Bruce Charlton's Notions

The problem of human cooperation only became 'a problem' through history; because (it seems) in early human societies Men regarded themselves as primarily part of the family and community within-which they were born.

But now, insofar as Men introspect, we experience ourselves as cut-off, alienated - and we presume others are the same. How to get individuals to cooperate is one problem, and another is that the group is understood (and, often, experienced) as intrinsically hostile to the individual. 

Me versus the world, and the world versus me...

Which means that groupishness is, must be, imposed upon individuals - even when this is for the long-term benefit of the individual, this still opens-up an ideal that 'everybody else' should work for the group while we our-selves (covertly...) selfishly exploit the situation. 

Thus we get the actuality of totalitarianism; whereby groupishness is imposed, top-down and by a mixture of coercion and propaganda - yet the rationale for such imposition is merely expedient (i.e. because the alternative as a chaos of each against all, in which civilization collapses instantly). 

The choice is between coerced order and chaos - and the choice is made on selfish grounds (i.e. an evaluation and choice of that circumstance in which I am most likely, personally, to do best)

In other words; the implication of modern experience and explanations at the individual level is that ideally each person should be a hypocritical psychopath - hypocritically expounding altruism and groupishness for other-people, while (covertly) selfishly exploiting this situation for oneself. 

...In other words; exactly the hypocritical behaviour of the typical modern leader - whether in politics, the mass media, corporations, or any institution such as a charity, a school/ hospital/ army/ or whatever. 

...A superficial ideology of altruism and public-good covering a core ruthless and exploitative careerism and hedonism. 

This is our situation: i.e. a cynical, arbitrary, purposeless and meaningless totalitarianism.. Top-down and coercive arbitrary order is imposed on individuals at every level and scale - because there is (believed to be) no other possible basis for groupishness. 

And the analysis is self-fulfilling over time; because all actual human groups become subverted by this understanding; such that all actual institutions are indeed assimilated to the totalitarian whole, and behave as such. 

Yet, while our consciousness - and all the modern explanatory schemes - regard humanity as a collection of individuals; there is also a suspicion of, or hope for, some kind of spontaneous (not imposed) groupishness - although its basis is typically unclear; and the available explanations tend to be unconvincing hence weakly motivating. 

We 'know' that there really is a groupishness among Men; but we cannot explain it - at least not in a way that convinces both ourselves, and others. 

Traditional Christian explanations - such as that all Men are children of God, and have a shared divinity - have lost their power to motivate. 

Indeed the churches use these groups explanations to justify totalitarian goals! As when the parable of The Good Shepherd is said to support mass immigration, "the feeding of the five thousand" to justify bureaucratic communism, and the interests of the people of God are said to mean obedience to "the church" and its current-actual leadership.

The answer is twofold: 

To understand groupishness from an individual perspective - intuitively from-within, where that understanding cannot be touched by worldly totalitarian imperatives. 

And to understand groupishness spiritually such that the material corruption of this world cannot corrupt or otherwise affect it. 

This is a very extreme stance, by world historical standards - but it is exactly the corruption of the world that leads to the need for it. 

It regards our cut-off individualism as a fact; but moves beyond the negative aspects that have led to totalitarianism in the public sphere. 

Since we really-are cut-off in the public sphere - this means we can and should disregard the public sphere in our explanations and understandings. 

On the one hand, totalitarian groupishness is merely external, because it cannot (exactly because we are cut-off in consciousness) penetrate to our inner self-experience. On the other hand; from this state of inner cut-offness, we can strive to discover an understanding of our groupishness that we find to be real and true. 

Even as we are inwardly cut-off from the old spontaneous groupishness; we are also cut-off from the new totalitarian groupishness. 

We can revel in our absolute independence from the imposed evils of physical control and psychological manipulation! 

That which makes us alone, also makes us free. 

Thus one individual person can stand, if he chooses, with-God and against The World: silently indomitable. 

One thing that Western Christians find it hard to grasp - and typically deny - is that they are surrounded on all sides by enemies...

Together with an admixture of those who are either indifferent or too feebly-motivated to intervene when it is in any way inexpedient. 

The reason I say that Christians find this hard to grasp, is twofold:

1. The insatiable appetite, on a daily or hourly basis, for outraging over over Yet Further Evidence that Christians (and indeed anyone capable of common sense and learning from personal experience) are surrounded by enemies. 

People never seem to tire of seeking and experiencing this kind of outrage, without ever getting any further or drawing general conclusions about the nature of reality, the nature of the world: and the motivations of those who control our world. 

Outrage and outrage, yet without realizing that Of Course such things happen All The Time! Happen quite naturally and inevitably; because the entirety of the major cultural institutions are now (and for many years have been) net corrupted; they have adopted significant value-inversion: they have taken the side of evil in the spiritual war of this mortal world... 

Which is presumably why outrage-generating events are produced and publicized in such abundance. 

2. The tireless search for harbingers of positive change among the mainstream leadership class of politicians, journalists, Chief Executives and the like. 

There is clearly a deep-rooted expectation that the trend towards evil will - some time, soon - be turned-around by Someone from among those with power, wealth and high status. 

