Bruce Charlton's Notions

From Philip K Dick: 

The cyclic repetition which takes place in the Mass governs also the concept of why the Mass is spoken and what it is about. 

Our God died, and was buried (gone), but then He returned. 

So saying, the priest therewith becomes Christ, proving the authenticity, the rightness, of the whole religion and the whole service...

It is as if each time the Mass (or Last Supper, 'in remembrance of Me') was secretly celebrated by the early Christians, they got to unfold their miracle, about Jesus, for their own eyes alone, invisible to the (Roman-secular) world...

I can imagine the impact in the early days of the 'fish' Christians when they gathered in stealth to perform the feast of agape. 

New people who had never known Jesus, could be brought in one by one, and this shown to them. 

Suddenly he would be there! Only not as a mortal but in his Transformed state... 

He would be all through them, the celebrants. "Time would be abnegated". 

Excerpted and edited from 5:127 of Exegesis (2011) by Philip K Dick. 

The above is Philip K Dick's imagined account of the effect of the Mass among the earliest church Christians. 

I find it broadly very plausible as an account of how Men of that era - with the consciousness of that era - would have experienced this ritual-ceremony: i.e. as an overwhelmingly powerful re-living of the events being re-enacted.

If so, it is easy to see how the 'institutional church' emerged and grew among the 'secret Christians' (with their Ichthys symbol of the 'fish' of Christ). 

If then we imagine the Mass in the era of the late Middle Ages, when Men's consciousness had developed further in the direction of self-awareness, individualism, and alienation from the group and the world. 

I think we can intuit that the ceremony of the Mass must, by about 1500, have lost a great deal of its original effect. Because if it had not lost effect, then the Reformation questioning, and then denying, of the Christ-role of the priest, and the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, could not plausibly have been challenged. 

Wind-ahead another half-millennium to this modern era; when Men have become almost wholly cut-off from God, the divine, creation, in denial of the soul - and have become sometimes wholly-materialistic and this-worldly; and we can see that the Mass has lost all objective force.

The Mass no longer overwhelms the celebrants, it no longer imposes the experience of being in another time and place - but the ritual now requires active and purposive engagement from the participants. 

Time is - for most people, most of the time - no longer 'abnegated'; but instead the Mass takes place within the time and concerns of the mainstream secular world. 

Consequently the Mass is felt as no longer separate-from, nor higher-than, worldly church affairs - but has become highly assimilated to mundane attitudes and thinking.

Therefore, it was natural to the consciousness of modern Man that when an alleged global pandemic was reported; even (especially?) Catholics believed that all the churches of the world ought to be closed-down - until such a time as the secular authorities declared it 'safe'. 

This is an example of how a metaphysical assumption of the development of human consciousness through history may help us to understand the changes in Christian perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and practices since the time of Jesus; and may also help us to understand how we might positively respond to such changes. 

If we think back and recall the early dawning of self-awareness as young children, then perhaps we may remember the catastrophic dawn of consciousness of death - the time when we first realized that everybody, including our-selves, will die. 

It seems likely that this stunning fact, and the implications it carries for the rest of life, is perhaps the primary fact of consciousness.

For example, that seems to have been the conviction of JRR Tolkien, which he wove into Lord of the Rings as the deepest structuring concept. 

I have come to recognize - or, at least, believe - that the core of Christianity, the prime work and achievement of Jesus Christ, was 'simply' offering the possibility of a life beyond this mortal life, and indeed a better life; the chance of escaping the otherwise universal fate of death.

In other words - starting from where we are, the human condition as-is - Christianity essentially offers eternal resurrected life after death; and the promise that the everlasting life beyond temporary mortal life will be like this life, in that we are still our-selves with the same kind of experiences; but these selves and experiences will be qualitatively enhanced. 

This I regard as having been very clearly set-out in the Fourth Gospel - but it is also something that is quite spontaneous and intuitive in terms of what we, qua Men, want - starting from the situation in which we find-ourselves. 

So, we become aware that death is the great catastrophe and destroyer of life's meaning and hope, and we naturally seek - above all else - an escape from that ultimate termination. 

That, at least, is - I believe - how Men spontaneously, naturally, consciously regard death as young children - albeit 'culture' will overlay this innate attitude with some other attitude; and there are a wide range of secondary and acquired - but more superficial, and often ineffective - attitudes to death and what happens after it.

(All ancient societies believe in some kind of persistence after biological death, often a kind of reincarnation, or partial, maybe depersonalized, life as a spirit or 'ghost'. The Christian idea of resurrection was something new; as is the mainstream modern atheist idea of annihilation of the person.)  

But we can see that the Christian offer of resurrected life is not ideal. It is not a full and perfect solution. 

After all, death - and what leads-up to death, which is entropic change, decline, decay, disease, suffering etc. - is still a catastrophe. (Albeit temporary.)

Would not the ideal have been that Men were created-into Heaven, or, in some way, could go directly to resurrection without having to go-through mortal life and death?  

In other words; we can see Christianity as an eventual cure for the tragedy of the human condition; but it is not an immediate cure, and resurrection into Heaven does not - of itself - do much, or ultimately do anything substantive, to ameliorate the human condition (except secondarily, in providing hope for the future). 

I suppose this deficiency must have been immediately apparent; because "Christianity the religion" very quickly became 'mixed-up' with ideas that it would improve the human condition here on earth and during this mortal life - plans and schemes whereby mortal life would be regulated by 'God's laws' and (by ritual, symbolism, lifestyle etc) connected with divinity.

