jarrod Kimber:

There was a five-year period from September 2014 where [Steve] Smith averaged 96.2 against seam bowling (with a minimum of 1000 runs in that period). The next best was Kane Williamson, averaging 55.8. Smith was nearly double his nearest contemporary. 

He transformed from a part-time legspinner who Ricky Ponting didn't think could be a top-six player, into the greatest modern batter, and not even by a little bit; the runs he scored were incredible. Making a hundred every 2.1 Tests. His overall average in that period was 78.7. Eight scores over 150. The whole thing was crazy. 

[And then Jofra Archer hit him on the neck, and things changed...]

Since September 2019, Smith has averaged 40 in Tests, which in recent times is not terrible. It is only terrible for him because he was so much better than anyone else... 

Kimber does not mention even the possibility that being hit on the neck by Jofra Archer produced lasting physical damage, and was potentially the main factor in impairing Steve Smith's batting ability over the past two years - yet surely that is an obvious possibility?

After being struck, Smith was clearly dazed and had to retire for a while; and when he later returned to bat (which - medically speaking - he certainly should not have been allowed to do) he seemed functionally impaired in his behaviour. 

Smith then had prolonged concussion reported lasting several days, with measured mental impairment; and he had to miss the next Test match. Since then, he has 'never been the same'...

Since Smith continues to average about 40 runs per innings, which is good, we are not talking about a gross impairment. But compared with his almost superhuman abilities before that concussion; it could be that there was some subtle and lasting damage to nerves or brain, which has been sufficient to reduce his ability from incredible to just very good. 

There are also other examples of batters who were 'never the same again' after being hit in the head or neck by fast bowling - Jimmy Adams, captain of the West Indies, was hit in the face (causing broken bones) and went from being the top-rated Test Match batsman in the world to relative mediocrity. 

Cricket writers always attribute the lasting effect of being hit in the head/ neck to 'psychology'; to a loss of 'confidence', a failure of nerve; but that is not a legitimate inference when there is a possibility that there has been permanent physical damage. 

Maybe the degree of harm would not be noticeable in a normal person, or even a normally-competent batter - but at the very highest level of human physical attainment, among the very best sportsmen - even a little neural damage may be enough to take the edge off reaction times and/or coordination - to reduce ability from the very best to... just okay. 

In other words, I suspect that the amount and duration of damage to a batsman from being hit in the face or neck has been seriously underestimated - because the possibility of permanent neurological harm from this kind of injury has not even been considered. 

Of course, accidents will continue to happen. For instance, sometimes a batter gets hit on the head because he accidentally ducks into a waist high ball. But the potential for permanent physical harm can certainly be reduced by making it illegal to deliver the cricket ball to arrive above the shoulder. This would stop such bowling being used as a deliberate strategy. 

It must be acknowledged that such a change would have an effect of making an aspect of Test cricket less exciting. Some of the great and memorable 'duels' of Test Match cricket involved a fast bowler targeting the head, and the batter fighting him off. The 2019 Smith Archer duel was one of these. 

But, Roman gladiators fighting and killing each other were doubtless even more exciting... 

In the end, cricket ought to be a game of skill primarily; rather than a 'life or death' struggle not to be smashed in the face or on the neck by a hard leather sphere travelling at 90-plus mph. 

It is supposed to be an innately Good Thing to give money (or time and labour) To Charity - but no activity is intrinsically Good - and in a totalitarian evil world all charities are conformed to that evil. 

I used to keep searching around for a charity that was not operating in net-support of the global agenda of evil. I sometimes thought I had found one or a few. But over the years all of these have serially been revealed as merely less-evil than average - yet qualitatively still motivated by the prevalent evil motivations; for example as revealed by the 2020 Litmus Tests. 

This ought not to be surprising, because charities are institutions, and all institutions are now linked to the global bureaucracy by many links (e.g. legal, financial etc.). All bureaucracy is intrinsically evil; and the global bureaucracy is the primary instrument by which evil attitudes are encouraged, Big Lies are disseminated, and evil actions are implemented by rewards and sanctions. 