So - the words and actions of the rich/ famous and influential are fine-tooth-combed for any slightest evidence of common sense, realism, decency, honesty - and, when any such is found, hopes of an Establishment Saviour well-up yet again, for the hundredth, the thousandth time...  

The expectation of the return pendulum swing, the tidal reverse, the reaction against excess, the first signs of awakening from hypnotic sleep... 

It is astonishing how difficult it is for people to recognize the obvious: 

(Apart from a few family, and maybe a handful of personal friends - if we are lucky...)

We are surrounded on all sides by evil-motivated and evil-obedient enemies. 

There are just so many ways in which modern culture is actively subversive, inverting values and corrupting behaviour - that to focus upon any in particular is to invite failure. 

Special attention paid to a specific response to a specific problem (which will usually result in the need to do something quite complex and effortful) - opens us up to a weakened and distracted response to the many other simultaneous problems. 

If we take a single-issue approach to dealing with our sins, in a world where there are So Many sins, we will end-up chasing our tails. Even if we weed-out one form of sin by great effort, meanwhile the others will have grown unchecked*. 

What is required is that values we live-by, be rooted in some source of real and true values that is autonomous from the mainstream culture. 

In other words; when Western civilization is become an ocean of corruption in which we must swim - because its corruption has invaded all institutions; we can no longer lead a Good life by the double-negative strategy of avoiding evil; but only by the positive strategy of pursuing Good. 

And to do this requires living in accordance with a source of Good that is independent-of, and uncorrupted by, our civilization.  

Then it does not matter what that culture is - past, present or future; nor what is does to us - because so long as we are rooted in reality and truth, we can recognize and repent whatever is corrupting, subversive or value-inverting. 

The traditional way for this to happen, was that the individual would obey the guidance of a religious group (typically a church) that was autonomous and Good. 

But now there are no churches or other religious groupings that are both big-enough and autonomous from the subversions of culture nowadays - and which can be relied-upon to remain autonomous for as long as we may need them. 

To be rooted-in a church, is therefore merely to be rooted in a variant of the mainstream corrupt-culture. 

The other way is for each individual to 'obey' the guidance of some internal source which is both Good and autonomous. 

Is this possible? Is there a source within-Man that is sufficiently autonomous of the evils of culture, and also Good? 

For me, the answer is Yes - because this is a matter of metaphysical Christian theology. 

In other words; my fundamental beliefs concerning the nature of God and divine creation assume that God is Good, and we are God's children - and therefore we each have within us that which makes God Good.

In other words we each have in us (because we are God's children) a True and Uncorrupted Self which is in harmony with divine creation, and from-which we can be guided towards that which is Good.  

If one believes-in a real-divine self, and that this True Self can be 'consulted' for guidance; then that potentially solves the problem of living in a corrupting civilization where that corruption includes the churches. 

Furthermore, in principle, each of us can deal with problems of corruption on an individual, case-by-case basis; rather than by - as with traditional religions - seeking generic solutions to particular classes of problem, or following general guidelines such as laws or prescribed practices. 

It all seems to depend, in the first instance, on whether one believes this source of inner guidance is real/ true/ possible.

*It is possible that a person may be dominated by a particular besetting sin, which needs to be weeded-out before anything else can be done - alcohol or drug addiction is an example. But we should not pretend that dealing with a single sin makes someone overall a better person - assuming that the sin was already repented. 

I mean that what is vital with a besetting sin is repentance. Reform of a sin is good, in and of itself; but only Good overall when it is indeed Good overall! 

Reform may, or may not, be possible in a particular instance; but it is at best is preparation for a subsequent change in overall attitude to life.

People like to believe that it is A Good Thing to destroy evil; but this is only true when the motivation to destroy evil is positive. 

That is, when the motivation to destroy evil is Good. 

(As your mother told you: Two wrongs don't make a right! - they really don't.)

If some-thing evil is eliminated - but there is not a motivating Good reason for doing it; then there will be a bad motivation; and there will be net harm in the world.

(One way or another.)

You cannot get good out of evil intent; and the desire for destruction as such, on its own is an evil.

Only when the desire for destruction is a means to the end of Good (that is, in harmony with God's creative intent) can destruction be justified. 

Consider the example of hatred of some evil thing - lets say an evil organization or government or dictator. Something really evil. 

It is right to hate evil - therefore (surely? one might assume) it would be A Good Thing to destroy it?

But not necessarily so. 

There are (think about it...) many, many examples from history when an evil institution or person has been destroyed - by revolution, conquest, assassination -  and what came after was worse. Sometimes much worse. 

Indeed, this is usual. 

The reason that such outcomes are usual is that Good motivations - and I mean real Good motivations - not pretend Good motivations that are just disguises for resentment or malice - are rare. 

I think you would find that good outcomes from destruction occur only when the destruction is a means to a genuinely Good end. 

This is important because nowadays there are - at least so I believe - no genuinely Good motivations in public discourse or politics in the West. 

I mean that none (not one) of the institutions, parties or persons who are engaged in the public realm, and have power to destroy, have genuinely Good motivations. 

Therefore, necessarily, destroying things in The West will turn-out badly, one way or another... 

(There are many, many such possibilities for how things will - whether predictably or not - go wrong.) 

This is yet another example of: Be careful what you wish for! 