Also the idea that - at some point - Jesus Christ would return and transform life on earth so that there was no suffering or decay (the Second Coming, the New Jerusalem). 

Yet even with such additions to what Jesus actually said; the fundamental 'problem' remained to be explained: the question of why do we have to go through the tragedy of earthly mortal life terminated by death - before attaining resurrected Heavenly life? 

Properly to answer this question (rather than just kicking the can) requires further assumptions concerning the nature and attributes of God; and of God's aims in creation.

The fact that we are living in this mortal life, and destined to suffer the death of others and ourselves, suggests that there is no other way of reaching resurrected eternal life than via incarnated mortal life. 

Perhaps, for example, it is not possible for God to 'make' a resurrected body except via a mortal body. There might be another reason - but whatever the reason implies a constraint upon the power of God. 

This is not a metaphysical problem for me; but is ruled-out by the common belief in the omnipotence of God. 

Believers in an Omni-God have never, I think, been able satisfactorily to explain why such a God did not create resurrected Men ready for Heaven and incarnated directly-into Heavenly bliss - thereby avoiding the hazards, suffering, and risks of damnation of mortal life. 

(I regard the 'omnipotent God' assumption as false; and probably a post-ascension, maybe even post Apostolic, importation (from pagan Greek-Roman philosophy) to Christ's teaching, not being found explicitly in the New Testament.)

Once we have discarded this notion of the Omni-God, it is then coherent to assert that because God wants as many as possible to choose resurrection, there is no alternative to suffering death. 

This implies that - yes! - resurrected life after mortal death is the best that can be done, if the destination is to be resurrection. 

Thus far mortal life is irreducibly tragic; but for Christians that tragedy is ameliorated by the post-mortal destination.

However, for non-Christians, mortal life and death is just inescapably tragic in its structure; which may help explain why denial, distraction and despair in relation to death are so common among non-Christians.   

Therefore; my bottom-line answer is that, in broad terms, this entropic mortal life, followed by the catastrophe of death, is indeed the best that can be done - given that the destination God desires for us is resurrection, and resurrection can only be attained via the intermediate phase of a mortal body and death.  

Many people realize that They lie to Us; but there is a residual belief that there are places, times or situations in which They tell the truth to each other. 

Such ideas have various levels. It used often to be said that the mainstream newspapers were dishonest; but the 'in house' media such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Economist were basically honest - because (supposedly) in such places They were talking to each other - and the information exchanged need to be valid... 

This may have been true at some point in the past; but has certainly not been true since around the millennium; since when such journals are as deluded as, or even more so than, the rest. 

It seems clear that now there is just as much manipulation and brainwashing going-on among the Establishment; than there is of the masses by the Establishment. 

Yet there is a residual hope that we may discover "what They are really up-to" by examining off-the-record or internal communications; perhaps leaked, illicitly recorded or hacked memos, conversations, or accidental revelations... 

The image is of Machiavellian thinkers who, among themselves, deal with solid facts and reliably tested mechanisms; make explicit plans, and then objectively monitor their outcomes with rigour. 

And who only then invent lies in order to keep these secret and make them more effective.  

This leads to the assumption that when the secret communications are discovered and published, the resulting 'gotcha' will reveal the truth, will undeceive the masses, and thereby undermine and thwart wicked plans.  

But such excited hopes rest on the assumption that They are ever honest; when in reality liars nearly-always lie primarily to themselves - and indeed, self-deception is the basis of other-deception. 

(Furthermore - which is another matter - such hopes rest on an assumption that the masses care mainly about truth, are capable of recognizing the truth, and will adjust their evaluations accordingly.)  

I began to realize that this was a false model as a result of my own inner dealings with bureaucracies and those who head them. I worked in both Regional and District levels of the National Health Service Public Health services; and was a member of a university senior academic committee (Senate); and an editor in a multinational publishing corporation. 

In all of these, expedient untruthfulness was normal, expected, and insisted-upon. Everybody on the inside lied (but deniably - that was the skill of it) to each other, and they lied to their audience. They just lied All The Time!

I also had multiple experiences (and experiences of friends and colleagues) in relation to the conduct of science - which I know had once been a haven of honesty and truth seeking. 

Again, it was clear that - however things had been in the middle 20th century - by the millennium, the relationship between science and truth had been severed and discarded; and - exactly as with other bureaucracies - expedient and deniable untruthfulness was normal, expected and insisted-upon. 

Such experiences gave me the clue that nowadays - no matter how high-up and secret the level one is dealing-with in the Establishment; there is no place or occasion when it is the practice to be honest and where (which is necessary to this) honesty is enforced, and dishonesty exposed, repented explicitly, and sanctioned. 

We ought therefore to be wary of assuming that the latest revelations give us a window into how things really are - whether these come from leaks and hacks, private documents, recorded interactions or whatever. 

These covert sources may reveal Establishment attitudes that They would prefer to keep secret; but then again these attitudes may be faked inter-Establishment bragging, posing, virtue-signaling, or manipulations - rather than genuine revelations of motivations. 

In a world of pervasive dishonesty - truth is not available in public discourse, nor in private discourse among the Establishment. 

Truth is not Their currency. 

And whatever is connected bureaucratically to the System, shares System imperatives - of which one is that interactions must be untruthful in-line with the currently-dominant ideology. 

And this applies to all the major churches - including those institutional Christian churches that are employers, have workforces, gather in public spaces, have property, pay taxes (or claim exemptions) etc. - just as much as it does elsewhere. 

