Bruce Charlton's Notions

Reality is made up of Beings. And these Beings exist 'in' Time.

In physics terminology, Beings are analogous to processes. If you try to think of a process outside of Time, it becomes frozen and not really a process anymore - and the same kind of thing happens with Beings.

If you try to think of a universe of Beings that are not 'inside time' then you will get something very unlike Beings - maybe a reality made of indestructible inert spheres, or something like that.  But beings are intrinsically active, doing - to some degree.

Because Beings are in-Time, then they must be 'doing' something - and what Beings are doing is having Relationships with other Beings.

So, this is the irreducible basis of Reality - Beings have-ing Relationships... Time cannot be subtracted from ultimate reality.


Because Beings are active (like processes) and eternal (because fundamental aspects of reality) - Beings are self-generating, self-creating.

If beings were like physics things, Beings would be perpetual motion machines, with infinite inner resources for self-creation.

But as Beings are the most fundamental units, we infer that self-creation is simply a 'property' of ultimate reality.


What about the Self? Well, Self is what a Being calls it own Being - so a Being and it's Self are the same 'thing' - but the Being is externally and abstractly regarded, whereas the Self is a Being's conceptualisation of itself.

I assume that this is an intrinsic property of Beings - that Beings know they are Selves, to some degree distinct from other Beings.

There is no 'inside' to the Self. It is a primary unit of reality, indivisible, unanalysable - and this (I think) means that the Self is 'immaterial' - it is not solid, not localised, does not have a surface, cannot be perceived or detected...

This sounds like lots of negatives, but this is simply to state that when it comes to the primary units of reality, there can be no further analysis. We can describe what a Being is and what it does (much like describing the character of a person in terms of his attributes, or inferred dominant motivations), but we cannot discuss its 'inner workings'. 


What is Consciousness? Consciousness is something outside-of and different-from the Self. The Consciousness observes - and one of the things Consciousness observes is the Self.

All Beings have some degree of Consciousness; although some entities (of what we call the mineral world, especially; but also the plant world) have a Consciousness that is relatively slow and weak, compared with men and some animals.

So all Beings are in relationships with other Beings, and all are somewhat Conscious of themselves and of this relationship with other Beings. All Beings therefore know themselves located within ongoing Time and reality.

What this means is that Self and and Consciousness are both attributes of Being. We can distinguish Self and Consciousness, but they are not divisible - you cannot have a Self without Consciousness or vice versa; S & C are characteristics of Being (which it may be helpful to distinguish), but S & C are not 'components' of Being.


This is a strange way of reasoning! ('Coleridge apparently called it Polar Logic; and you can read about it in Owen Barfield's What Coleridge Thought.)

But it essential to think in this way if we are to avoid the unresolvable paradoxes and problems that have plagued and paralysed Western Philosophy (and Christian Theology) since the Ancient Greeks invented it.

The key is to include Time in our fundamental metaphysical assumptions about ultimate reality - and this fits with (or naturally flows-from) the Christian scheme; since the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus happens in history, in time.

Christianity is linear, sequential and purposive.

The late Christopher Bamford was the editor-in-chief of Rudolf Steiner Books; and provided many excellent introductions to variously-themed collections of Steiner's lectures. 

Here Banford was interviewed for a documentary about Steiner; and from about 6-28 minutes, he provides a really excellent insight into what is best, deepest and most important about the work of Rudolf Steiner. It is a distillation of many years of reading, thinking and editorial work. 

For anyone with even the slightest interest in Steiner this deserves careful and focused listening. 

TW - Although Bamford was born in Wales, and lived his adult life in the USA, the trace of accent is Hungarian, deriving from childhood and youth.  

In case the video goes down, I will provide my own paraphrased summary of what Bamford says, derived from notes I took while watching. 

Where I amplify upon Bamford, I will put my own notions into [squared brackets]. 

***

The essence of Steiner's message is that we are already, here and now, living in a spiritual world. This is true despite our habits of reductionist-positivistic thinking - which actually materializes the world; nonetheless we live in a spiritual world: here and now. 

Everything is consciousness. 

...And all consciousness is of a Being which is conscious. 

We inhabit a world of Beings in relationships. 

So, reality consists of relationships in consciousness. 

These relationships continue after that transformation which is death - indeed our relationships with the so-called-dead are highly significant. 

The so-called-dead are not just active on this life on earth, that is their major focus and interest; they desire (sometimes need) to be involved in our lives. 

This reality was reflected in religions where ancestors were with the living, and participating in everyday life. 

After 'death' we will be with those we had relationships with during this life. And in this life we should continue to stay connected with those we love who have 'died'. 

Such two-way relationships continually strive to operate via the spiritual (not material) world; [which is why it is vital to acknowledge that this is primarily a spiritual world].  

Steiner's teaching is about The Earth - which is the centre of concern for the universe. This concern includes the Earth, and Men, through the long history of its developmental-evolution. 

The purpose of the Earth and Men - what this world is essentially for - is the creation of relationships. And this is vital because only on Earth and among Men can Beings learn to love. 

Steiner's most fundamental teaching is that the most important thing in reality is the cultivation of Love; and the development of consciousness of Love.

Therefore, consciousness [i.e. personal awareness, by a Being, of that which is] has a positive transformative capability.

Also both love and freedom are needed and inseparable - you cannot have one without the other. 

[Steiner's concept of freedom is related to the development of consciousness; we become free by first becoming conscious and then by choosing; and this applies to love.] 

The most important activity of the universe takes place on earth, and the rest of reality participates in the development of Love between beings on Earth. 

[This is creation. Our life on Earth is spiritual; this spiritual life is about love; and this love is creation. Creation is made-of love; and the aim of evolution is to develop this love and consciousness of love.]

Earth is the centre of reality. And Love is what makes creation possible - what makes creation happen.  

The gods [i.e. divine Beings, and God the primary creator] are focused on the Earth. Humanity is therefore "the religion of the gods". 

The incarnation of Jesus Christ turned the universe inside-out. God was beyond and 'there', but God is now right here. 

Jesus's instruction to love one another meant that Men could become his friends. Indeed, we must love among our 'brothers and sisters' or else we cannot love God. 

[Love among Men is not sufficient, but it is essential. The first commandment to love God, and the second commandment to love fellow Men are no longer, since Christ, possible to separate. Both are necessary for each other.]

Steiner realized the centrality of Christ by a personal and initiatory experience of consciousness; which reality became a central and guiding light of his whole life and teaching.  

Christianity began as a religion but became more than a religion. The reality of Christ is now global, and in all Men and all religions, everywhere.   

In a simple phrase we can say that the great longing in the heart of the Creator before creation began was the longing to give birth to individual children who would eventually become His friends in the everlastingness of the Divine Spirit which He himself exists in. The whole of creation is thus His method of bringing this about and it requires Him to give and us to receive the "great gift", which is the reality and conscious understanding of our own individualised Divine Being. 

http://www.billarkle.co.uk/greatgift/text/divinelove.html


In a simple phrase we can say that the great longing in the heart of the Creator 

God has passions, God has wants, these drive the universe of reality


before creation began 

Everything created is affected by God's longing


was the longing to give birth to individual children who would eventually become his friends in the everlastingness of the Divine Spirit which He himself exists in. 

Men and women are those children. God's deepest hope is that eventually some of us choose to 'join Him' at a level and in such a way that we could be described as having a relationship of friendship: that we could 'grow-up' from childhood to adulthood in deity, and take up a relationship with God as we might imagine by extrapolating from the relationship between a parent and a child in the most perfect of loving families. This process of 'divinization', or theosis or spiritual progression is the purpose of life. 


The whole of creation is thus His method of bringing this about 

Created reality is organized around this purpose, that is the meaning of everything


and it requires Him to give and us to receive the "great gift", which is the reality and conscious understanding of our own individualised Divine Being. 