The phrase, the karma of untruthfulness, is taken from a series of lectures by Rudolf Steiner, and it can be understood to mean that untruthfulness - lying, dishonesty, deliberate misleading - carries a 'karma'. 

This I mean in a Christian sense (and one different, in several important respects, from that implied by several of Steiner's metaphysical and empirical assumptions):

Sin necessarily carries a cost; and untruthfulness without repentance is a sin; and un-repented sin is the prime path of a soul, to self-chosen damnation. 

The karma of untruthfulness operates at the level of our Western civilization, at regional and national levels, for social institutions of all sizes; and, most importantly, for individual human beings. 

We already, and increasingly, live-by untruthfulness: untruthfulness structures the main aspects of our public life, policy, and discourse; and (ever-more-so) our private discourse - even within marriages, families, and among close friends.

And, at its core; untruthfulness structures the basic reality assumptions (metaphysics) and thinking of many or most Western people.  

The usefulness of the term karma is in its unavoidability; the idea that the costs are intrinsic. 

This is not a matter of costs coming if people 'don't get away with' their lies. It is that our 'world' of untruthfulness brings its own punishment immediately and necessarily - as well as cumulatively through time. 

A world in which people choose to believe and live-by that which is false is already a world that is self-damned; and self-damnation manifests at every level; because it is a choice of negation, of hostility to divine creation - a choice of meaninglessness, purposelessness, and chaos.  

Here and now - truthfulness is of supreme importance; a truthfulness that needs to extend down to the roots of our understanding of the world itself, as well as to the minutiae of everyday living. 

The idea that everything is All One - and that meditation reveals that underlying reality is this one - and is timeless, nameless, stillness, peace... and entails a loss of self-awareness and indeed all thinking and consciousness...

This is an occult attack directed-against God, creation and all of life - against all Beings, including Jesus Christ, all Men, and all hope of resurrection to Heaven.

This, because oneness is another word for primordial chaos, the chaos of purposeless-meaninglessness before divine creation, before any-thing. 

To desire oneness is therefore to desire nothing: to desire that God, creation, purpose, meaning and all that is beautiful true or virtuous... be rendered to nothing. 

To seek oneness is to seek that which is as low as may be conceived; and yet to call this the highest wisdom!

Such inversion of real-values is the hallmark of Satan. 

This is a sort-of footnote to the preceding post: 

There is a distinctive and WEIRD Leftist ideology dominant among the globalist, totalitarian rulers and their managerial and propaganda minions; by which WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic. 

What makes the name WEIRD appropriate is that the WEIRD belief are contrary to common sense and to personal, lived experience

While the political aspects of WEIRD are what has attracted attention (such as the bizarre inversions of feminism, antiracism, and the transagenda) - spiritual and religious WEIRD-ness has been neglected; probably because most of those who invented and use the WEIRD term (in a derogatory sense) are themselves WEIRD in this respect. 

Those whose sense of morality purports to be in the common-sense understandings of humanity-in-general; should realize that the wisdom of the ages includes the reality of some god or gods, that this world and universe are created, the primacy of the spiritual realm over the material, the survival of the soul beyond death... and many other 'supernatural' (and 'paranormal') convictions that strike most modern people as 'obviously' untrue. 

In brief: Atheism is WEIRD. 

Just as those who oppose the lefter-forms of leftism - but are not religious - are actually just less-left types of Leftist; and those who oppose mainstream WEIRD-ness but are themselves atheists are just another species of WEIRD...

Analogously; they are mistaken who assume that the mainstream mundane world will inevitably, sooner-or-later, impose real-true-reality on the consciousness of those who WEIRDLY deny God/s and the world of Spirit.  

We need to understand that common-sense no longer happens spontaneously, and no longer carries natural and irresistible authority. 

In other words, we modern Men are all WEIRD as our baseline state; and it is up to each individual to reject his pre-existent WEIRDNESS and instead commit himself to true reality: which includes the recognition that we all dwell in a divine creation. 

A lot of modern people who pride themselves on 'realism', harbour the delusion that - sooner or later - reality will force itself upon people. 

But this is not true. 

Unless reality is consciously sought and chosen; then people (both individually, as in masses or as institutions) will never awaken from falsehood to reality; but will instead merely move from one false understanding to another. 

Men of earlier eras who tried to live in a virtual world of falsity used to revert to reality. 

This happened because (in pre-modern times; to varying degrees in different ties and places) Man's consciousness used to live inside-of reality. 

Like it or not; that is how we were made and organized. Consciousness was not (as now) fully-separated from the environment. 

Men were immersed-in their environment; therefore the (real) environment had direct power to impose itself upon our awareness, spontaneously.

In pre-modern times, reality would become conscious spontaneously; and it took effort and choice to reject reality; and therefore there was a tendency for Men living in falsehood to revert to reality. 

However, nowadays, modern Man's consciousness is cut-off from reality. 

Modern Man is alienated. 

And it is exactly this cut-off-ness of consciousness that enables Men of the modern world to live - for decade after decade - in falsehood, in illusion, in a virtual reality.  

Ironically, modern self-described 'realists' often exemplify this cut-off-ness of modern consciousness from reality; by the fact that they reject the divine, the spiritual, the soul, life beyond death etc - all of which used to be spontaneously known - and quite obviously real! - to Men of pre-modern eras. 