During the fortysomething years I was in the UK university system, I saw a massive change in the nature of people in senior leadership roles. 

Back in the 1970s, there was a sense that the universities were (still) run by academics: by scholars and researchers. 

And, broadly speaking, the higher up the hierarchy of power - the higher status were the people in terms of their professional record of achievement. 

Fifty-odd years ago; the individuals at the top (Vice Chancellors and Principals, Pro-Vice Chancellors and Deans) were nearly all people with a strong national reputation in their original disciples. 

It was common to select them from scientists who were Fellows of the Royal Society, Humanities scholars who were Fellows of the British Academy - or those of equivalent status in the medical, engineering or other such subjects. 

But by the time I retired; it was common to select people with a background of high position in generic bureaucracies: the civil service, business and corporate life - or simply those who had risen through the university bureaucracies - without having ever achieved anything remarkable in heir personal distinction in any academic subject. 

Instead of celebrating the academic distinction of top appointments; it had become usual to celebrate their supposed administrative competence, their connections within the System - or simply that they represented some favoured groups such as women, non-whites, foreigners, or a non-biological sexual orientation. 

This trend happened through the whole university system, so far as I could tell. For example women with bureaucratic seniority - rather than especially distinguished scholars or researchers - were appointed to both Harvard's and Cambridge's top-leadership positions (which were perhaps the two most prestigious such roles in the US and the UK).   

Harking back to my recent posts on the topic of leadership - I should clarify that expert professionals are not necessarily, or even usually, real leaders; and in practice universities very seldom had real leadership. 

On the other hand, expert professionals at least began as 'insiders' who had attained distinction in themselves performing the core function of universities. Whereas the bureaucrats who replaced them were no better (usually worse) as leaders - but were also 'outsiders', or else mediocre practitioners of the university's proper function. 

This is a microcosm of the decline of leadership in The West; because I saw the same trend in science and medicine, and wherever I looked. 

Real Leadership has always been a rare 'commodity' - and most groups have always had to make-do with something less; but in the (fairly recent) past; the personnel recruited to provide "not real"-leadership was at least consistent with the proper role of the organization and the distinctive 'traditions'. 

Nowadays - Not. 

The Fake leaders of today are aliens, successful officials, multi-valent 'networkers' - that is, merely over-promoted middle managers; or plausible psychopaths; and/or figureheads chosen as 'representative' of some non-male, non-white, non-native, or dysfunctionally socio-sexual 'identity group'. 

And it shows. 

 An example came to mind from the ancient Greek (pre-Socratic) philosophers; among whom there seem to have been two recognized possibilities concerning the nature of reality - which have (as is the way of things) persisted to the present day as being almost the only possibilities underlying a superficial diversity. 

The first is the assumption that: that which is real does not change. Thus reality is eternally-static, is 'outside of Time'. Truth is this reality; therefore truth does not change but is eternal. 

Therefore order is primary and fixed; and movement, time, disorder - chaos or dis-order is a kind of temporary, surface illusion - or delusion.

The other assumption is that reality is always changing, every-thing is in flux. Therefore reality is chaos, and truth can never be known because it is always changing. Nothing can ever be known, because reality is chaotic, without pattern. 

Therefore claims to know truth or to describe reality are mistaken, delusional, illusory patterns - merely a product of limited perspective over a limited timescale.

These two recognized possibilities - stasis versus dynamism, or order versus chaos - are seen to underline all the mainstream religious/ philosophical/ ideological 'options'.  

But they are not the only metaphysical possibilities - because since the 19th century at least one other has been suggested - and this is the possibility I have been describing on this blog over the past eight or nine years. 

This is that reality is divine creation; and truth is harmony with divine creation. Creation is understood as dynamic and also permanent; because creation originated with God and is continuing. 

The permanence of creation lies in the permanence of God, and of other Beings that inhabit God's creation. 

The dynamism of creation derives from its being ongoing, consisting of the eternal elements that are Beings and also continually added-to in an open-ended fashion. 

Now that there is this third possibility for metaphysics; it is easier to see why neither of the earlier options was satisfactory; because both of them required Men to violate very fundamental intuitions. 

The assumption that reality was static order required Men to believe that all change was illusory - yet, paradoxically, there could not be any source of illusion in an ordered static reality. 

On the other hand; the assumption of universal flux and no possible knowledge is self-refuting from a version of the 'Cretan Liar' paradox: if knowledge of reality is not possible then we could never know that knowledge of reality was impossible. 

So far; I have not been able to discover any such fundamental paradox in what might be termed my metaphysics of divine creation; operating in context of what might be termed an animistic universe (in which living, conscious, personal Beings are primary). 

And, since it does a good job of explaining what I feel most needs to be explained: I am sticking with it!

***

Note added: Furthermore; since I believe that this is the best metaphysics (of which I know); I think that Christianity should depend upon it; rather than (as has been the case since shortly after the death of Jesus) a static-changeless metaphysics that (among other things) makes it impossible to explain (without paradox or hand-waving distractions) the necessity and work of Jesus Christ, the presence of evil, and the reality of human agency.  

Fortunately! - many of the most important aspects his metaphysics was first understood, and developed by the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, and the (not very many!) metaphysical theologians in that church. So a lot of the heavy-lifting has already been done.

What remained was to integrate this with 'Romantic' philosophical ideas (including a restoration of aliveness and consciousness of all of divine creation - including 'minerals', as well as plants) - and the most useful to me here have been insights from Blake, Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle.   