(...Because although no action is intrinsically Good - in practice some actions - such as the classic sins - are strongly-likely to induce evil. As so often the situation is asymmetrical. On the side of Good motivations are primary; but Good may be opposed by many things; including, but not restricted to, motivations. For instance the beauty of some aspect of divine creation may be destroyed, and this destruction may be done without the motivation to destroy divine creation - and yet such destruction is still an evil.) 

So charities are evil; and, since 2020, even 'church charities' - as is clear if you read the boastful lists of "good works" that churches claim to have done - many of these are actually evil-works, and an organization that does evil-works when claiming these to be good is on the side of evil.  

This is not a difficult discernment! 

...Yet people allow themselves to be confused (fatally) by what charities (and churches) used-to-be; rather than noticing the obviousness of what charities (and churches) actually are, here-and-now. 

Of course this is yet another personal loss from the possibilities of life. (That's what evil does when triumphant!) 

Much of human gratification used to come from working with people in good causes; and from the sense of solidarity which brings security. These are things that we are now called-upon to do-without - if we are to remain on the side of God, divine creation and Jesus Christ. 

With The System now under the thumb of Satan, and with the infection of evil spreading perceptibly; only that which is outwith The System may be Good - and the need for discernment never sleeps.

Of course, all sins and evil we may do may be cancelled by repentance - that is a great gift of Jesus Christ. But repentance requires that we repent! 

Which means we need to recognize evil, and recognize evil as evil - then reject it as such.  

The continual difficulty is that we all must engage-with evil in the Systems of this world if we are not to die - now including charities, now including church charities. 

Therefore - to stay alive while avoiding self-chosen damnation, we need to avoid being seduced into cozy assumptions that any organization or activity is intrinsically Good. 

There will be some Good in any institution - but we personally can only do net-Good via a charity when we recognize that 'the institution itself' - in its bureaucratic character - is motivated by evil. 

There is a truly Romantic spirit which I value supremely when I find it; which is seldom, including very rare instances in myself. 

We are, apparently, trapped by deep habits, fears and a kind of sheer incompetence; and therefore find it extremely (sometimes impossibly) difficult to be what we most desire to be; to express what we most desire to express. 

The true Romanticism can be found only seldom - for example in some of William Blake's aphorisms and short lyrics, but not in his long poems or most of the rest of his oeuvre. 

By the strictest standards; I cannot find Romanticism realized anywhere in Coleridge, although Coleridge knew it, understood it, and sought it; and much the same applies to Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield and CS Lewis. All wrote about it, with great insight and value; but did not themselves embody it in their writings. 

But writing about Romanticism - including that 'writing about' which is the use of allegory (as with Blake's prophetic works, or some of Barfield's and CSL's stories) - is not the thing itself. 

What is meant is being referred-to, but the actuality is not embodied in the writing.

What I am saying is that nearly all writers, in their writing, keep a distance from actual Romanticism: the distance of scholarship, allegory, facetiousness or irony. 

Yet True Romanticism can be found in writings; sometimes in obscure authors like William Arkle; but supremely in JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings - which is, I think, why this work holds its unique and elevated position. 

Tolkien, here and there - but more often than anybody I know - gives expression to the fullest and truest Romanticism; and in a way that is highly accessible, and easier to appreciate than any other. 

This was only possible because Tolkien was himself a Romantic, but then again so were CS Lewis, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams - yet none of these managed to get past the barriers to its expression in the way that Tolkien did. 

What I mean by Romanticism, and how it is nearly always blocked, can be seen in The Notion Club Papers (NCPs). In broad terms, this incomplete and posthumously published novel represents an Inklings-based group that is able to break through the crust of convention and constraint to achieve a fully expressed Romanticism.

The NCPs begins with superficial and facetious interaction between its members; a jokey and cynical conversational style of a kind familiar to any English person of the professional classes. This is one type of defensiveness, and it absolutely blocks Romanticism. 

Another defensiveness is of conventional values - such as 'scholarship' or 'science' when these are regarded in a consensus fashion. Such conversation serves to suppress individual discernment and creation by a kind of implicit threat related to pointing out its transgression from the group norms; norms that provide coherence and power. 

The idea is that group members should fear going beyond the group-approved forms and content, and the fear is of being singled out, stripped of status, and scapegoated, ridiculed, demonized. Such external control may be done with a light touch, ambiguously and deniably; but the message is transmitted nonetheless - and there are few who resist it and none who are unaware of the implications. 