These modern (self-styled) 'realists' - like the rest of us - lack the ancient spontaneous and passive realism of consciousness; and mistake their unawareness of phenomena for the absence of phenomena.  

It is our consciousness that provides all the meanings and explanations for the stimuli and perceptions - which makes conscious-sense of the world around us.

All the meaning of which we are aware is therefore separated from reality; therefore (in modern Man) reality has no way of imposing itself upon consciousness.

So long as our consciousness is passive - reality cannot get at it. 

We can only know reality by consciously choosing it; by an active process.

Nowadays, we all consciously choose the reality that we believe, and in-which we dwell. 

The difference lies in whether we choose to discover and believe the one true reality; or one of the innumerable false realities. 

And in this world of now, dominated by evil powers; if we take the path of passivity, and decline to choose; then it is one (or many) of the false realities of which we will become conscious. 

True reality is something each must find for himself; and himself choose.

Just an observation that seems often to be missed...

For Christians, lying is a sin; yet great swathes of people in many walks of life (especially the ruling and middling classes) are required to lie for their living. 

Yet hardly any Christians even remember that lying is a sin; and even-fewer emphasize it -- much preferring to focus on the spectacular stuff like torture, murder, rape, arson and theft (i.e. sins of which, non-coincidentally, most Christians themselves are innocent). 

Therefore lying is surely (it must be!) by-far the commonest and least repented of all sins. 

This explains the massive PSYOPS of recent years, which are based on Big Lies; which require systematic dishonesty; and which require more-and-more people to believe, and speak, and act-upon, and defend untruth. 

Most of the PSYOPS are attempts (apparently successful) to normalize and render invisible untruthfulness - including getting 'everybody' to ignore or deny The Obvious; and to 'forget' the deliberate sins and horrors of Mainstream-approved and -implemented policies. 

In an ultimate sense - thanks to Jesus Christ - sinning 'does not matter' to salvation: so long as it is repented. 

It is because we do not recognize untruthfulness, deliberate misleading, and dishonesty as sins; that they are not repented - and therefore become a form of chosen self-damnation. 

This is a major reason why, and how, They are winning the spiritual war. 

I have been reading an interesting series of essays by Colin Wilson, collected under the title of Introducing the occult. These date from after the publication of his hefty and best-selling The Occult: A History in 1971; and constitute introductions, prefaces, forewords and afterwords from a variety of occult-themed books of that era. 

Two things struck me about this. 

The first was that this period, more than fifty years ago, was already advanced into an 'occult revival' with many books being written and bought on a wide range of subjects - and this has continued such that large sections of booksellers (plus other kinds of consumables) are dedicated to these matters. 

At the time, this was regarded as a highly socially significant phenomenon - since it seemed to be strongly in reaction against the dominant scientistic materialism. 

It seemed that such interest in the occult must imply that an acknowledgment of the reality and importance of 'spiritual' matters had emerged and was growing; and that this would inevitably permeate and transform the world.   

Secondly, that this had Not happened. 

The occult revival had grown, many millions of people became more and more interested in one or many of its constituents - and yet this has made No Difference At All to the world of Public Discourse - the world of politics, bureaucracy and mass media that controls more, and ever-more, of Life. 

Politics, bureaucracy and the mass media (i.e. Mainstream Ideology) do not contain anything occult in their functional working, indeed they completely exclude the subject - and have been completely unaffected by fifty years of (what seems like) intensive and extensive interest and activities to do with the occult. 

Mainstream Ideology remains utterly mundane, materialistic, reductionistic; the ideas that control the world (international, national, corporate, institutional...) assume and operate-on-the-basis-of, the most grossly simplistic, mechanical, and top-down-imposed models of human needs and desires. 

Exactly as if the occult revival had never happened at all...

In fact, almost the opposite. It is as if the mainstream Public Discourse had become encapsulated: sealed from all possible influences. 

And if mainstream discourse is encapsulated; then so are Men's minds; because most Men either work inside the System - or are so closely dependent upon The System (e.g. for funding by subsidy or tax allowances; and in legal, 'safety', insurance and employment functions etc.) as to replicate System operations within themselves. 

We moderns have become strange creatures whose 'professional', or 'public' minds are - on the one hand - the only thing that matters (so far as the Public World is concerned); and, on the other hand, creatures in which this professional-public thinking is sealed-off from external influences.  

Instead of occult ideas permeating all of life (as was expected in the 1970s), what has happened is the opposite: that sealed-off Mainstream Ideology has disseminated universally; has permeated and controlled the occult; such that nowadays all occult thinking, writing, believing takes-place within the Mainstream Ideology.  

And not just Mainstream - but on the leftmost edges (that is, the most materialistic, totalitarian and globalist) of the Mainstream. 

In essence; nearly-every occult practitioner, author, lecturer, leader - is already, and increasingly, an activist for the Mainstream Ideology.  

We moderns take this kind of thing for granted - if we notice it at all. 

By now, we have experienced decades of incremental, global totalitarianism via bureaucracy and the mass media - infiltrating, subverting, and ultimately inverting every type of social institution away from its original function to become 'converged' onto the nature and purposes of The System.

This has happened to the established institutional churches of all religions and denominations; and it has happened to the disorganized, entrepreneurial world of The Occult. 