The "Beau" was the first effective British Night-Fighter - illustrated above as flown by the first and highest-scoring night ace John 'Cats Eyes' Cunningham. I read a biography of him as a pre-teen. 

It was actually radar, plus superlative skill - including from his radio/radar-operator Jimmy Rawnsley, that explained Cunningham's success (DSO and two bars; DFC and bar etc.). 

But since radar was secret, his achievements were attributed to superlative night-vision ("cats-eyes") from eating plenty of carrots (i.e. Vitamin A)!  

Not my model - long since lost and destroyed! The above lacks the blobs of cement 'melted' all over the body and especially the 'glass' - and I was always too impatient and cheapskate (not enough colours) to paint them properly. 

I also attempted to include All of the armament options provided - bombs of various sizes, rockets, torpedoes... whatever - were all glued direct onto the wings and fuselage as necessary to cram them all in; and often I applied All the optional transfers ('decals'). 

I liked the Beaufighter mainly for its rugged looks, its multi-purpose functionality, and the heaviness of its firepower (probably the greatest firepower of its era: (Often with 4 X 20mm Hispano cannon under the nose - the Hispano being probably the best aircraft cannon of WWII - plus six .303 machine guns in the wings). 

And because it came from the Bristol company; and I lived not far from Bristol. 

It is a striking insight when one reflects upon how Christianity (those who followed Jesus Christ) so rapidly and completely evolved from what we know of the teachings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel...

...To a situation in which "the church" (an always-contested definition) successfully claimed the authority to define Christianity, and to control each Man's access to salvation. 

The Romantic epiphany is that this claim of primary authority by "the church" - however that is defined; and all other such claims that transfer primary Christian authority to any external objective locus: such as scripture, or tradition - Must Be Wrong. 

Must Be - because God the creator, and our loving Father, would obviously not have made the world thus; but would certainly have made a world compatible with the Fourth Gospel vision of individual Men choosing or rejecting each his own salvation - sufficiently guided and consoled by the divine within each Man and by the Holy Ghost. 

Must Be - because God regards each of us as a beloved and unique child, and has made the world such that each child has ultimate control of his own salvation - regardless of circumstances. 

Such is (more or less) the Romantic epiphany.   

Yet - although commonplace now - this Romantic epiphany was not possible until relatively recently - apparently not until the late 1700s, and then only in a few Men in a few places (in Germany, Britain, then France).

It was not possible for ancient Men to have the Romantic epiphany, because their consciousness was different from ours. 

They did not experience themselves - as we do - as essentially cut off from the world and other Men. Instead, they were - to a significant, but varied, extent, naturally, spontaneously, unconsciously immersed-in the world: part of the world. 

Therefore, ancient men could not envisage, could not experience, a religious life that was detached from the human community of "the church". Neither could they envisage life itself outwith the patronage of a leige Lord to whom was owed loyalty - exile from one's community was no better than a living death. 

Ancient Man was substantially and inescapably communal in his consciousness. 

Even, more than a millennium later, by the time of the Reformation - Men's minds had only somewhat detached from the group: Men were 'semi-detached'. Authority was still experienced as ultimately external.

Instead of locating external primary authority in "the church" the Reformers maintained the primacy of external authority and 'merely' transferred it to a book: while maintaining strict control over the interpretation of that book. 

But the condition of modern Man - not chosen, but fated - is one of alienation, of detachment. The Church/ The Bible or any other possible external location is experienced as Other - we are not organically and spontaneously "members" of any human social grouping, nor do we experience any book or scripture as innately authoritative in an objective - group-shared - fashion. 

We each confront the world as an isolated consciousness; whether we like it or not - and for a Christian, therefore, the claims of any external entity to stand between us and God, strikes us as simply, obviously, untrue. 

This is the Romantic epiphany; and once experienced it can never wholly be forgotten or suppressed. The Romantic Christian knows he has direct and personal task in this world, and that responsibility for his salvation lies, inescapably, on his own shoulders.

(Our individuality is, for us, as inescapable as was the communal consciousness of the ancients.) 

The Romantic Christian knows, too, and therefore; that a claim otherwise - a claim that an external is the necessary condition for our personal salvation, regulates our 'access' to resurrected life eternal - a claim that salvation is ultimately described-by or controlled-by any external authority -- is a false claim.

The Romantic epiphany is that nothing - nothing external, not an institution, not a book, not a set of 'authorities', not a practice... ultimately nothing stands between a Man and his choice of whether or not to follow Jesus Christ to Heaven. 

Nobody can give us salvation - except our-selves. Nobody can take away salvation - except our-selves. 

Salvation is as easy as you, me, or any person, saying and meaning Yes to Jesus Christ... And Damnation as easy as saying Yes to Satan. 

It is often said on Christian blogs that the demon-serving high-level globalist Establishment (Them) live in fear of death; because They know They are going to Hell. 

But I do not believe that They necessarily live in fear of death. Some do, no doubt - but not all, by any means; and that has been an important fact in the nature of global evil.

But this may be changing; and more and more of the most evil Men of this world may be becoming terrified of the own deaths; and behaving accordingly with their most evil natures...

What follows are my intuitively-guided speculations on this subject.  

Some of Them do not fear death, I think, because in some instances Hell (accurately understood as a personal fate, rather than a uniform destination) is exactly what They desire, and what They prefer to Heaven.

In other words; They have understood and rejected Christ's offer of salvation. They do not wish to affiliate to God's creative intentions, which entail making an eternal and unbreakable commitment to live in Love. They prefer, and choose, Hell (at least, as They understand Hell will be for Themselves). 