'Individualized Divine Being' - means that the only or best way in which God's purpose may be achieved is because each person has is not only his or her unique human self; but that self is a partially divine being - this is the gift we inherit from our Father. 

It is a gift - it is not something we are forced to accept, understand, believe to be true... indeed we could not be forced to accept the gift in any way that would fulfil its purpose, Everything must happen by choice. 


That we are partially divine beings makes us capable of choice, and that we are partially divine beings means that our Destiny can only be chosen, and can be rejected. That Destiny is one of relationship with God and joining-in with His work and plans - along with others of His children who make that choice to accept the Gift. 

Behind all this is that the created reality exists in Time and an unfolding thing, as a series of experiences and choices - any spiritual progress toward divinity is experiential and incremental. 

The fact of theosis operating by necessary and cumulative human choices, based on our experiences, means that the nature of reality is such that God probably could not make things to be 'already' exactly as He wishes them to be - but that we are living in a reality which is en route to an ideal (and that ideal may itself be a process leading to something ever higher, more complex, more loving, more relational). 

The world never has been perfect; rather reality was and is designed to give the necessary experiences to God's children. Some 'imperfections' are due to the need for these experiences, others are real imperfections/ horrors are due to our own choice to reject - or other people' choices to reject, God's plan - which is for reality to be based on loving relationships.


(The most ideal and loving human family is our best model of God's aim: the most ideal and loving Father is the best model of God's nature and wishes for His children - on the assumption he hopes for these children to grow-up and become as he is. Once we understand this to be the essence of God's longing and the explanation of our condition - we must choose whether to accept or reject it.)



Going further than the above quote, and bringing-in other aspects of Arkle's insights: Since everything depends on choice - Good and evil are defined in terms of acceptance or rejection of God's plan for a reality of loving relationships. This plan can be, and presumably is, rejected - either partly or wholly. 

A person might reject the plan of relationships - and choose to live in solitary, blissful love (something like Nirvanah) - or a person might choose to reject love (this rejection is termed Pride) and either remain in an ultimately-solitary state of love-less-ness; or engage in relationships with those who have also also rejected love (this is termed Hell). 

So we have (another) Two-by-Two matrix of choices: Love, Rejected Love, Relationships, Rejected Relationships 

Love + Relationships = Heaven 

Love + Rejected Relationships = Nirvanah

Rejected Love + Relationships = Hell

Rejected Love + Rejected Relationships = Ultimate solitude

I have developed the metaphysical assumption that reality consists of Beings in relationships; this is a version of the spontaneous ('animistic') assumptions of 'all' young children and (so far as is known) hunter-gatherers - including our ancestors. 

I assume that this is an essentially true way of understanding reality which is why it was and is innate, 'built-into' Men - by God. 

Beings are therefore regarded as the ultimate, fundamental, metaphysically primary units of reality; Beings that are alive, with attributes such as consciousness, and purpose.  

In other words: there are ultimately no 'things' (or, more exactly, no knowable things - because chaos is not knowable - it can only be a label for uncreated stuff, including the primordial background state). Ultimately; there is no 'it' - but only 'him' or 'her' (or some other linguistic term that refers to Beings). 

This seems to mean that the spiritual war of this world includes all Beings, not just us human Beings; but animals, plants, and features of what we refer to as the 'mineral' world - sea, sky, and aspects of the earth - and the earth herself. 

And as usual, as with humans, there are Beings within Beings - just as we contain innumerable cells that are beings - for instance the white blood cells which roam our blood and lymph, consuming germs and debris, that are very similar to amoebae. 

And we Men, as individual Beings, are also biologically (and spiritually) 'social animals', with a 'Beingness' of some kinds of human groups, that is difficult to conceptualize yet also traditionally regarded as true; and which seems to exist above the individual level.    

One among many aspects of this situation is that all Beings have an analogous choice to that of Men, of whether to accepts the salvation made possible by Jesus Christ. Whether, that is, to choose resurrection into Heaven.

(Or not - and thus by default [whether actively or passively] to choose... something else.) 

I assume all Beings are - in their very different ways, due to their different qualities and degrees of consciousness - able to choose resurrection - or not. 

And this would apply to that Being which is 'the planet earth'. 

That there is indeed some such Being as 'planet earth', I am assuming on the basis that it seems to be spontaneous knowledge, and a feature of many cultures of many kinds through history. 

This earth will therefore - like you and me - at some point need to make an eternal commitment to Heaven - if the earth is to become immortal, everlasting... resurrected. 

And resurrection entails death; death is the only portal to eternal life of individual Beings. 

So, in order to become part of heavenly Life Eternal; the earth (as a Being) would first need to die; and must then choose - by an eternal commitment - to be resurrected. 

The death of the earth seems 'inevitable', given entropy; which seems to apply to all material stuff in this reality. And then, after death; will the earth choose to be resurrected? 

It seems to me that the earth will not have made this eternally-binding choice to 'discard' all sin and corruption and become everlasting; until after she actually has made this final commitment; because in this mortal and entropic material world, nothing is or can be eternal - including not our choices.

Our choices are open to change, to revision, until they are final choices; which happens only after death: when the spirit has separated from the (dead) body.  

In conclusion; we cannot know in advance whether the planet earth as a Being will, or will not, be part of Heaven; because that final choice has not yet been made by the Being that is Earth. 

This means that the question is still open; and we can be sure that Satan will be trying to influence the choice of Earth; such that she will reject Heaven; and by using broadly the same kind of methods that Satan uses against Men, to induce Men to reject Heaven.

How might this be working? Well, since the modern era (developing from circa 1500 in The West), and even more since the industrial revolution; Men have been set against Earth. Men's assumptions include that the Earth is Not a Being, that 'it' is dead, and can therefore be manipulated and explained as desired. 

The Earth is not even despised; but is regarded as outside of the drama of creation, because unalive. 

Atheists do this, Christians do this, modern environmentalists do this... 

Environmentalists - in particular - have reduced the living earth to an abstract concept called 'the environment'; which is broken down into a multitude of dead sub-concepts derived from science. 

Indeed - at present - the environment is in practice being reduced to mathematical models concerned with Carbon Dioxide; and everything else is ignored or subjugated to these models and their implications. 

In sum; there are many, many reasons why the planet earth might have developed the same kind of sinful, negative, sins that beset modern Man: I mean such sins as fear, resentment and despair. 

We might suppose that such negative attitudes could lead the modern (here-and-now) earth towards the same kind of attitudes to God, divine creation and Heaven as beset modern Men; and might lead to the same salvation-rejecting attitudes as are characteristic of so many modern Men. 

Indeed, it may be that when Christians (or anybody else - but I am addressing Christians in particular) make assumptions about what Will Happen to the planet earth; by acting as-if the earth had no say in the matter, they may be making matters worse! 

When Christians assume that the planet earth Will Be resurrected into the New Jerusalem - that Heaven Will Be on some version of this earth - are they actually taking-for-grated that the living-conscious earth will do exactly what human beings want earth to do, and thereby treating the earth as unalive, just 'a thing' which exists for the convenience of Men?

Just as if we were to assume that we knew for sure whether some particular human being would necessarily ultimately choose or reject salvation and resurrection; because that outcome is part of our own plans. 

To speak 'anthropomorphically' (which may not be far from the literal truth); when we think, speak and behave concerning the earth as an 'it' consisting of 'things' - the earth knows about this! and presumably does not like it, and may develop negative attitudes in consequence - and yet we continue and increase this way of not-relating to the earth. 

(How many of the troubles of Men with 'natural disasters' that we put down to 'bad luck' are actually a direct consequence of the way we regard the earth as a dead it and an unalive thing - and the same for Beings composing, and dwelling on, the earth? Some of the troubles, for sure.)