All of the apparently 'Anti-Establishment' and 'counter-cultural' influences of the middle twentieth century - whether the occult, self-sufficiency and environmentalism, sexual liberation, anarchy, drugs... whatever - all of these have been neutralized and excluded, when they have not been enlisted actively into the totalitarian project. 

But it is striking to see, from contemporary writings, how convinced many intelligent and informed people were, just fifty years ago; that the era of narrow materialism and mundane social control via materialist bureaucracy, was coming to an end - when, in fact, it had only just begun... 

I have just read - with great enjoyment - all five novels in the Lockwood & Co. series by the English author Jonathan Stroud. 

I came across this via watching a recent eight-part Netflix TV series (of which the first three episodes are good adaptations of the first book of the series; the final five episodes a not-very-good elaboration of the second book).

And then discovering that my daughter had an old signed copy of The Screaming Staircase from a decade ago when the author gave a talk locally. This got me started. 

The five-part Lockwood & Co. book-series is recommendable as an exciting story with a satisfying resolution; having particular strengths in terms of alternative-history-type world-building, an interesting and coherent magic system, and a generous helping of humour and high spirits (I frequently laughed out-loud at the quips and comments between the main characters). 

It is essentially 'light reading', and doesn't have any spiritual depth - despite being about death and ghosts; but the author is good at varying the tone between thrilling adventures, and 'cozy' interludes (much as JK Rowling does in the Harry Potter books). 

If I had to say what the Lockwood & Co. series is most like; I would make a comparison with Rick Riordan's modern retellings of Greek, Roman and Norse mythic material (most famously the Percy Jackson series) - which are mostly written for a somewhat younger audience than L&C. Or Brandon Sanderson's 'Young Adult' books such as The Rithmatist published in the same year (but The Rithmatist - a particular favourite of mine - also has subtly-implied but definite spiritual/ religious depths). 

As always when I make a recommendation; the disclaimer: People who like this sort of thing, may find this the sort of thing they like. 

If we believe that Men are each different and unique in their ultimate natures, and that some of these Men are naturally Bad - then this presents a problem for God, when it comes to designing a created world for such persons. 

To put the matter more starkly: God's problem (here and now) is that nowadays there are a lot of people like me. 

God is creator of this world, and has designed the world as a place where Men can incarnate as mortals; and where His hope is that as many Men as possible will chose the path of salvation and resurrection. 

But salvation is not God's only objective - or else we would not live for so many years, and live such varied lives. God is also trying to provide us with the experiences we need to learn spiritually - and for some people (perhaps for most) salvation cannot be achieved until after a significant degree of spiritual development. 

In other words; some people are (in effect) born into this world with natures that tend to reject God and refuse salvation. In fact; my distinct impression is that (at least in The West, but probably all over the world) a very high proportion of Men in recent generations have been of this Bad type. 

I would certainly include myself in this category. I did not spontaneously seek for resurrection to eternal Heavenly life - quite apart from whether it was a real possibility, it was not what I wanted for myself. I only came to desire for myself what Jesus Christ offered after several decades of life on earth, indeed only after becoming (what I thought was) A Christian. 

But, in addition to this, I was also a materialist by natural conviction; I was blind-to and insensible-of God - of whom I had no natural awareness. 

Although as a young child, I spontaneously lived-in and believed a spiritual world; from the age of about five or six I seized upon the idea that the universe and everything in it Just Happened by the accidents of scientific laws; and therefore that there was no objective purpose or meaning to life.

This seemed to me just reality; and I got satisfaction from my own courage in acknowledging this harsh truth which (I supposed) others were too weak to admit. 

So, if I wanted purpose and meaning in my life, as of course I did; then these were something I had to imagine for myself - and these were not usually real to other people. 

Consequently, I tended to regard other people and the resto-of-the-world as (merely) either allies or foes in terms of whether they helped or hindered the illusional system by which I had invented a world to make my life interesting and enjoyable.  

In other words; the behavioral implications of my world view was a kind of selfish hedonism; that is, I must be selfish because my self  was the only source of purpose and meaning; and my aim was inevitably some form of self gratification, in this life and world (because I acknowledged no other). 

I am not saying that the purposeless, meaningless materialism that underpinned my life had things all its own way. There were also instincts and motivations that did not fit with the materialist ideas - and these would sometimes prevail over the selfish hedonism that was the products of my bottom-line assumptions concerning reality. But, to a significant degree, I experienced these anti-selfish, anti-hedonic impulses as a problem - because they interfered with my enjoyment of life. I was often arguing with myself, against the (irrational, as I experienced it) innate resistance I felt, against doing what seemed obviously the most enjoyable activity - over the short-term and therefore most certainly. 

My suggestion here is that this modern world can be understood as God's response to the problem of dealing with very large numbers of incarnating people of a kind broadly such as myself, or even worse. 

It may be that the incarnation of people like me were delayed until now because our innate Badness made us a poor risk for salvation, a high risk for self-chosen damnation. 

As not-very-conscious, mostly-passive spiritual beings dwelling immersed in the environment of God's love - we were probably fine; but to advance spiritually we need to follow the path of Jesus: to incarnate as mortals and seek resurrection by our own free agency.