So fear is one reason; but also people just don't know how. 

Some people are drawn to Romanticism, and are aware that indirect references to the Romantic are not enough - but instead only succeed in emoting. Instead of Romanticism there are just strong and merely-subjective feelings.

The truly Romantic must be transcendent, must embody the divinely creative - directly apprehended; whereas emotions and feelings as-such are merely animal responses to the environment or to inner body states. To rant and rave - to free associate or let-rip - is not of any transcendental value. 

Thus the literature of the Beats, Hippies, Sixties Counterculture and New Age is almost wholly worthless from a truly Romantic perspective of written-expression. It may be based upon an accurate diagnosis of the problem, but is profoundly wrong in assuming that liberating the id or collective unconscious is a solution. 

To try and suppress human consciousness, delete the self or ego; and assimilate to the un-conscious or 'liberate' the 'instinctive' is not to solve the problem of alienation of Men. It is merely to crave oblivion - to aspire to cease being a Man - to regress Man towards the animal.   

It is easy to say what Not to do, to describe the pitfalls in various direction; but there is no formula for what to do instead - which is why it is so rarely achieved. 

Nonetheless, the matter can be illustrated, and it has been illustrated in the Notion Club Papers. What happens at times through the accounts of the Notion Club; is that the conversation is able to escape from facetious joking, or mere description, and attain a truly Romantic level that transcends all the pitfalls. We are actually shown what this would be like. 

The NCPs begin with the club responding to a story by Ramer - and for some pages the response is merely superficial - full of 'joshing' - mostly good natured, sometimes rather pointed. Some characters (such as Lowdham) adopt a cynical attitude, repeatedly trying to bring the conversation 'down to earth' in an irritating fashion.

It later emerges that this is a defensive posture by Lowdham who is (fearfully) attempting to hold-back an almost-overwhelmingly powerful Romanticism in himself; but at first he is the worst representative among an unserious tendency in the group. 

At the other extreme is Jeremy, who is always earnest and never even tries to be witty; indeed he seems to be regarded as something of the butt of group (to be 'shot at' with barbed quips; as being younger, and seemingly more naively enthusiastic). Yet he is in reality the conscience of the Notion Club. 

Jeremy goes on to say some of the most profound and important things in the NCPs; and (surprisingly) joins-up with the rambunctious Lowdham to make a complementary team; who whole-heartedly seek to experience the fullest possible Romantic contact with providence and the divine.  

It takes several pages of merely scholarly and jocular talk; but the NCP discussion becomes more serious rather suddenly when Guildford says the word 'Incarnation' as his suggested 'method' for space (and indeed time) travel. 

Although the intended meaning of the word incarnation is never given a satisfactory explanation in the NCPs, it can be inferred from usage and context that what it partly means is a kind of reincarnation involving mind-to-mind connection - whereby a modern person has (or develops) the ability to experience events in the past that were experienced by his hereditary ancestors. 

Hereditary - but not by a genetic mechanism, but really more a matter of spiritual ancestry: the sharing of a spiritual orientation across (perhaps) very-many generations. 

Specific heredity emerges later in the NCPs when Lowdham and Jeremy become - for a while - 'possessed' by former identities of men in Numenor during the lead-up-to and events of that lands cataclysmic (literally world changing) drowning. 

They become able to speak the Numenorean languages, and re-enact some of the ancient events - and in doing so they apparently create a 'cannel' by which the actual Numenorean storm breaks-through into modern England to wreak considerable havoc. 

This carefully-prepared direct mind-to-mind human connection - which has an implicitly general and providential aspect, never explained in the surviving fragments of the NCPs - is an actual expression of Romanticism in the text.  

But in this early stage of the NCPs the main Romantic protagonist is Ramer; who has - it gradually emerges - succeeded in travelling both in space and time; but without any reference to either incarnation or reincarnation. Instead Ramer seems to have developed a way of attuning his mind to non-organic 'things' - such as a meteorite. 

Ramer was eventually able to re-experience the 'life' of this meteorite from its remote origins buried in some remote celestial object, through its journey through space and the eventual burning entry through earth's atmosphere. 

It seems that by Incarnation, Tolkien may intend also to include this implicit 'animism'; a living universe whereby there are no 'things' but only 'beings' - and whereby 'inorganic'/ mineral entities are possessed of memory and consciousness of a type.