If we really dwell in this reality as Beings among Beings; then such matters are of fundamental importance: I mean recognizing the agency of other Beings, and recognizing that each Just Is responsible for his or her own salvation. 

It is so easy for us modern Men to fall-into the evil practice of regarding 'the universe' as a 'machine' - and this is wrong even when what is being-assumed is 'a machine for salvation'. 

We are not components in a mechanism, or elements in a determined-plan - and neither is the planet earth! 

We are all Beings, engaged in a free quest, located in a world which is engaged in spiritual war; a vital aspect of which is relationships. 

And one primary principle of such relationships is that we recognize each other as Beings - not as things. 

Conversely; it is a plank of the devil's program of damnation, that Men cease to do this; and instead habitually (and by conviction) regard 'the environment', animals, plants and other Men - as things instead of Beings.

Making Men into things, and he/ she into 'it'; is the malign intent behind such core evil-strategies as bureaucracy, totalitarianism, transhumanism, 'Artificial Intelligence', the transagenda, and the incremental and coercive computerization and digitalization of Life. 

Beings are not necessarily-determined, nor are they random. Instead; Beings have natures (dispositions), and purposes, can learn, make choices - and until they have made eternal choices, their fate cannot be known in advance.

To think and talk otherwise, is choosing to become a component part of the agenda of evil. 

Note added: On re-reading the above, I find it rather unsatisfactorily expressed; and I think this is because I am preaching something I cannot practice - although I want to! For instance, I found several examples (which I needed to edit out) in which I had used 'it/ its' about the planet earth! Nonetheless; this merely emphasizes how deep and pervasive is this 'objectivizing' and dead-ly way of thinking. It has even permeated what most adults (and indeed older children) regard as 'common sense' - so that it strikes most people as dumb or insane to acknowledge the livingness and consciousness of the universe and its true-components. I myself had to be driven to this conclusion (metaphorically 'kicking and screaming') via theoretical biology, and the attempt to define 'life', discuss the 'origins' of 'life', understand the nature of creativity - and indeed to map the proper boundaries of biology... All of which attempts I found to be impossible without the artificial drawing of boundaries that seemed too-obviously arbitrary. When confronted by the dilemma that - therefore - everything must either be alive, or else unalive. (In reductionist scientific terms; all of reality is either 'biology' or physics.) I felt intuitively compelled to assume the truth of the former - given that the idea that all of reality is ultimately physics (or maybe abstract mathematics), has underpinned the assumptions that have led Western Civilization to where we are now. That life consists in irreducible and primary Beings, arose from noticing the abstract - and again artificial - nature of any other conceptualization of biology/ life/ creation.  

I have often come across variations on the theme that this world and the Men, animals and plants who dwell here are perfectible: that this mortal life can be transformed into Heaven. 

The transformation has been variously expressed; one idea is that the gross materiality of bodies will be transformed into light; or that matter becomes spirit; or (in New Age type thinking) that the vibrational-state or frequency of the planet and everything on it will be raised. 

The underlying idea seems to be that this world as-it-is is "entropically" subject to death, decay, disease, and sin; but that the corruptible "stuff" of mortality and imperfection can be transformed and replaced by in-corruptible stuff... Thus Earth is changed into Heaven.

I regard this metaphysical belief as an early manifestation of Mankind's alienation, of our diminishing participation, of the loss of primal "animism" by which we knew that this reality is constituted by Beings - loving, conscious, purposive beings - and these are the bottom-line explanation. 

Because reality is Beings - therefore restatements of ultimate reality in such terms as vibrations or frequencies, of matter-spirit distinctions, or of light or any other physical property - are all abstractions. (All "physicsy").

That is these ways of understanding reality are all distanced, symbolic, representative - but not reality itself; and only a secondary form of understanding.

If, instead, we embrace the original and spontaneous human understanding of reality in terms of Beings, then we can recognize that what prevents Heaven on Earth is not a matter of matter, not about the "substance" of this world (as if it could be separated from the spirit). But instead that death, sin, insufficiency, "entropy" are a consequence on the inharmoniousness of relationships between Beings. 

In a nutshell: it is the lack of complete and eternal love that prevents our eternal lives and Heaven. 

We must rectify relationships and enable eternal Love to have Heaven. 

Heaven can arise only by Loving God first - that is, recognizing and committing ourselves to God's creation and creative methods and purposes. 

And second: by loving our neighbours/ fellow-Men - in other words Loving All Other Beings - forever.

These are the two Great Commandments articulated by Jesus Christ; and can be seen as shorthand for the eternal and irrevocable commitment to live by Love; in harmony with God's creative will. 

When beings live by Love, this is eternal - because there is nothing in Heaven (thus conceived) to disrupt or destroy divine creation.  

Since Love is what is needed, and since Love is a choice - we need to recognize that Love is the free act of a Being with agency as an essential attribute. 

Therefore (because Love cannot be imposed, top-down, from-externally); everlasting life and Heaven cannot be imposed, but must instead be chosen: indeed there must be a commitment to live eternally by Love. 

To make our lives eternal and dwell in Heaven is therefore a matter of relationship, and that relationship is voluntary (again, Love cannot be imposed)... 

Thus Heaven cannot be imposed on Earth by any means - what must instead happen is that all the beings of Earth (including the being of Earth itself) must choose to live by Love.   

I cannot see any way that such a lot of choices would be simultaneous, and Heaven cannot be partial; which would seem to mean that either Heaven must be delayed until every Being has chosen it -- which delay seems contradicted by Jesus's teachings (esepcially in the Fourth Gospel - of "John"). Or Heaven is elsewhere. 

(And also there is the fact of at least some apparently eternally-self-damned demons; which would prevent Heaven ever from happening - if indeed all must repent before eternal life can ensue.) 

Heaven surely cannot be partial; because the dwelling in Heaven of selfish or cruel Beings would not be Heaven! It would lead to destruction of that Loving creation which enables both perfection and eternity - and is itself the state of Heaven.

So, it seems to me that Heaven, and our eternal resurrected life therein, must be elsewhere than this earth; and segregated from this world of sin/ death - such that those Beings who have not committed to Love, do-not and cannot affect Heaven. 

My understanding is therefore that this-world cannot be other than it is; which is a consequence of God's Loving creation in a context of primal chaos, creation in the context of Beings that all have some tendency to death, to selfishness, to sin (and some Beings apparently incapable of Love). 

This world is temporary, and creation here is like the rule of a wise and wholly-Good parent imposed on children (i.e. Beings) who vary in their innate degrees of Goodness, and obedience. 

But for eternal life and Heaven to exist, these Beings (us, you and me, included) must be released from obedience in order to choose freely whether or not we want Heaven. 

So, this world is mixed: and has in it both evil (primal chaos, entropy, selfishness...), and also Good - vast and renewing manifestations of God's creative Love. 

Therefore; every Being or entity in this world has direct and personal experience of evil and Good. 

Every Being in this world is in a position to make the eternal commitment to live wholly by Love in a wholly Good "other place" that is Heaven - a Heaven that already exists, and to which we each can go by following Jesus Christ through resurrection, after death.

In other words; we can, will, and must choose either Heaven; or else "more of the same, mixed, kind of thing".  

But this world is not staying the same. 

This world apparently accumulates evil through time, because evil just-is cumulative, and Beings that choose evil become more evil..

(Unless the Beings repent; which means precisely making a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

Also; Beings that commit to Good are incrementally being removed from this-world and segregated in Heaven. 

In other words; this mixed world already contains Hell in part and in places; but is becoming more Hell-ish with time. 

In conclusion; Beings such as our-selves can choose Heaven or Hell - both of which we all have experienced in this mixed world. This is the choice between eternally living only by Love; and not making this commitment. 

We can choose Heaven, or we can choose to reject Heaven. 

We can also choose to "delay" our choice -- but this is, in its actual effect, a here-and-now rejection of Heaven, and embrace of this mixed-world, which is tending towards Hell. 