We have been given this chance - but are perhaps not the best material, and we seem to be immune to many of the environmental features that used to work in encouraging salvation and spiritual growth for earlier generations - features such as churches. 

Indeed, people like me seem not only to be immune to many traditional religious inducements; but they often actively repel us - and are counter-productive. 

And such matters are made even-worse by the fact that a preponderance of people-like-me within the churches; means that the churches have become incoherent, filled with careerist infighting, and themselves covert agents of anti-Christian Badness.  

People like me don't respond helpfully to kind treatment and comfortable conditions - since we interpret all 'good fortune' to be either the random workings of blind 'luck' or scientific law; or else as proving that we are already on the right lines with our life assumptions and plans. 

We are not easy people to deal-with; because our assumptions are self-reinforcing - and irrefutable by most kinds of everyday life. 

The only way to provoke the necessary change seems to be, by a (repeating) process of getting us to experience the consequences of our own assumptions, choices, decisions. 

But this way of learning from the outcomes of past-choices can be - and often is - sabotaged by a habit (or indeed ethic) of projecting blame for all adversity. 

I have often claimed that Resentment is one of the most dominant sins of these days; and resentment is the obverse side of refusing to accept responsibility for one's own attitudes, choices and actions. 

If we always blame some other person - or nowadays, some other group (such as the upper classes, men, whites, or some other nation) for the adverse consequences of our own choices - then we will never acknowledge our errors nor learn from from our mistakes. 

I know this from experience because it was a chink in my armour of self-reinforcing evil that I was almost immune to the temptations of resentment; and therefore eventually took responsibility for the bad consequences of my primary assumptions; then became conscious of these assumptions - and that they were indeed assumed and not facts...

And then incrementally discovered that what I really, most-deeply, and intuitively assumed - were things quite different from those of secular, hedonic materialism. 

In broad terms; I regard the world as it is and is becoming; to be the kind of world in which the consequences our our (unexamined, and denied) assumptions are being made manifest, incrementally, and with increasing severity. 

It is a world designed for teaching tough lessons to naturally-Bad people such as me. 

It is a world where we can learn from experience those things we most need; but only if we take personal responsibility for our-assumptions, convictions and actions. 

So long as we try to elude the necessity of blaming ourselves for what is our fault, and instead seek to blame others; then for so long, we will remain trapped inside the Badness of nature which we brought into this world.  

One of the fundamental misunderstandings prevalent among intellectuals who deny the divine and spiritual basis of reality; is that they assume evil is ultimately a kind of selfishness. The assumption is that an evil person is one who pursues selfish goals without regard for others.

These secular materialists believe that, although selfishness may take different forms in different people, evil is ultimately self-gratification - aiming at what I want, and what gives me gratification; instead of taking into account what other people want.

This, in turn, leads to the idea that altruism - which entails self-sacrifice supposedly for the benefit of others - is the highest virtue. 

The reason I italicized "supposedly" for the benefit of others; is that the benefit of other people is, in practice, conjectural - and often disputed. 

What happens, in practice, is that everybody claims to be doing what they do for the benefit of others, and constructs rationalizations to 'prove' this - but there is no objective standpoint from which to evaluate these counter-claims. 

Especially since comparing benefit involves trying to balance multiple and incommensurable factors - as when comparing the supposed psychological benefits of supposed-freedom or supposed-equality, with (for example) measurable material disadvantages such as increased death from violence, increased incidence of rape, increased disease and poverty. 

(These examples are relevant because many secular-left political triumphs that have been justified by benefits of 'freedom' or 'equality'; are accompanied or followed by large material disbenefits such as those listed.) 

Because large-scale or mass benefits cannot easily or uncontroversially be measured; it is common to try and discern evil from good on the basis of 'who benefits' from some course of action: in law, such a principle is termed cui bono?. 

Thus, a great deal of debate concerns who benefits from policies in terms of money, or power - or, less often, some powerful gratification such as greed or sexual lust. 

The idea behind this is that evil is self-gratifying; and the implicit assumption of such reasoning is that those who propose some course of action but do not benefit from it, but who instead lose-out from this course of action, are not motivated by evil...

The idea that those who lose-out must therefore be altruistic in motivation; and, as such, be good.

Yet this is not true; because evil is often self-destructive. 

Indeed, evil is always self-destructive - in the end; because the nature of evil is to oppose Good (i.e. to oppose God and divine creation). 

This means that, since all beings are created by God - and live inside God's created reality; all evil must, sooner or later, oppose its own well-being. 

My point here is that we ought not to be blinded to the operations of evil by the fact that evil people (i.e. people who have affiliated to the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world) may advocate and work-for policies and actions that will harm themselves, and their own well-being. 

Also, that self-destructive behaviour is not thereby altruistic. Just because a person or institution acts against their own gratification and best interests; does not mean they are acting for the well-being of others. 

Often enough - the covert intent is to cause harm to all of divine creation, including themselves. 

In other words; while evil may be selfish and self-gratifying at the expense of others; evil will eventually become merely spiteful, merely destructive, merely negative. 

This is not self-sacrifice; but self-hatred.

Evil hates itself because its-self is a part of God's creation, hence ultimately Good by its nature. 

Attempted self-annihilation, suicide, is therefore the inevitable and only end point for successful evil. 