Their choice is, instead of Love; to live (after mortal life, as well as in it) especially in-accordance-with that sin to which each is personally most devoted: pride, resentment, fear, lust, sloth, or whatever. (This is well described in CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.)

The question then is: to what extent this choice is fulfilled in actuality? Can They actually get what They most want? 

In other instances, They do not fear death because They do not believe that they personally are going to die. Not fully: not in their essential nature.   

How They believe this continuation of consciousness is to be achieved is necessarily speculative, but I have written on this subject before.  

In a nutshell; I think They believe that They may continue to 'live' because what we might term Dark Magicians purport to conjure animate thought-forms by group activities that entail mental concentration and ritual. 

This is regarded - not as a spiritual activity; but instead as a quasi-science; a manipulation of the material world by means of channeled will. 

(This belief intersects with the most ideological forms of Transhumanism; when people hope for continued life in a 'downloaded', or perhaps transplanted, form of consciousness. This shows how a wholly materialistic/ atheistic perspective can lead to quasi-spiritual hopes and intentions.)

It is the group nature of such Dark Magical activities that lies behind the Ahrimanic, materialist quality of evil that has dominated the world in recent decades. 

In other words; Ahrimanic evil operates by organized, hierarchical, bureaucratic mechanisms - to create a unified global System that is a mechanism for damnation.  

I think it likely that Their oft-observed concern with symbolism, signaling, ritual, pain, sacrifice etc.; is part of a genuinely black-magic orientated group-concern. This is not just about somewhat extending mortal life (although that is part of it); but also, ultimately, (for perhaps the 'chosen few') with attaining a kind of immortality after mortal death in a material but ghostly, or spirit form, 

The personal goal is then to continue (self-gratifying) activities in this world, as an 'honorary demon'; that has been created (and, probably is sustained - because this state is subject to entropy, and therefore needs constant infusion of energy to remain viable) by Black Magical means.

But, having said all this; I also believe that there has been a change in human consciousness over recent generations, but particularly since the millennium; and that part of this change has been a sharp decline in the ability of group-activity to conjure thought-forms. 

This change in Men's consciousness has affected the 'good magic' of Christianity, as well as the black magic of the demonic Establishment. This development has been a part of the decline of church-based Christianity: the fact that it can no longer do for people as much as it used to do. 

Those Christian group practices that used to 'work' reliably and powerfully to sustain and enhance spirituality, are now diminished in effect, and still diminishing. Indeed, for many people in the West; these practices have altogether lost spiritual power; and church activities have declined to a wholly psycho-social and political role.  

However, this development of consciousness must - I think - also have affected the power of Ahrimanic evil - and this will probably be one of the major causes that the cooperation of evil consciousnesses, which sustains The System, is now breaking-down.

I am (again!) talking about the transition between Ahrimanic and Sorathic evil, about which I have written many times before. 

I mean the breakdown of long-termist and coordinated evil by the defection of individual evil Beings; into the chaotic state of many simultaneous personal agendas each characterized by short-termist and destructive spite.

This is something that can be observed in the world today. The globalist alliance that launched a successful (covert) coup in early 2020 has, this year, fractured geo-politically into Anglosphere/ Western European 'West' and its vassal states; versus the others. 

Furthermore, The West has fractured such that the dominant elements are beginning to destroy the vassal states by acts of sabotage - financial, economic, demographic - and recently actual physical sabotage. 

This must have a confidence-shattering effect on many Establishment members who, until recently, 'trusted' that They would be exempted from the planned mass destruction; and would be rewarded for Their cooperation by eternal 'life' - among other and more immediate gratifications. 

Whether the evil-Establishment were correct to trust in the integrity of the principalities of evil is, for Christians, a question that answers itself! Yet, such Faustian stupidity is a fact of human life. Many Men have believed that Their cooperation with The Plan would win personal rewards; believed that They had a contract with evil, an agreement that evil would "honour"... 

(Despite that the powers of evil cannot be trusted; and will lie and cheat as is expedient - or as provides Them with some kind of sadistic enjoyment.)

Anyway, the hope was that They could achieve a kind of eternal existence of self-gratifying worldly activity.

There must, I think, have been some such 'trust' between lower and higher evil-souls - however misguided - in order to enlist the cooperation of so many individuals in so many nations. 

Many of These are now realizing that They have-been, or soon will-be, betrayed.

They face a dawning awareness of the terror of bodily annihilation and eternal spiritual torment. 

Of course; this betrayal and disillusionment opens a window to repentance; to affiliate with God and accept the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

In this mortal life it is never too late to repent - although it gets harder and more painful, the further advanced in evil a soul has gone. 

But, when repentance is rejected, realization may lead instead to a kind of destructive frenzy of vengeance - the desire to inflict as much suffering on others as possible, before falling into the pit oneself. 

This very purely negative form of evil, a 'lashing-out' which takes 'pleasure' only in the doing of evil and not in rewards from so doing; is what I call Sorathic - and it seems to be gathering strength, perhaps especially in the Establishment of the dominant Western power: the USA. 

I would guess that the 'promised' reward of an eternal life of personal satisfaction was, at best - only ever, in practice, short-term. 

Sooner rather than later; the promised rewards are revoked, and the self-gratifications of eternal living are inverted into a state of eternal slavery; a continued existence only as objects of torment for the pleasure of other evil beings - who are Themselves destined for the same fate.  