We can go-back on this rejection of Heaven at any time: repentance is always open to every Being. 

But, in this mixed but evil-accumulating world, and given that un-repented evil will become more evil; delaying the choice of Heaven does make salvation more and more difficult. 

Repentance is never impossible, but always gets more difficult with delay. 

We may agree that materialism is false, evil and self-destroying. But it is hard to say - positively - what is meant by 'spiritual'. Indeed, I once participated in a research project where the literature was reviewed and people were interviewed about what they understood 'spiritual to mean' - and no conclusion emerged about any shared meaning.

The usual definitions (such as they are) tend towards excessive abstraction (in terms of the properties or classes of spiritual entities), or gestures towards a world beyond the material (reality is 'more than' just that which is perceived or measured) - which are true, in their way, but hardly adequate.

Clearly, too, spirituality does not equate with religion. Some religions, including some practices of Christianity, are barely spiritual - for instance religious life that is almost wholly ethical, rule-following, or focused on ritual participation. Indeed, many people claim to be 'spiritual but not religious' - however, strictly there is no such thing. To be coherent, to make sense; spirituality depends on metaphysical assumptions of a religious kind.


When someone tries to be spiritual but not religious - for example by merely believing-in and communicating-with spirits, or the dead - then this simply reduces to a type of materialism - spirits are, in effect, being brought into the definition of material and treated as mundane.

People who say they are Not spiritual seem to be those who regard life as being wholly on the 'level' of the everyday - so that the entirety of life (including personal and leisure time) is of the same quality as the normal, shared, public world of work, officialdom, the media. 

By contrast, when a spiritual dimension of life is desired - this is a wish for a larger life, beyond the mundane - with a different and 'higher' quality. In practice, nowadays, with the current pressures; this seems to entail according 'the spiritual' the highest priority; above (in particular) the political - and this is where so many would-be spiritual people and organisations fall-down.    


It is probably best to think of materialism as the assumption that the world is made of Things, and spiritual as the contrary assumption it is 'made of' Beings. 'Beings' meaning living-entities, conscious and motivated. Thus, to be spiritual means to assume that this universe and reality consists of Beings. 

We could further say that the materialistic perspective says that the universe arose by means of 'physics' processes - it just-happened for deterministic reasons and/ or perhaps randomly. In other words, in materialism there are Things interacting by physical processes.

By contrast, a spiritual perspective assumes that we live in A Creation - that is, a universe made by a Being. Furthermore, the Beings interact by 'relationships'. For the spiritual person; the ultimate reality of interaction is not the forces, particles, processes of physics, but the attributes of relationships - such as motivations, emotions, beliefs...


What prevents a spiritual world view (among those who want it) is many things. Habit, of course, plus that The World requires us to operate on materialist assumptions - to treat everything (including people) as Things.

It can be seen that this is a source of confusion. in that plenty of people assert a living universe, a purposive creation - but then explain it in abstract, geometric, mathematical, and physics terms. This is, indeed, difficult to avoid - for it is seen in Rudolf Steiner, Rupert Sheldrake and a staple of 'New Age' spirituality. I am saying that this is an error, and leads to an unstable hybrid that default-reverts from failed-spirituality back to materialism-in-practice.

This drive to abstraction based on the idea that abstractions are the primary reality - for example the view that ultimate reality is mathematical, or that physics provides the deepest explanation of the origin of the universe.


All this is a version of the ancient Greek metaphysical practice of explain reality in terms of abstractions; which was taken up by Christian theologians who (to varying degrees, but always to some extent) made Christianity fit-into this pre-existing materialistic framework (whereas most of scripture is describes a world of beings and relationships).

In a strange paradox; much Christian theology over the past many centuries represents a continued attempt at maintaining materialist assumptions as foundational for Christianity. Any whiff of anthropomorphism, animism, a world of beings - all such are regarded as childish errors.

In terms of the evolutionary-development of human consciousness, this was an early and necessary step in the direction of increasing human agency, freedom, choice; until the point (reached within the past 200 years in the West) that belief in God became active and voluntary rather than unconscious and passive.


Men began living in a world of Beings - but passively and unconsciously. This was Man's childhood.  The abstraction was part of detaching us from that immersive world and allowing us to think independently - Man's adolescence. The future is to return consciously and by active choice to the deepest truth of the spiritual world view - and again acknowledge reality as created by a Being, and consisting of Beings.

(From which perspective the abstractions - mathematics, sciences, Classical metaphysics, traditional Christian theology - are seen as ultimately tools: pragmatic approximations for particular purposes.)

But it is this vast inherited inertial legacy of abstract materialistic theology - mistakenly regarded as definitive of being-a-Christian - that has made mainstream institutional Christianity fall-into materialism (including bureaucracy); and which makes it so surprisingly difficult to be a Christian and to be spiritual.


Spirituality entails creation having a purpose, and materialism - with its physics universe - has none.

So, I would say that the spiritual world-view - which I want, and which is sought by many - is one in which we inhabit a universe of Beings that was itself created by a Being.

'Spirituality' is therefore thinking and living in such a way that we interact with 'the world' on the assumption that it is a purposeful creation and consists of Beings.

Everything is alive - we live in an 'animistic' universe, ultimately consisting of Beings in Relationships. 

This truth is missing from pretty-much all Christian theologies; and even those which explicitly recognize the animistic universe (e.g. Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield, William Arkle) will often lapse-away-from their purported animism into abstractions - e.g. talking as if 'forces' or 'tendencies' - rather than motivations, relationships etc. - were primary realities; or talking of 'consciousness' abstractly, as if it could ever be separated from the specific consciousness of a specific Being. 

Although I assume that Mankind began as unconsciously (implicitly) assuming that 'everything was alive' and reality was made-of was 'Beings'; it seems that the categorization of much of reality as notalive 'things' began very early in human history (many thousands of years ago), at least in some places of which there are records - and that this has been a cumulative trend. 

Initially, it seems, only some small scale things like some 'minerals' were regarded as notalive - but in the twentieth century more and more of reality of reality became regarded as notalive.

From mid-century, it began to be assumed that plants and animals were notalive (being composed entirely of chemicals and their reactions); and in later decades (especially since computers were conceptualized and developed) that even humans were notalive. 

This assumption of notaliveness is mostly implicit; rooted in the widespread assumption (including in mass media) that whatever makes us distinctly human could, in principle, be combined with computers ('cyborg'), instantiated in a computer ('downloaded'), or replicated by some kind of 'Artificial Intelligence'. 

The point is not that this is really possible - it is not; but that many/ most people believe it to be possible; which indicates that there is no distinction between the alive and the notalive, and that in practice every-thing is regarded as notalive 

It therefore seems that, through history (and this trend is broadly repeated in the development of each individual human being) we have gone from assuming everything is alive; to assuming nothing is alive: not even our-selves. 

Christian theology, typically, tries to inhabit a half-way house on this issue. It is sure that Men are alive; but tends to be indifferent to whether plants and animals are really alive - because these are regarded as outwith the plan for salvation. And Christianity follows the general culture of many centuries in assuming that the mineral world is notalive. 

What results from this perspective is (to put it simply) a drama of the salvation of living Men and a transcendent God, that takes place against the backdrop of a notalive world.

This is a deeply alienating and unrooted view of Man's life on earth. To my mind it explains the somewhat shallow, 'two-dimensional' quality that I detect in even the very best of Christian lives. 

Such unsatisfactoriness of the normal (non-animistic) Christian theology is not wholly to do with the inevitable corruption and partiality of mortal life; because I believe it applies even to what can be imagined. 

I think that the only wholly satisfactory life we can imagine is one where there are no 'things', all is alive and conscious, nothing is notalive*. 

Furthermore, beineg alive and to some degree conscious; all Beings are part of 'the drama of salvation' and capable of theosis. 