I have not made any extensive investigation of the reports of Near Death Experiences (NDEs), beyond reading descriptions of such things, by people whose reliability and honesty I am not usually able to evaluate. 

(Except that I am always suspicious of those who attempt to make money or get fame from reporting their purported paranormal or mystical experiences.)

Nonetheless, I have noticed that reports of NDEs have a broad consistency about them - which is in great contrast to the descriptions of 'Heaven' that have also been made over the centuries. 

It seems to me that NDE accounts are attempts to describe various personal experiences of the same objective thing; while instead accounts of 'Heaven' could well be descriptions of many uniquely-personal and subjective experiences.  

My interpretation is that NDEs are a real thing that have actually happened to at least some of those who report them; while those who claim to describe Heaven are mistaken, because they have not actually experienced Heaven, but a variety of other states instead. 

(I do not believe that anybody can experience Heaven without being resurrected, which is not reversible. Therefore all valid accounts of Heaven by mortal Men must be secondhand, and - at best - derived from communication with those who inhabit Heaven. Accounts of being-in Heaven will therefore be wrong or imagined, in some way or another.)

What about NDEs - what do they 'prove' and how can they be explained? 

I think NDEs suggest that our conscious-selves can exist in a spirit form that continues after death. 

This, indeed, is probably what happens in ordinary dreaming sleep; when our spirits likewise almost detach from our bodies and our consciousness stays with the spirit and leaves the body. Hence, our dream-consciousness may then have a wide range of experiences not possible to the body. 

The spirit in sleep does, however, remain attached to the body, however tenuously, as evidenced by the fact we can be woken by things perceived-by or done-to the sleeping body: or else we would be dead. 

And the same applies to Near Death Experiences; because, of course, they may be near to death, but by definition the person does not actually die.  

In sum; Near Death Experiences seem to be some variant of a general phenomenon that also include dreaming sleep, and other types of delirium (e.g. due to pyrexia, intoxication, and many types of illness); happening when there is a near-detachment of our conscious spirit-self from our body.

Such an experience may suggest that a further and complete separation of conscious-spirit from body would be possible; and that then the detached spirit would remain alive, conscious, and purposive - at least for a while.

This is how NDEs are often regarded as evidence for 'life after death' - that is, for spiritual life continuing after death of the body. And furthermore, NDEs suggest that this continued spirit life is - at least initially - likely to be conscious, and the post-death spirit able to make decisions.  

By my understanding of salvation; it is from this post-mortal state of continued and conscious spirit existence following mortal death of the body; that Men are able to choose to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection and eternal life in Heaven - or else to reject that possibility, and choose something else. 

When the modern era began (with 'Enlightenment' or 'the age of reason') - the idea and impulse emerged that Men should not passively be ruled by unconscious instinct; but that instead we ought consciously to reason-out our belief and behaviours by our intellect. 

At first there was the idea that intellect ought to be rooted in 'empirical' - or perceptual - data; which led to the idea of 'science' (broadly defined). 

Thus; for Enlightenment our beliefs and behaviours ought to derive from conscious and intellectual reflection only on information derived from the senses, and from memories of sensory information (including memories encoded in writing and other symbolic systems such as mathematics). 

But a minority of Men became aware that self-styled 'Enlightenment' and 'reason' was - in practice - merely to swap a primordial unconscious passivity to instinct and nature, for a modern conscious passivity to human society. 

Such conscious passivity is normal nowadays, especially in public discourse; where the mass of Men passively believe... whatever is currently dominant in their perceptual environment - and then call this obedience to human power by the name of science!

Instead of ancient Men being un-consciously in accordance with the natural world; modern Men consciously choose to live in accordance with a Man-made world of ideology. 

The alternative is called Romanticism, which emerged from the middle 1700s when Enlightenment was reaching its height. 

True Romanticism was aiming at something unprecedented in human history: conscious awareness and choice to live by intuition; where intuition is the guidance and knowledge of our real and divine selves. 

Intuition was already and always there in us, but unconscious - Romanticism is the 'project' of becoming aware-of, and living in-accordance-with, this pre-existent intuition. 

Conscious thinking therefore ought to become directed at becoming aware of what our real-selves are saying, at any given time; and these real-selves were assumed to be attuned to ongoing divine creation. 

But Romanticism soon divided and diverted  into an atavistic and false Romanticism, which became commonest, and usurped the name of Romanticism. 

By this false Romanticism, the task was for Men consciously to return to what had been an unconscious the primordial state of spontaneous harmony with nature. 

In other words; false Romanticism advocated (and still does) that conscious effort and will should strive to direct thinking to knowing and living in accordance with instinct...

And indeed, the ultimate ideal of false Romanticism is that conscious thinking should strive to eliminate itself; so that Men might return to primordial unconscious harmony with the natural world.   

As well as being regressive, it turns-out that false Romanticism is both ineffective, and counter-productive - playing into the hands of the intellect and Enlightenment, and amplifying the power of empiricism. 

In a word: False Romanticism is Impossible. 

We cannot return to the childhood of our selves or our race. 

Therefore we face a forced-choice between the mainstream-degenerate Enlightenment intellectuality of directing consciousness at perceptual information and its symbolic representations - which has converged upon discovering, believing, and obeying "whatever is currently dominant in society"...