As the cabal of organized evil breaks down; such betrayals will be happening, and be observed; more and more often; and no doubt some terrible conclusions will be drawn. 

If this interpretation is correct, and the Dark Magician cabal is increasingly breaking-down into mutual warring factions; factions that then themselves splinter break-down into each against all - then these times are both very dangerous and somewhat hopeful. 

Christians are no longer up-against a coordinated conspiracy - which is good. But those evil Beings (human, as well as demonic) that remain powerful in this world, will feel that - now that their chance at 'eternal life' is gone' - They have nothing to gain from long-termism or cooperation;: nothing to lose' by sheer spitefulness. 

They seem highly likely to behave in an increasingly reckless and frenziedly destructive manner - whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. 

Be Prepared (spiritually, I mean).

This is, hands-down, the best commentary I have yet seen regarding the major cultural inflexion point that was Amazon's Rings of Power TV series; rendering obsolete my own prior ramblings on the subject. 

I laughed out loud several times - so dense, deft and witty is their take on it. 

It is normal for most people to have strong convictions concerning issues about which they have passively absorbed these convictions entirely from the mainstream media and officialdom. 

For instance, the most recent of the major, world-agenda-shaping Litmus Test issues of 2022 has been the Fire Nation versus Evil Empire proxy war. 

Most people in my corner of the world have aggressively/ sentimentally adopted a stance 100% in line with that propagated by the Western Establishment; and are both completely ignorant of the causes of this conflict, and completely wrong about the Fire Nation's motivation and conduct. 

How culpable are such people for having chosen to support the side of evil in this great conflict of our time? 

There are various views on this matter. 

One is that people are not to blame, because all their information and analysis (whether from TV, newspapers, official announcements, or PR from large corporations) is consistent and internally coherent (at least, on a day-by-day basis - which is all that the masses ever notice). 

Such sources all confidently state the same things, often in the same words and with identical images; and provide 'evidence' to support this conviction; while contrary information is not available (is indeed aggressively excluded). 

This would suggest that the support of the wrong side is simply mindless, non-responsible; and therefore innocent and not-culpable - in much the way that young children are innocent and cannot be blamed for their expressed opinions on matters they take secondhand.

This interpretation has it that the masses are closely analogous to young children in terms of innately trusting of authority. This is regarded as a fact-of-life, so that the masses are non-responsible for whatever authority tells them - and if the ignorant do preen themselves on their moral stances, and boast of their own Goodness; then this is merely the forgivable bravado of a youngster obediently mimicking his elders. 

But such a view takes-for-granted that it is natural and reasonable for people passively to accept whatever view is propagated vigorously and monolithically by The Establishment. 

That, in other words - here-and-now, in 2022 - when Western authorities are unified in pushing a point-of-view; then it is a reasonable and morally innocent default to accept this point-of-view; and adopt the recommended attitudes.

"After all," it is said, in effect; "we can hardly expect ordinary people to look behind the mass-media-official view, and each-for-himself discover that covert reality which so starkly contradicts the propagated fake-narrative."

Well, this matter of what we ought-to expect from people, before adopting an opinion - is itself a thing that divides opinion. 

It has become accepted that it is OK for someone to spend (say...) two hours a day marinating-himself in official/ mass media propaganda, plus another couple of hours reinforcing this on social media; yet never even for five minutes checking anything by looking at 'alternative' sources, or even by five minutes of rigorous and critical thinking and remembering.

Yet, by now it now seems clear that - whatever people ought to do in terms of checking - they will Not do it. And it is therefore just so much wasted breath, or ink or pixels, to assert that they should be doing it! 

Any complex or effort-entailing answer to the problem of passive mind-manipulation is therefore a non-starter. 

What, then, is the real crux of this matter? 

It is, simply: one's attitude to Litmus Test issues as such. 

When the world of officialdom, corporate propaganda and the mass/ social media are pushing some-thing; do we - as individuals - assume that this means what is being pushed is good and true? 

Or - do we - as individuals - assume the exact opposite: that the fact of such an onslaught of opinion and 'fact' means that what is being pushed is instead an evil lie? 

And this crux-decision, in turn, depends on our value-discernment first about whether or not the dominant Western Establishment institutions comprise a single and controlled System. 

Among those who recognize a controlled System; there is then the question of whether the System is net-Good, or is net-evil. 

This matter of the System, then, is the Big Issue of the West in 2022; upon which all matters of public policy can be seen to hinge. 

The two questions are whether there is indeed such a System, and if there is a System, whether it is aiming at Good?

The decision about whether or not there is a System is decided by a person's prior assumptions as to whether it is possible that there could be a System. 

If it is pre-decided that there cannot be a System, and anyone who supposes there could-be is a 'conspiracy theorist', then there cannot be a System: so it will not be recognized, regardless of 'evidence'. 

If, instead, it is regarded as a real possibility that there might be a System - then the interpretation that there is indeed a System will instantly be obvious; because a vast and growing mass of supporting evidence will be clear and unambiguous. 

Among those who do recognize a System, the evaluation of that System will largely depend upon whether a person is spiritual-Christian or instead a materialist-leftist.

(Because there are few, and ever fewer, people who do not inhabit one of these two categories.) 

For the large-majority who are materialist-leftists; the System is obviously Good, overall. 

For the small-minority who are spiritual-Christian; the System is obviously evil. 

I think this is where the original question leads us. I asked whether those who, for instance, support the side of evil in its war against the Fire Nation, are culpable or innocent. And my answer - from a spiritual-Christian perspective - is that they are culpable and therefore evil...