This is an aspect of Romanticism that recalls the consciousness of ancient tribal Man and the early childhood of every Man; and it recurs whenever the perspective reaches its strongest expression. 

Thus Ramer can commune-with (and participate-in the consciousness of) a rock; much as Lowdham is able to do with his remote Numenorean ancestor -- and also his more recent Anglo-Saxon ancestors of Mercia; which 'inheritance' is the posited mechanism by which he spontaneously knew this language. 

(It seems, from multiple comments in his letters and private conversation, that this spontaneously knowledge of Mercian Old English also applied to Tolkien himself.) 

(Note: There are many other examples of such 'animism' - communing with living, conscious realities in non-human animals, plants and minerals - all-through The Lord of the Rings.) 

It is by this means of fiction - but fiction-presented-as-real - that JRR Tolkien was able to express True Romanticism. How he did this is ultimately a matter of genius - coming from the divine creativity innate in all Men to some degree; and Tolkien in this particular fashion. 

If Tolkien had not himself regarded his fictions as really-real, and been writing from the heart; then there would have been nothing real for him to communicate. 

But Tolkien also achieved this rare literary feat by his careful and rigorous techniques of framing the fictions in a quasi historical fashion (for the NCPs by means of the Foreword; in LotR by the Prologue and Appendices), of creating a fictive-sense of depth by reference to untold stories and hinted back-histories; and in the Notion Club Papers by a gradual ascent from the mundane chit-chat at the beginning to the fullness of sincere, unguarded, heart-felt Romantic interaction among club members in later passages. 

I see a lot of complaints (from both sides of the issues) against divisive rhetoric from those in power: the kind of rhetoric that demonizes those who oppose and disagree. 

This seems to be escalating over time; with any-and-all those who oppose whatever-is-today's mainstream plans of the birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate-warmism, trans-agenda... whatever; declared to be terroristic, conspiratorial, evil-motivated etc.

This is done to justify ever more extreme sanctions; and to compel spiritual compliance with the agenda of evil*.  

But - as so often - the Left are not wrong concerning the reality of division, demonism and strategic evil.

The division is real, but the Left are practicing that value-inversion which is characteristic of the most extreme version of genuine evil. 

The most extreme submission to evil is that which inverts Good and evil. Thus virtue and vice, beauty and ugliness, truth and lies, harmony and chaos are all swapped and relabeled. 

The division is real because the world is divided between those on the side of God, divine creation and The Good - and those who are on the side which opposes these. And these sides are indeed getting ever further apart   

So one thing the Leftist Totalitarian Establishment are absolutely 100 percent correct about is that this is a divided world. This is a major (perhaps The major) fact of these times. 

And the Establishment are also correct to demonize one of the sides of this division; because one of the sides is quite literally in service to actual demons. 

And the division is widening, with no grey area between the sides; exactly because evil is feeding-off itself and becoming more evil. 

So the Globalist Leftist Establishment are quite correct in their formal characterization of the situation in the world today - they are right to demonize one of the sides; and the 'only' big thing they get wrong is which side is which: which side is Good, and which side is demonic! 

And the only people who are completely wrong are 'moderate', decent, sensible folk who deny the reality of value division, deny the separation of Good and evil sides; and who preach for de-escalation of rhetoric, polite manners, compromise and reconciliation! 

Those who refuse to choose Good or evil sides, by denying that there are sides; by denying that there truly is purposive evil in this mortal world!

These are the self-blinded and the zombie-minded who have incrementally sleepwalked themselves into demonic servitude; and who are by-now so corrupted that they have not even noticed the fact!

*Note added. Of course I do not approve of the threatening aspect of the divisive rhetoric, directed at me and others on the side of God - but it is to be expected when the world is ruled by actively-evil beings. Such persons will naturally compound the primary evil of value-inversion with (as many as possible) further evils of untruthfulness, spite, sadism, fear-mongering, resentment-fomenting, despair-encouraging etc. 

The Great Reset/ Agenda 2020 is the totalitarian Global Establishment strategy for a world of omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

Almost certainly, this was never a realistic possibility (at least not in the medium term of more than a few years); due to lack of motivated and competent personnel and the decline in technological efficiency and effectiveness. 