Or else to aim for real Romanticism: which is to direct our conscious thinking at discovering, and living in accordance with, our intuitions. 

Over at the Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss an episode in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo (and indeed Aragorn) behaves in a secretive way, that seems to put the Fellowship of the Ring at needless extra risk.

When Time is recognized as part of A Being, then we can also understand how a Being can remain the same Being - even if/when its component elements are all replaced. 

And we can also understand that when an entity is not a Being, and its component parts are all replaced - then what results is no longer the same thing as it was to start with. 

This is the Ship of Theseus paradox from philosophy; but it is more clearly stated by the simpler example of contrasting Geordie the Man, and Geordie's hammer. 

If we suppose that over the course of fifty years every cell in Geordie's body has been replaced (which isn't really true, because some nerve and muscle cells are preserved through the lifespan; but let's assume it)... 

Then, despite that none of his component parts remain from fifty years before - we nonetheless regard Geordie as The Same Person as he was fifty years earlier. 

Whereas, by contrast, we regard Geordie's hammer - which has had three new iron heads and twelve new wooden handles during the fifty years - as Not the same hammer as it was before (even if the replacement heads and handles are always shaped identically to the original). 

Why the difference between Geordie and his hammer? 

Why is the Man regarded as being the same, even if his components are changed, even though he has transformed from child to youth, from young man to old man? Whereas the hammer, which looks and functions identically throughout, is nonetheless a different hammer? 

The difference is that Geordie is a Being, and the hammer is not. 

It is of the nature of Beings that their identity remains, despite whatever repairs, growth, development and transformation that Being has undergone through time - indeed self-repair, growth, development and transformation are actually attributes of a Being. 

Indeed Beings are always changing, they are dynamic; which is one way we recognize they are indeed Beings. 

Being-ness is thus continuous, it never ceases even for a moment. 

There is no paradox here - unless we start assuming that Time can be excluded from our understanding, and/or assuming that Time can be discontinuous (i.e. can stop, and start again - which is another way of assuming that Time can be excluded from the understanding). 

If we try to understand Beingness without reference to Time and continuity, then we are driven to assume that Beingness depends on some unchanged essence. 

If Beingness were wholly material, that would mean that Geordie was no longer himself when all his component parts had been replaced. 

One traditional attempted-solution of this difficulty is to posit an unchanging immaterial spirit, which persists as such even when the body is destroyed, and despite that the soul may change through time (for example, by learning from experience). 

But to say that the real Geordie is something eternal and unchanging, is to render all change to body and soul superficial and irrelevant in a context of eternity. This is to posit a reality in which the eternal essences of all Beings - including all Men - are unchanging. 

And this is (I believe) contradictory to the whole basis of Christianity; which assumes agency, and that our choices matter fundamentally and eternally+. 

(+This tends to lead back to a non-Christian oneness spirituality - where all of reality is assumed to be unified, perfect, unchanging - and all else is illusory. There is no space in such a scheme for God, Jesus or Men as free agents - since all categories entail division, and are thus regarded as ultimately illusory.) 

What of Geordie's hammer? Since the hammer is not a Being - what is it? 

I would say the hammer - as a separable entity with meaning - is a component of Geordie's Being, a part of Geordie's Being. 

The hammer gets meaning from Geordie; but might also be shared by Geordie's friends; or given to another Man (or other Being) - and then would get a somewhat different meaning by becoming part of a different identity. 

In general; not every 'thing' is a Being; and those that are not Beings will get their identity - will be recognizable and understandable and have purpose - from their association with one or many Beings: through being known by other Beings. 

Therefore; if it was possible that Geordie's hammer ceased to be known by any Being (even God) it would simply become assimilated into 'chaos'; that meaningless, purposeless stuff about which nothing can be said (because as soon as something is said of it - it ceases to be chaos).

The un-known hammer - since it is not a Being - would cease to be a part of divine creation.

(But this presumably does not happen, because God - having known the hammer, would always know the hammer.)

Whereas a Being is known to itself, since consciousness (of some kind) is an attribute of Being (other attributes are Life, Purpose, Change*). 

Hence Beings are eternal. 

Even if (as was originally the case, before creation) a Being was unknown to God and had not (or not yet) been included in divine creation, it would nonetheless still continue to be. 

What all this tells me, is that we should be care-full about how we talk and think about Time - if we wish to avoid incoherence. 

If we start separating Time from Beings (and Being-ness), and start assuming that Time can stop, or is discontinuous; then we create paradoxes when it comes to Being. 

An analogous problem is Zeno's paradox of the Achilles and the tortoise; this incoherence derives from assuming that Time can be understood as discontinuous, and can be broken into discrete segments. 

Similarly; when we try to understand Being, we will run into paradoxes if we try to understand Being in a Time-less fashion.

But if instead we regard Being as a primary aspect of ultimate reality; and recognize that Time is an attribute of Being - then there is no paradox. 

Then Being is understandable using ordinary, innate common sense - something even a child knows, without needing to be told.  

**

Note: Being is here regarded as a primary category - therefore "A Being" does not, cannot, have a definition. Anything that has a definition is not primary, since it can be further broken down. But Being does have attributes.