But they are evilly-culpable not in this specific decision, but in their having chosen to affiliate with the System - which is evil. 

Naturally, such a person will believe... whatever the System is telling them; and the more forceful and sustained is the System messaging - the more strongly the System will be believed. 

But, for someone like myself; if the System is saying any-thing in a forceful, sustained and coherent fashion, then that thing must be an evil lie  - or else the System would not be saying it. 

(Until I cracked my upper incisors on a metal mouthpiece, and had to quit playing altogether... admittedly no great loss to music.)   

At this time I used to see a fair bit of live music around Newcastle upon Tyne, including by local bands - some of which much was very much to my taste. Arthur Two Stroke and the Chart Commandoes, and Ray Stubb's R'n'B All Stars were favourites; but the band I saw far more than any others was the Eastside Torpedoes - more than once even attending gigs twice in a week. 

Their repertoire was very much to my taste, with a superb four-piece brass section featuring Nigel Stanger on alto sax; who had played with The Animals, Georgie Fame and Alexis Korner; and who improvised some wonderful stuff.

The recording doesn't do the band full justice (btw the last of the three tracks is my favourite - it's superb) - but its all that remains except memories.  

I don't listen to this kind of music much these days, partly because it reminds me of an (overall) rather unhappy period of my life; but when I do, I still appreciate its power and thrilling qualities. 

It has been interesting to sample the journalistic and professional commentary about Ben Stokes's captaincy leadership of the England Test Match cricket team, about which I recently wrote as being a current example of a great leader. 

In all examples I have seen; the analysis has explained Stokes's success in terms of the application a new set of rules or principles - probably devised from the previous experience of the coach McCullum, when he was captain of New Zealand. 

In other words; Stokes is envisaged as implementing something akin to bullet points from a managerial strategy document! 

At the end of the day, the leader is envisaged as a kind of front-man or actor; whose talent is to be a plausible and inspiring advocate of a prior blueprint for successful (or, at least entertaining) cricket. 

But this is not to explain leadership - but to explain-it-away. 

The origin of leadership is - in these analyses - understood as being located outside of the leader, elsewhere from the leader himself.

This is arguing from implicit (mostly unconscious) assumptions that (in effect) bureaucracy is the true reality, and the source of social functionality; and 'leaders' are just a specialized group of functionaries - whose essence is to perform a designated role.   

I am aware that this argument is analogous to Max Weber's division of authority between charismatic, legal (i.e bureaucratic) and traditional. But the concept of 'authority' is not identical with leadership. 

What I am saying is very simple. When there is real leadership; it primarily comes-from the leader, is located in the leader.

And when, secondarily the effects of leadership are analyzed into components, rules, principles, objectives etc - then we are not talking about leadership - but instead something more like 'authority'.    

Leadership is 'given', but authority can be manufactured (eg. by the power to reward or sanction). 

Leadership is originative, generative, creative... But authority need not be; and often is the opposite!

Leadership is therefore akin to creative genius - but not identical with it; since the basis is different. 

Creative genius requires high intelligence and a long-term, inwardly-motivated 'endogenous' personality the ability to work at some particular thing for long periods of intense and with sustained focus... 

But great leaders (such as Stokes) need not be especially intelligent (he isn't), and are often exceptionally simple in terms of explicit long-term strategy; and instinctive, here-and-now responsive, in terms of tactics. 

Leadership is relational - it happens in a social context; while genius is focused on the transcendentals: truth, beauty, virtue. 

I therefore regard Leadership as a category of its own, and not a subdivision of other systems or attributes. 

Leadership is found in individual persons, or perhaps (with less stability) a duo - but never in committees or other groups, never as part of a system. 

And leadership (again like creative genius) can accomplish things that cannot otherwise be achieved.  

I repeat, cannot otherwise be achieved. 

Cannot Means Can-not!

Therefore without leadership, options are limited and circumscribed; when compared with what may be possible when leadership is a factor.

I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in primary school - perhaps after watching a dramatized version on television; then The Silver Chair - but did not read any other of the Narnia Chronicles as a child. Indeed, I did not read them until the past decade, after I had become a Christian; and I came to the books via Brian Sibley's superb BBC Radio dramatizations. 

Yest, despite this very delayed, and rather gradual, path to appreciation; I now recognize the Narnia books as among the very best of their kind - and I return to re-read (and/ or re-listen) over and again; and have read several books of scholarship and analysis about them. 

Of these, Planet Narnia stands-out as the most impressive and memorable - not just for its insights into the world of Narnia, but also because it contains a great deal of absolutely fascinating and valuable information on the medieval world view, in particular the 'astrological' cosmology.   

Planet Narnia puts forward the interpretative key that each of the seven Narnia books is presided-over and permeated-by one of the seven medieval 'planets' - Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. 

I found Ward's evidence and argument completely convincing - which means that this is a remarkable and rare example of literary criticism - in exposing a major aspect of a major author's major work; that had been (apparently) completely hidden and undiscovered for more than half a century. 

I read the book a couple of years after it was published, and have just been re-listening to the audio version - and am impressed anew at the detail and thoroughness with which PN is argued. 

But this time of reading, my own understanding of Christianity has moved far away from that of Lewis - which was, pretty much, where it began; since Lewis was very important in my own conversion. 

Now, I find myself somewhat amazed, and rather appalled, at the complexity and subtlety of CS Lewis's style of Christianity, both his personal faith and his public apologetics and devotional work. 