Also, the active resistance to the post 2020 measures - although late and modest - has still been sufficient to halt or somewhat roll-back the intended stepwise implementation of social separation, confinement, dehumanization and mass drugging. 

But whatever the reasons - The Great Reset looks less and less possible with every passing week. The Black Iron Prison Planet has started crumbling before it was even half-built. 

Instead the birdemic (and other leftist) measures are generating a cumulative chaos that seems to be approaching the positive feedback state of accelerating and irreversible global collapse - of a kind and on a scale qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, unprecedented in world history (unless we take Noah's Flood literally).

In other words, I see a confirmation of my (modest) prediction that Ahrimanic/ bureaucratic type of 'lawful' and semi-constructive evil will inevitably and unstoppably lead-on to purely negative Sorathic/ spiteful evil; that the vision of convergence onto centralized global control will give way to a world of dissipative chaos - of endemic violence, rampant disease and starvation. 

This will happen if (when) the highest level of the totalitarian System switches from overall trying to control everything, towards seeding chaos; from trying to construct a System of total oppression, towards trying to net-destroy The System. 

Instead of a world of slaves manipulated by a handful of masters; they will start to desire and implement a world of torment inflicted by a handful of torturers. 

So long as evil rules this mortal world, control-to-chaos seems like an inevitable 'progression' - because evil is not static but feeds-upon itself. 

This innate degeneration towards greater evil can only be countered by those who want Good - which means those who love God, and have taken the side of divine creation. 

Good can only come from good-motivations; so that those who desire merely to resist control and smash The System - and whose motivations for doing-so are anything-other-than God/ The Good/ Divine Creation - will only be swapping a lesser for a greater form of evil.

This because they are not truly resisting evil; but are instead motivated by resisting constraints upon their own short-term pleasures. 

Good outcomes can only come-from good motivations; yet no Man can calculate how much good our loving God can generate from Men who are on his side, and who serve the divine agenda. 

Therefore, no matter what the state of the world is, and what is may become; whatever the balance of control versus chaos; our path is crystal clear and blazingly obvious.

That path is to discern and to choose the side of Good; and to serve it as best we may - in both spirit and with will... 

And the plans, practicalities and needful actions will follow afterwards; in accordance with God's providence.  

One of the most significant - and almost-never asked - questions about real science is: where do the new good ideas come from? 

Anyone can 'generate' new but false hypotheses - but where do the new and true hypotheses come from?

This key question has been obscured by several generations of focusing on the supposed ability of 'scientific method' (there is no such thing) to disprove false ideas. 

In other words, the ways of explaining science posit a double-negative method of eliminating-false ideas. 

But even if there was a method for disproving false ideas (and the history of science, of actual major scientific breakthroughs) suggests that there is no such method) that would not serve to do anything at all to generate the true ideas - the ones that are either confirmed by further observations and/or not-rejected by further testing.  

This is because the explanations of the value and validity of science are typically derived from within the basic (metaphysical) assumptions of science-in-general (or else some specific branch of science). 

Whereas in the first place this is an intrinsically invalid way of validating! - because there is no way that scientific research done on the assumption that the assumptions of science are correct, could ever validate the assumptions under which the science was done! 

One cannot simultaneously assume that assumptions are true, and also test those assumptions! 

But - although not a valid way of reasoning - this way of discussing science using scientific assumptions can indeed provide a coherent pseudo-explanation of how it is that false ideas get rejected; yet it does not even begin to touch the primary problem of where not-false ('true') ideas might come-from... 

Because, on the one hand there are an 'infinite' number of false ideas that might be proposed (and these might even be 'randomly generated' by a mechanical process of combination, extrapolation and interpolation of already-existing ideas. 

However, there is no imaginable way in which the one true idea could be found from among this infinite number of false ideas.

And even so this suggestion requires that already-exiting ideas already exist! Yet these need to have come from somewhere. So double-negative theories are often no more than kicking-the-can - leaving untouched the primary problem of where good ideas come from.

In other words; if a true idea is the needle, then there is a haystack of false ideas of limitlessly-vast size that would need to be searched in order to find that needle. 

Yet true ideas have-been found! 

Therefore, any hypothetical double-negative method of finding true ideas cannot suffice. 