My belief is that this trajectory from all-alive to all-notalive needs to be regarded as incomplete and incoherent; and therefore the process should be completed by recognizing that this is a living Universe; that the ultimate reality is one of Beings in relationships; but this time doing so by a deliberate act of choice. 

Whereas in the past we unconsciously took for granted that we inhabited a world of living Beings; now we should consciously choose to recognize that reality. 

Indeed if we desire this to happen, we not only can but must choose. If we are passive, and do not make an active decision and effort; then we will continue passively to assimilate the deep and pervasive cultural assumption of universal notaliveness. 

In other words; the answer lies in our own hands - or rather minds. We may make the decision to regard everything as alive; and then begin the (long, perhaps life-long) effort to make this perspective normal, habitual.    

*I suggest that this - in combination with a harmony among all these living Beings - is the special appeal of some fantasy races and settings, such as the elves of Lothlorien. 

Reality consists of Beings - in relationships. Beings are alive, conscious, self-sustaining, eternal. 

If something knowable is not a Being, then it is part of a Being or a consequence of relationships - but everything needs to be related to Beings.

(Outwith Beings and their relationships, nothing in knowable - there is by inference chaos.)

We know Beings by inferring their character, motivations etc - and causality is (something like) the kind of things that a Being wants and does...

The point of all this is that we modern people think we know stuff without reference to Beings - indeed that is the only stuff that is taken seriously as knowledge in the modern West. 

I mean so-called science, evidence, data, programmes and the like... What is studied is ripped clear of any reference to the Beings that generated this stuff - the stuff has a line drawn around it, and is treated as pure abstraction...

Except that it isn't really - everything knowable comes from beings -- but the input and sustaining activities of Beings (including the fact that it is Beings who are discussing these things) are just ignored and excluded. 

Real science is (or was) of course done by Beings (human beings) and interpreted by other Beings - but that is now forgotten or denied. Science is now supposedly (by implication) done by anybody or anything that is following some method, formula, algorithm - it is regarded and treated as a process ("science tells us"... "scientists say"... "follow the science"). 

And other attributes of Beings are supposedly processes - treated in abstraction, regardless of any Beings - like intelligence: so any-thing can be "intelligent" if it follows some process, yields some kinds of result. 

We can't stop doing this! We are thinking the work of Satan!

Love is (surely?) something to do with Beings, but it is talked about and dealt-with either as a temporary emotion, a kind of pulse of neurotransmitters and hormones. 

Or maybe Love is treated abstractly - as if it was a branch of occult physics, some kind of force-field, or vibrational state; which has impersonal properties such as being "unconditional" or "universal" - so that mere people, mere Beings don't affect Love. 

Such ways of conceptualizing Love mean that it can't be genuinely important, not really, to "society" - not when it comes to serious decision-making about serious matters... 

People yammer incessantly about Love in their gossip, in the news, and in songs, stories, and soaps; but what impact did this emotional-Love have upon the management of the birdemic in 2020 - the lockdowns, social-distancing, masking, pecking-campaigns? 

How did Love affect the closure of Christian churches in 2020; the fleeing of priests, the shut-down of Lourdes; the churches refusal to administer the Eucharist, wed people, conduct funerals? 

Despite everybody asserting its immense importance all-the-time; despite the constant whittering of pseudo-Christians and materialist-hedonists alike over "God is love", and that Love is "the most important thing of all": Love made not the slightest perceptible difference to anything at all when something that the Establishment regarded as serious was at stake. Neither did Love lead to rebellion or even dissent in thought or in deed; among the docile, obedient masses. 

We have created and we sustain a world in which (more and more) everything important is abstracted from actual people. 

Actual individuals are, indeed, regarded mainly as a threat, as potential errors and selfishness. 

Goodness comes from pure abstractions and rigorous processes. The most important decisions are made either by algorithm, or by pooling and averaging individual judgment - as with voting, committees, "democracy". 

What is needed is such a fundamental change in our current and recent attitudes and understanding as to be mind-exploding; a living world, a conscious world, a world primarily of Beings, a world primarily of spirit, a world that is God's creation and directed towards Christ's salvation... 

Yet anything less leaves us exactly where we are. 

For far too long, Christians have been pouring the new-wine of a life of Love following Jesus, into the old-bottle of abstract, materialist thinking that posits the irrelevance of Love and regards following Jesus as just-another-set-of-processes - firmly located within the usual kinds of social process. 

Christians do some different things; but they think in the same way as everybody else - so that when times are tough, their ingrained and habitual materialistic-abstract-externally-driven mode of thinking limits and controls everything they do. 

Christians shall persist in getting absolutely nowhere - except to remain a "lifestyle option" within a hell-bound totalitarianism; unless and until we begin and continue to think the work of God. 

It is crucial that Christianity is an opt-in religion - it must be chosen, it can only be chosen.

(Therefore Christianity absolutely entails the reality of agency, of 'free will' - and the impossibility of agency on the basis of mainstream modern metaphysics is a reason why normal public discourse is absolutely incompatible with Christianity.)

At the same time, Christianity is true.


This appears to set up some kind of paradox, in the sense that (surely?) if Christianity is true then it must be accepted; yet if it must be accepted then there is no real choosing of it...

My understanding is that this is indeed a genuine contradiction in mainstream 'classical' Christian metaphysics (in which God is omnipotent, and created everything from nothing) - a contradiction to which there is no rational answer; but not in a different theology. Because to deny Christianity on such a scheme, would be to deny reality - which is incoherent.

But, if we instead believe that creation is the effect of God shaping pre-existent chaos - including ourselves as God's children; then reality so far as it is ordered and understandable is God's creation.

However, the primordial chaos included beings: included God, and also ourselves (i.e. Men) but ourselves in a primordial, unconscious, disembodied sense - embryonic and lacking, but existing nonetheless. God's creation was the shaping of chaos, and the parenting of our primordial selves into God's children (as we are now, as we find ourselves). 

 All that is Good is inside this creation - creation is where the concept of Good has meaning. In particular all loving relationships are inside of creation, made possible by God's creation.

Yet there is another reality outside of creation; so denial of Christianity is not incoherent - there is another reality which might coherently be chosen in preference to God's creation.


What would such an opt-out of God's creation entail? Outside creation is not evil; but it is chaotic, meaningless, purposeless and lacking in any true relationships between beings.

Our primary choice is whether to opt-in to the reality of God's creation - or not. This is a real choice - and has real consequences. In principle a person might simply decline to join creation - and to surrender self-consciousness, and all the personhood which has been given us by becoming a child of God. This is not an evil choice - it is the choice of nihilism, of non-reality - but it is not evil (it indeed bears some relation to the ideal of 'Eastern' religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism).

The evil choice is to decline to joining God's work of creation; but to hold onto God's gifts to us - to hold-onto meaning, purpose and relationship - but to impose our own personal meanings upon them. It is to try and take what is personally gratifying from creation, but not to join creation. It is to adopt a stance towards creation that sees it primarily as a thing to be exploited.


In sum, Christianity is true - because it describes the world of God's creation, in which truth is given meaning and value; but this is not the whole of reality - therefore there is an alternative - therefore must opt one way or the other.  And because we are agents (with free will) this choice is real and meaningful.

The necessity of opt-in arises because of the nature of God's plan for creation - which is one in which we (as Men) are agent and divine beings, in loving relationships, engaged in a mutual project of further creation.

(If creation were done and static, there would be no need for agency; but because creation is ongoing and endless, agency is of-the-essence.)

Among divine beings, there is no possibility of ultimate coercion - either we choose to join the great work of creation; or we opt-out fully - or else, as with evil entities, we try to exploit creation for personal gratification.

The work of creation ('Heaven') is both real and chosen.