Lewis has long had the reputation of being a plain speaker and tough arguer - yet his discussions of Christianity - of the nature of God, the nature and mission of Christ, the nature of virtue and sin, and so forth - seems to demand quite extraordinary powers of concentration, memory, and contextual scholarship. 

Now, my feeling is: This cannot be right! 

It (surely?) cannot be necessary. 

It (surely?) cannot be that the 'religion' (shall we call it?) founded by Jesus would really be such as to need such an apparatus of specific expertise and authority - given that God created this varied and changing world, and a multitude of extremely different individual people living in a very wide range of social circumstances...

Lewis does as good a job as anyone of 'explaining' the inexplicable aspects of traditional Christianity; but I now feel sure that the inexplicable aspects are the consequence of human misinterpretation - not a part of God's plan or Jesus's ministry.  

In other words, the 'explanations' do not really explain - they merely kick the can - when they ought to be challenging the premises. Like 'explaining' my evil by Adam's transgression, or Adam's evil by the devil, or blaming the devil's evil on his prideful rejection of God... 

None of these displacements get any closer to explaining how there is any evil At All in a creation made by a wholly-Good God; if that God is also assumed to have made everything from nothing and been omnipotent.

(The simple answer is that God is Not omnipotent - whatever that really means; and Jesus never said he was! Indeed, Christianity depends on God Not being omnipotent.)  

Or; Lewis does as good a job as anyone of the explaining how Christ is both God and Man - when God is regarded as both wholly transcendent and wholly immanent. 

Or how God lives out of time and knows all that happened and will happen - yet Man lives in time, and has free agency. Or how God is both a monotheistic unity; and also divided into three persons.  

But in the end, these are just hypnotic word webs that are attempting to enable belief in inherited incompatible doctrines.  

But how is it that incompatible doctrines were not a problem for so many centuries? Lewis himself shows us the reason - and why what once worked as Christian belief, no longer works. 

CS Lewis was indeed, as he claimed to be, a 'dinosaur' - the last of the medieval minds. He was a Man whose mind was essentially medieval - which (by my understanding) was a transitional mind between the pre-historic almost-unconscious and immersive simplicities of animism, and modern alienated individuality. 

This middle consciousness has both elements of ancient unconscious participation and also (to an exceptionally high degree, more than modern Man) the abstracting and intellectualizing tendency. 

It is, indeed, the automatic and instinctual spirituality, mysticism and supernaturalism of a mind like CS Lewis's; that enables him to embrace such logically rigorous complexities of theology - without destroying his faith. 

It was because Lewis (like the medievals) had a foot in the ancient animistic world of a universe of Beings, that he was able wholeheartedly to embrace a faith rooted in abstract reasoning. One foot in the past, the other in modernity; his mind's instinctual unconscious irrationality was strongly operative, even when he was using cold logic, discussing detached attributes and aspects, or deploying reductionistic, analytic modelling of reality.

We Modern Men find that abstraction and intellectuality deaden and demotivate; and then they become dishonest. Lacking such a foot-in-the-past and the consequent prior motivational truthfulness, then rigour dissolves into expediency (as we see with the near-total corruption of science over recent decades). 

Instead of combining unconscious rootedness with explicit rigour; Modern Man oscillates-between incoherent, vacillating emotions - and lying, manipulative modelling.

We have inherited much the same - and incoherent, off-centred - doctrines of Christianity as in Lewis's day; but have lost our roots in spontaneous tradition and common sense. 

Typical, representative, modern Man is severely innerly-de-motivated; such that he cannot resist the short-term expedient. 

But those who recognize the unsatisfactoriness of  the typical mainstream modern condition no longer have the Lewisian possibility of sustaining a serious and motivating Medieval consciousness. 

Such is Lewis's charisma, and our gratitude to him for his unequalled success as a Christian apologist in modern times; that there is a danger in trying to emulate his faith and its basis. 

However; emulation is not possible - we, now, are fundamentally different consciousnesses from Lewis; and to attempt to replicate Lewis is merely to mimic. 

And (de facto) mimicry is grossly insufficient as a basis for Christian living in these End Times.  

So we can learn a great deal from CS Lewis; but should not try to replicate and sustain his theology. Many of those who tried to do sustain Lewis's specific metaphysical and theological ideas - and his lifestyle advice -  have, so far as I can tell, failed the Litmus Test issues of our time. 

That is; rigorous, high-status, Lewis scholars and disciples often have converged with mainstream totalitarian leftism - and thereby (overall) joined sides with the powers of evil and against God. 

In other words; one can be a devoted Lewisite, and live as a Lewisite Christian - yet be an enemy of Christ!

So far, so depressing! Yet this disastrous (albeit covert) mass apostasy has a positive aspect. 

If we can recognize that someone can adhere to the letter of CS Lewis's theology and doctrines (and the same applies for all other theologies and doctrines) - yet not be a real Christian; this implies an opposite: that real Christianity is separable from metaphysics, theology and doctrine. 

If we can recognize that being a real Christian has independence from Lewis's specific metaphysics, theology and all the rest of it - and at the same time can recognize that the Narnia Chronicles are imaginatively-permeated with a real, various and rich Christian spirit...

Then maybe the path is clear to understanding what it is to be a real Christian independently of the classical and traditional structures that came to us via the middle ages. 

The path is opened to a Romantic Christianity that motivates us to adhere to the side of God and the commitment to follow Jesus Christ through the pressures and corruptions of these End Times - while also recognizing a common real-Christianity, and the possibility of genuinely-Christian alliance, across many denominations and churches.