What this argument tells us is that there must be a positive method for finding true ideas in science; and the history of science tells us that some of these true ideas have been substantially counter-intuitive, unnatural, non-obvious - as evidence by the fact that many decades, centuries or even millennia have elapsed before these true ideas were discovered.

Where does the needle come from? - or, if the good-idea needle is made up of component good ideas, then where did these components come-from? 

A valid and coherent positive answer to the question of where good scientific ideas come from also explains why such answers have been ruled-out; and the primary question buried by distracting and inadequate secondary theories of a double-negative type.   

The answer to where the good ideas come from is one that takes us out of science - as is indeed logically necessary - and into the realm of transcendental values: the realm of ultimate truth, beauty and virtue; but here (in science) with the emphasis on truth. 

And this is a spiritual-religious question: the matter of the nature of truth, beauty and virtue. We are not just asking about how Men can know transcendental truth when presented with it - which is a secondary question... 

What we are really asking is along the lines of: how can Men generate new transcendental truths? 

The generation of transcendental truth is necessary for science, but is not restricted to science; it encompasses all truths of all kinds. 

The origin of scientific truth is therefore seen to be a specific instance of the general matter of Man's capacity to discover any truth about any thing; when that truth is not already accessible and Man must create that truth. 

Creation! And with creation we have finally reached our destination; we have reached the bottom-line of explanation.

The discovery or invention of new and true ideas is a type of creation; and the matter of new good ideas in science can only be addressed within a framework in which creation is real, and also possible to Men.   

We arrive at an understanding of Men that must account for individual Men operating as genuine creators; in a sense that is associated with the attributes of a god. That is a generative source of creation, a source that does not depend entirely upon inputs for its output. A source that can make something new which is not merely caused by prior inputs...

Thus we arrive at a conceptualization of the creativity of real science as necessarily part of a theistic world view.  

Far from science being opposed to 'religion' or excluding 'god' - it turns-out that the reality of scientific discovery depends on the reality of god. 

Interesting, that - isn't it? And it suggests an immediate reason why real science has disappeared (to be replaced by bureaucracy) except as a rare, individual and amateur activity. 

As god has been deleted from public discourse - so has science... 

And so have all genuinely-creative human activities - as described by the term genius. (Whether in science, the arts, philosophy or anywhere.)

An age which genuinely, as a matter of assumption, denies god; is also necessarily an age that has destroyed its capacity for generating the new good ideas that are the basis of creative science; and indeed where real science of any kind is impossible; and indeed where real truth of any kind is impossible - and where real beauty and virtue are also impossible. 

(This is the nature of The System.) 

Truth is now lost... just like that needle, buried somewhere in the limitless haystack of error and falsehood. 

**

Note added: It took me a (worryingly?) long time to reach the above conclusion; having to un-learn so much conventional wisdom first. I eventually did so in course of writing my last significant scientific publication - although now I would take the argument even further in the same general direction. 

I have been pondering the nature of Time - mostly because I regard the ways that it is talked about (perhaps especially by religious writers) as wrong. 

I've been thinking about Time, on and off, for the past twenty years; but I have become aware that the root of the problem lies in trying to separate Time as a separate concept. 

Once Time has been detached from life and consciousness, then it become an unreal and misleading abstract model. 

Like all abstractions and models, Time is necessarily a partial and distorted description of reality - yet Time is often used as a fundamental metaphysical assumption in theology and philosophy - from-which is built systems of understanding. 

And when that happens (and it has been happening since the ancient Greeks) Time starts to seem very strange and counter-intuitive we get the familiar paradoxes and weird-nesses of Time... from Zeno's paradoxes, or Boethius's meditations on God's omniscience, onward.

My conclusion is that Time is not a separate or separable concept from its integration into Beings - into life and consciousness. Life and consciousness are 'process-like, dynamic phenomena - and therefore they necessarily include Time. 

Other elements in-which Time is included are creation and developmental evolution. Since I regard Being, life, consciousness, creation and development to be fundamental metaphysical concepts that explain reality; it can be seen that Time is itself so fundamental as to be inextricable - a part of the unfolding nature of reality. 

One aspect of Time - considered  is its 'irreversibility' or 'directionality' - this again is part of the fundamental concepts; and (apparently, at a common sense level) of the Christian religion, and the fact of Jesus Christ having been born at a particular historical location and having made a permanent and cosmic difference to reality. 