There is the physical or material world inhabited by incarnated mortal Beings (i.e. the only world acknowledged as real by the modern mainstream ideology). This contains a mixture of good and evil, some Beings on the side of God and divine creation; other Beings opposed to this - and all mortal Beings are some mixture of these motivations. The material world is subject to entropy - subject to change, decay, disease, degeneration, and death - the irrevocable dissolution of physical forms. 

Then there is the Divine World - "inhabited" by God, the ascended Jesus Christ/ The Holy Ghost. And also - since the work of Jesus Christ, the divine world is inhabited by the denizens of Heaven - resurrected Men (and, presumably, other Beings). It is a realm entirely of Good, that is to say that all is motivated by love. It is also an eternal realm, without entropy. 

But there is another realm: the underworld/ dream-world realm of spirit Beings. 

The spirit world. 

For ancients, this was the realm of dreams, the place where souls went after death (perhaps being reincarnated from there). 

A wide range of Beings have been supposed to inhabit this "psychic" realm: gods, angels, demons, nature spirits, chthonic monsters, ghosts, non-human sentient spirits of many kinds and degrees.

Like the physical realm the "underworld" is mixed; with Beings that contain both good and evil motives - and including Beings affiliated to the agenda of evil. 

However; this realm, like the physical realm, will also be "visited" by the wholly-good denizens of the Divine Realm.  

The spirit realm is like the physical world in being also subject to entropy - in that, although spirits do not "die" in the way that physical Beings die; they are subject to destructive change - to degeneration, disease, loss of self... 

The spirit world is a fact of life. It is "all around" us, always, and wherever we happen to be; and has influences. 

This means the spirit world is (like the physical world) differentiated, heterogeneous, varied by time and place.

Thus the spirit world (whether we are aware of it or not) will affect us - somewhat like geography, climate, seasons and weather affect us. At some times and/or some situations the spirit world will be benign and helpful, maybe enjoyable. 

But in other circumstances, the spirit world will be net hostile, fear- or misery-inducing perhaps, or having evil influences - therefore hostile in specific ways.  

The striking fact of modern life for Men - including most, not all, Christians - is that we have all-but lost any spontaneous consciousness of the spirit realm. We live "in" it, but unaware, typically denying its reality. 

It is as if we wandered from the Arctic to the Sahara, while unaware of the differences, and taking no account of them in our lives. 

This is part of our alienation: modern Man is cut-off from a multitude of relationships with the world. These relationships are potentially bad and good both, as with the physical world: but most importantly they are real and unavoidable. 

The consequence is that we "miss" the spiritual realm - and (even if unconsciously) we know that our experience and knowledge of reality is incomplete. We are, to that extent, maimed. 

Further: this situation is made worse by many Christians, who regard the spirit realm as nothing but a threat, a spiritual danger, the domain of demonic temptation - that must be avoided. They regard the underworld as at best inessential, at worst a constant threat. 

More moderately, but with the same result; Christians regard the spirit world as an "optional extra" for life; something that we do not need, and is therefore best avoided because of its spiritual hazards. 

This is one way in which mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christianity has not just failed to meet the challenge of modernity; but has indeed worsened the situation. 

But suppose that we do - as a matter of fact - both need the spirit world, just as we need the physical world; and anyway cannot avoid it - even when we want to? 

We may fence ourselves in - but we cannot fence the spirit world out. We can only make ourselves unaware of it, and explain away its effects. 

What then?

Well, in my judgment there are no really good models from the past, that work for this present among Western people, no good models concerning how we ought to regard and relate-to the spirit world.  

There are, of course, plenty of people who - even nowadays - are aware of the spirit world in some way - "clairvoyants" or "psychics" of many kinds. Maybe they have visions of spirits, converse with spirits; and seek-out such contacts. 

The problem is that these are mostly Not wise or knowledgeable people. They are often silly, or motivated badly. By my evaluations; their knowledge (apparently derived from contacts with spirits) is unreliable, and often incoherent nonsense, or rather blatant self-gratifying fantasy. 

They often seem to be seeking spirits to help them gain worldly gratifications (health, sex, power status - the usual stuff). 

Or, on the other side, they seem to be seeking to surrender to the world of spirits, to be overpowered and controlled by the spirits they encounter. Self-annihilation... Not good.  

At any rate, the "fruits" are often bad - in that a majority of those who are (or claim to be) in contact with the spirit world are (to me) unimpressive, and usually have taken the side of evil in the spiritual wars. But then again, so have most self-identified "Christians", and those of other religions! 

(There is no "safe" path to salvation and theosis that can be objectively described or externally imposed - and the greatest danger is for those who believe there is.)   

To me, "the Spiritual" are mostly unimpressive... and yet not always! 

While - like all mortal Men - mixed-Beings who are prone to errors and being misled; there have been some people (and in the "modern" era) such as William Blake, Rudolf Steiner, Dion Fortune, and Gareth Knight - who seem in important ways to have benefitted from their contact with the spirit realms. These I like, respect and admire. 

Nonetheless, we cannot assume that any of these people are themselves a model for other people differently constituted, and belonging to later generations, whose consciousness is different. Nor (whatever they may have claimed) can we assume that such past-exemplars were able to describe a general model by which other people can (or should) attain a positive relation with the spirit world. 

In particular; I am increasingly convinced that past attempts (and maybe successes) in positively affecting human society (e.g. nations, or relations between nations) are not possible here-and-now - due to the change in human consciousness. 

Those same changes that have made spontaneous spirit awareness so rare, have also enhanced the potential human spiritual autonomy and individual agency. Past human consciousness was social, pooled, in ways that is no longer the case. 

Our situation is different. What was effective and good then, is often feeble and harmful now.  

As so often nowadays, external influences are overwhelmingly likely to be bad; so we need to (and should) rely on our personal judgment and take spiritual responsibility for our choices. 

My own notions are as follows:

We should be aware that there is a spirit world of Beings, that it is real and important. 

And, on general principles in this era, we should strive to become aware of whatever is real; so, in some fashion, it is good to become conscious of the spirit world as it is affecting us "here-and-now"; and where possible be prepared to act on the implications of that effect. 

(Maybe avoiding situations in which the spirit world is exerting a malign influence - or continuing a life-path that seems to be sustained by that which is good in the spirit world.)  

What about developing personal relationships with specific spirit Beings? 

Well; many spirit Beings are benign; and some of these are likely to have a positive and personal interest in ourselves. 

For instance, there may be deceased and resurrected relatives or close friends whom we loved, or willing "spiritual mentors".  And such Beings may be in spiritual-proximity ("near") to us in the spirit world, and maybe be actively-desirous of aiding us in particular ways. 

My best guess is that such potential relationships with spirit Beings, are good and perhaps necessary. 

How to develop such relationships, while avoiding deceptions and temptations, and shallow or wishful thinking; is, in principle, a problem not different from the same question about our social relations among human beings in the physical realm. 

We cannot plan a good human-social life in the physical world - and rules or blueprints for good relationships are a misguided or malign attempt to subordinate the personal soul to inhuman materialistic-bureaucratic thought processes. Same for the spirit world. 

What is needed is realistic assumptions about the nature and purpose of life, then a secure rooting in personal intuition and responsibility - with a willingness to recognize and repent our errors.

Since, as Christians; we know that we inhabit a divine creation within-which we have a personal destiny; and that we are God's children capable of valid judgment, and that the guidance of the Holy Ghost is always available when required...

Knowing all this, and if our attitudes can also be grounded in such knowledge; there is every reason to suppose that we will be able to navigate the spirit realm in such a way as will benefit us spiritually - now and in the context of eternity.  

If we are to account for true knowledge, we cannot be reliant upon some multi-stage and approximate process like 'communication'.

There must be direct access of our minds to truths; and this has usually been conceptualised as some single realm of universal truth, to which all people potentially have direct access - a realm that contains... well what, exactly?

This is a kind of 'model' of reality - not reality itself - but assuming we do want a model, then there are two questions that spring to my mind.

The first is to ask where is this realm; such that it is at the same time a single realm and yet every mind can have access to it?

Various answers have been given - but of course, none of the answers maps-onto a materialist world picture of modernity. For example, the universal realm is inside everybody, yet each inside is the same place.

This (or something similar) was an answer found acceptable by many people for many centuries - or indeed millennia - but is now supposedly incoherent. Yet its 'incoherence' is merely a matter of working from abitrary and materialist metaphysical assumptions.

The second question is relatively neglected - which is what kind of ultimate truths are in the universal realm?

Typically, (e.g Plato at the beginning, or Rudolf Steiner and Own Barfield in recent years) the realm is conceptualised as a place of Ideas or Concepts - in other words, by such accounts, universal truth is Abstract.

But this won't do for me; because my understanding is that the universal truth of God's creation is Love - and love is not abstract but Love is the cohesion of reality. 

Love is therefore not an emotion, nor is it a physical 'force' - love is the ultimate cohesion between the beings of creation (and creation consists of beings, and their products).

So ultimate reality is God and God's children (Men, and the various levels and types of angels and other beings - animal, vegetable and mineral as we modern people usually term them) and the Love between them - these beings 'cohere' by love; and love is between living, conscious beings.

So; if we want to be philosophers or scientists, and to know more specifically about creation - our ultimate answer will be in terms of Love - and we can only get access to this knowledge by ourselves being a part of this vast and intricate, family-like network of Love.

But what about evil? Well, evil rejects Love and can never truly know - because for evil all knowledge is ultimately a personal delusion. Evil has rejected God's creation and the network of relationships - the Pride of evil is to rely upon its own, specific, cut-off understanding and motivations.

Furthermore, evil is un-understandable - since it is outside the realm of truth , reality, knowledge - evil is sealed-off in its own world. We know what evil is not - but can never know what it is - because there is no truth in evil... what this means is that truth is a universal, evil is not universal. Therefore, we should never 'believe' evil for the simple reason that evil cannot know; and the assertions of evil are merely delusional manipulations. That is, the devil is a liar, and father of lies, and so are all who have set themselves up as the ultimate source of 'reality'.

So... my notion of the universal realm - or, at least the one I strive to live-by - should ultimately be one of loving human relationships. These might be approximated by 'concepts', 'ideas', 'facts'... but such abstractions are not the bottom line reality.

Creation is Not held-together by concepts or any other abstractions - creation is held-together and structured by divine Love between living conscious beings.

It is an implicit assumption of modern culture and life that everything is caused - except what is random. 

Because everything is caused, it is assumed that these causes (if known) are like the 'laws of science' and entail exactly what happens. 

But there is also 'randomness', chance, the undetermined... Which is (somehow, in an unprincipled way) also incorporated into the 'everything is caused' determinism by means of statistical properties. 

If reality really is caused, then this fundamental incorporation of of randomness doesn't make any coherent sense (as Einstein clearly saw) - nonetheless, it has happened, randomness is incorporated into a deterministic world-view; and is justified on the basis that 'it works' to predict things... 

...Or rather, attributed randomness sometimes seems to work; because whether something 'works' depends on (essentially arbitrary) prior decisions about what counts as having worked, or alternatively failed to work.

(And this becomes even less precise when what counts as having worked gets defined retrospectively to include - or indeed be entirely - what has already happened; as with climate change 'predictions...) 

Yet, there is no such thing as randomness 'in real life' and therefore no 'probability'- these are actually just mathematical tools, that may be useful in particular situations; although the nature of scope of the situations in which it is valid cannot be known. In practice the validity of particular instances of statistical reasoning is a matter of 'common sense' - or more likely the exercise of power to control discourse.   

But what of free agency, free will - or what-you-call-it? I mean the thinking of Beings (especially Men); at those times when they are thinking with their real and divine 'selves'? 

(Accepting that Men may - often do - behave 'automatically; and are not 'free' at all times, but only potentially and some-times.)

Free agency cannot be either caused/determined, or random/statistical. Free agency must be something other, which is expressive of a Being itself, arises wholly from that Being - and not, therefore, a product of causes acting-upon that Being.  

To cut the argument short: I believe that genuine Free Agency is either an incomprehensible Mystery and gift from God (which is the mainstream/ classical Christian view); or else (as I believe) Free Agency is a property of Beingness, to be found to a greater or lesser extent in all Beings. 

Which means that all Beings have a divine aspect.

Which means that while there is one God who is creator of this creation we inhabit; creation itself consists of Beings who are all 'gods' in this vital sense of having some potential degree of Free Agency.   

In other words, reality is alive and conscious and consists of Beings/ gods that are in relationships with one another  (in some real way, but varied between Beings). 

If so, then what is the role of causation?  

My understanding is that causation is a series of hypotheses that are useful in inverse proportion to the exercise of free agency. 

In a world where free agency is seldom exercised; then causation is highly predictive. 

Here in mortal life upon earth; things are different according to different times and places, and among different individuals. But the more that agency is active, the less causality is operative. 

Bu, in a world where free agency is ignored or denied, and its effects are suppressed: causal thinking (and its bastard offspring 'randomness') appears to operate as a complete explanation of reality.

(Hence the common idea that - in principle - science can explain everything that is real.) 

In other words; Western Man has (for some generations) been living at, or near-to, an extreme where free agency is hardly a factor in life; and where, because of this exclusion, causal and determinative thinking seems to work very well as an explanation, for prediction, and to manipulate the world (including people). 

Conversely, in a world where free agency is highly frequent and determines thought; there is very little for causal thinking to explain. 

At the extreme - in Heaven - I assume that almost-everything is a consequence of free agency in the context of relationships between Beings; things happen because they are willed to happen. 

Therefore: in Heaven there is essentially no causation; but only free agency and relationships. 

There is a further aspect governing the operations of free agency; which is the extent to which it is groupish or individual. 

If we focus on Men, then in the past free agency seems to have been much more active than now. Hence prediction was 'anthropomorphic'; in terms of personal factors such as motivations, desires and relationships. 

But this ancient agency was not individualistic - it operated at a groupish level such as the clan, tribe, village, guild, or even (later) the nation. Thus, understanding and prediction treated groups as we might regard individuals, and focused on their attitudes to each other, strengths and weaknesses etc. 

Modern agency has, however, become very individualistic; and insofar as free agency genuinely exists and is deployed (which is apparently not much, very seldom), it operates at the personal level rather than in groups. 

What appears superficially to be group agency, is actually a product of causal and determinative thinking; manipulating individuals (eg. via laws, rules and propaganda) to conform behaviour to external will. 

Part of this manipulation is to encourage individuals to believe they are already living by free agency; when in fact they have 'switched-off' their own agency; and are thinking almost-entirely in terms of automatic, mundane, externally-inculcated and -imposed concepts and information.  

To conclude; the destiny which God wishes from Men is to live by free agency, individually exercised; and voluntarily to choose to align this free agency with God's desires for His creation. 

But this is a choice. Some choose not to use free agency, and even to deny its reality; while others use this agency to reject the divine hopes and plans - and instead to serve the adversaries of God. 

In other words such Men choose Not to be free. And probably this applies to most Men, at least in The West. 

At the most basic level, service to the Adversary entails opening one's own soul to thinking hostile to God; and this often takes the form of dishonestly pretending to an individual agency which is, in fact, being denied and suppressed. 

Thinking therefore (i.e. here-and-now, in this world that has rejected God) becomes a thing very much causally determined. 

Men's behaviours become understandable by reduction to to causal reasoning and statistics. 

Men become predictable and controllable.

I suddenly had this thought in the bath. (...Where else?) 