Therefore, if we start messing about with Time (and then believing our messings-about!), it leads to all kinds of deep (and ineradicable) problems - including with Christianity. So beware!

In a nutshell; I think our understanding of Time ought to reflect how it is a part of these deep and spontaneous way of understanding - the understanding ought to 'work' in terms of what is common, normal, usual, solidly established. 

But how to explain some of the uncommon, unusual and controversial assertions that seem to be related to time - such as precognition, or accurate prediction. These are often said to reveal that the future already exists in some way. 

Yet such explanations are ruled-out if we regard Time is inextricably bound-up in the most basic metaphysical phenomena (life, consciousness, creation etc.). 

This means that we simply cannot be allowed to detach, abstract and model Time as a putative explanation for observations. 

Instead, I think we should focus on experiencing and knowing rather than time as possible explanations for phenomena such as precognition, or the apparent ability to live in the past. Better explanations can be devised when we have an expanded conceptualization of how it is we can know things, and in particular the possibility of directly sharing in the consciousness of other beings. 

If the world is regarded as consisting of beings, which are eternal; and that there are ways in which beings can think the same thoughts  then we have a way in which strange and unusual knowledge and experiences could in principle arise. 

For example, beings include those who are remote, and those who have died - and therefore with a tremendously wide range of knowledge and experiences (from current and past times, and in many places) that might potentially be shared by another-individual's consciousness. 

In other words; I think we should take a straightforward and commonsense view of Time - and eschew separating it and preforming abstract modelling of Time's supposed properties; and 'instead; adopt a greatly expanded understanding of the possibilities of human experience and knowing of a direct, unmediated, kind. 

Every person who - for a while - succeeds in thinking/ being outside of The System becomes (for that time) an instrument of divine providence.

The above is a sentence I wrote in the comments yesterday, a kind of credo for what I term Creative Providence; which was then highlighted and expanded by Francis Berger. 

Here is a bit more in the way of clarification...  

Creative Providence = the belief that all our personal acts which are in accordance with divine-will are taken-up by God into ongoing and eternal creation. 

Therefore, Creative Providence is a metaphysical perspective* that acknowledges both the validity and potential of our mortal life; and the supremacy for the divine and eternal. 

It is rooted in an understanding of divine creation as ongoing and developmental (rather than once-for-all and fixed); and participatory between God (primarily) and Men (secondarily, within primary creation). 

In contrast is Fatalism. Fatalism = the conviction that God's plans unroll indifferently to any-thing - positive or negative - that we might personally think or do. 

Fatalism is the common basis of most theorized traditional religions throughout history and still today (although it is now, apparently, seldom believed with conviction). 

Fatalism gives all value and significance to the divine and eternal; rendering our mortal lives irrelevant and futile. 

Planning = the conviction that my best future entails forming and sticking-to explicit strategies. This is the ruling assumption in the modern world. 

Planning does the opposite of Fatalism; by excluding (as false) the divine and eternal; and asserting that our lives are bounded by conception and death. 

Mortal life is all that is - for us. For us... but significant only during our lifespan and without intrinsic significance for others. 

Lacking intrinsic significance; the only significance of our mortal life is in terms of the consequences for other people's mortal lives - yet the lives of others also lack any intrinsic significance.

Therefore Planning shares with Fatalism the conviction that our mortal life is Irrelevant and Futile - but for Planning our life is I&F because it is all there is yet lacks intrinsic significance; rather than mortal life being irrelevant for Fatalism for the opposite reason: i.e. because only the divine and eternal really matter. 

I have come to the conclusion that only something-like the metaphysics of Creative Providence is able to 'do the job' of explaining why our mortal life is genuinely significant - and can therefore explain why there is any such thing as the mortal life of Men. 

Note: Metaphysics is the philosophy (and/or theology) concerned with describing the ultimate nature of reality. Metaphysics is not itself that ultimate reality - but is the description of it, a 'model' of ultimate reality. Therefore all metaphysics is necessarily partial and distorted hence false if taken literally. The truth is known only directly, unmediated, without language. But to communicate the truth about ultimate reality entails metaphysics; so it is the most profound type of description.