That there have always been "way-out"/ "crazy" theories and claims concerning the existence of "free energy" - unlimited energy for no thermodynamic "cost"; and also claims to have discovered or invented a "perpetual motion" machine. 

And yet, my best understanding of metaphysics is that the ultimate reality of Creation consists of Beings in relationships. 

So, free energy/ perpetual motion simply basic properties of all Beings - including you and me. 

I mean that all beings are "powered" by unlimited and cost-free energy - and are themselves perpetual motion "machines". 

When Beings are known as the primary "units" of ultimate reality (Beings are alive, conscious, self-sustaining, eternal); then of course they (we) have properties that include an infinitely-renewable "free" energy... How else could we and other Beings be eternal? 

And, because all Beings are "dynamic" (not static), and all Beings exist "in" Time, in the sense that Time is property of Beings - then some kind of "perpetual motion" must be a feature. 

Another way of thinking about this is the divine creation does not (cannot) depend on any external source of energy else it could not be eternal; because any externally-supplied energy implies entropy, which is the opposite of creation). 

And creation is dynamic, entails change - and eternal change is perpetual motion. 

Because (by my pluralist metaphysics) all real creation is divine in nature (whether that creation is of-God or of some other Being) - that is, all creating partakes is an action of free agency, hence represents the operation of divine qualities - then, it must be a property of Beings to behave like free energy "devices" and perpetual motion "machines". 

So these don't need to be invented or discovered: we all already know dozens of such entities - including our-selves. 

 

NOTE ADDED: Why am I saying this?

Well, the ridiculing of ideas of free energy and perpetual motion has become mainstream exactly because it is a soft-sell (i.e. an indirect and implicit promotion) of the primacy of entropy in reality; and thus the denial of creation. 

The fact we have come to regard these ideas as not just untrue but actually insane, is evidence that we have made false metaphysical choices at a very deep level. 

And it is these fundamental errors in understanding the basic nature of reality that trap so-many of us in nihilistic and despairing materialism.  

Since I believe that the world is ultimately composed of Beings in Relationships; and that creation is held-together by Love - how should we, personally, relate to such Beings?

Our task, in this Romantic era of human development, is to become conscious of that which is unconscious - therefore the other Beings of created reality.

This means, becoming aware of the direct knowledge of reality, that is already in our thinking. 


We are in a position of un-consciously knowing by direct intuition (because we are each a part-of reality, and began by being passively immersed-in reality) but failing/ refusing to:

1. Make this implicit intuited knowledge conscious
2. Recognise the validity - the truth - of this intuited knowledge

We need therefore to learn (consciously) what we already know (unconsciously) and to know that it is true.

Thereby we re-establish contact with reality (such as we all had in our earlier development, as young children - and such as mankind had in earlier and 'tribal' forms of society) - but our thinking remains free, conscious - hence divine in quality.


We need to overcome our prejudice, as moderns or as traditionalists, that 'truth is compelled', that truth is enforced upon us - and especially by that which we perceive (by 'facts', by 'evidence'). But that is a child's understanding of truth, and that is to be a passive servant of truth.

Our destiny (should we choose to accept it) is to develop the same (divine) quality of thinking as God, en route to becoming a grown-up participant in creation: this quality of thinking is conscious and free, because to be free and actively-participative (not passive) it must be conscious.


So - how should we hope to relate to spiritual beings?  

Not by 'communication', not by something like seeing and hearing and conversing - because that would be to return to the passive state of child-like perceptual dependence.

(And, in fact, such 'visionary' experiences are anyway difficult/ impossible for many modern people without some degree of impaired consciousness - illness, exhaustion, drugs etc. And then the need for cognitive impairment casts doubt on the reality and validity of visions...)

We relate to spiritual beings as we should relate to the world as a whole; by becoming aware of what is already unconsciously present in our thinking, and by recognising the metaphysical validity of the resulting awareness.

The process is indeed self-validating - if we allow it to be.

The transcendental philosopher says; grant me a nature having two contrary forces, the one of which tends to expand infinitely, while the other strives to apprehend or find itself in this infinity, and I will cause the world of intelligences with the whole system of their representations to rise up before you. Every other science presupposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity....

It is equally clear that two equal forces acting in opposite directions, both being finite and each distinguished from the other by its direction only, must neutralize or reduce each other to inaction. Now the transcendental philosophy demands; first, that two forces should be conceived which counteract each other by their essential nature; not only not in consequence of the accidental direction of each, but as prior to all direction, nay, as the primary forces from which the conditions of all possible directions are derivative and deducible: secondly, that these forces should be assumed to be both alike infinite, both alike indestructible. The problem will then be to discover the result or product of two such forces, as distinguished from the result of those forces which are finite, and derive their difference solely from the circumstance of their direction. 

What follows is a train of thought, of reasoning. It was stimulated by watching a fantasy TV program in which the hero fought demons, that is Luciferic evil embodied in actual personal beings that wanted to enslave, torture and murder. The fight was to contain or kill such beings.

It was difficult - for the hero; but the evil was locatable and understandable - the difficulty was in beating the demons.

Then I reflected that the evil we mostly encounter in this, our modern lives, is Ahrimanic - which means it is The System (the Matrix) - which is bureaucracy, which is impersonal, which is dispersed - behind every bureaucracy lies another. There are (it seems) "bureaucracies all-the-way-down"...


But then I realised: this is not so.

Ultimate metaphsyical reality is of beings and their relationships. The ultimate spiritual reality of modern evil is of actual Ahrimanic beings; that is persons, who have motivations and seek satisfactions in a way exactly analogous to the more familiar Luciferic demons. The Ahrimanic demons are motivated, living, conscious beings of a different kind, different nature; that is all.

So, ultimately The System, the bureaucracies are merely a mask, a disguise, a distraction from the reality of purposive evil pursuing its purposes.

What, then, can I actually do about all this? The answer became clear (or so it still seems).


I need to bear in mind - actively, deliberately - that nothing is dead, all is alive.  Consciousness is universal - motivation is everywhere.

The ultimate truth is that everything real is personal. There are no coincidences, no accidents - all has meaning - and there is no neutrality.


No neutrality means that the officials, the drones, the myrmidons, the petty agents of bureaucracy that we see all around (and our-selves very probably: aye, there's the rub!) are actually personal, purposive agents.

The minor implementors of The System - the slaves, serfs, servants - the clerks, managers, security guards, people who deliver... all of them (of us) are active participants in Ahrimanic evil - all have chosen to regard themselves as non-persons, all seek to avoid ultimate responsibility by sharing in the Ahrimanic assertion that 'nobody is to blame' - which means that in The System we are not persons - we are dead, lack consciosuness and purpose...

This is what must not be accepted - must be brought to conscious knowing, and refuted.


Primitive or psychotic paranoia - in which each person understands himself to be the centre of the universe, with life organised around-himself; is basically correct factually; but is wrong insofar as it is regarded as a passive situation - regarded as unavoidable. (The typical paranoid regards himself as a passive victim of external realities. He sees reality as outside himself.)

We are all and each actually at the centre of the universe; because we are co-creating that reality We are never passive (or, insofar as we are, then that is an evil choice: false, a pretence, a shirking of good, a service to evil).

We don't know everything here-and-now (of course!); but everything is potentially know-able - by each of us - in principle; and that 'in principle' makes All The Difference.

(About this Rudolf Steiner, in Truth and Knowledge and Philosophy of Freedom was profoundly and vitally correct).


How to fight demons? With 'magic' - obviously! But what kind of magic?

We know (from fantasy TV, movies and books) how magically to fight Luciferic demons... How then magically to fight the Ahrimanic demons that stand-behind The System; or rather hide behind The System? And use The System magically to make each of us Ahrimanic too. That is to make each of us choose to regard ourselves as material, non-personal, non-responsible - 'functional units' of that System.


The magic of fighting the Ahrimanic demons is knowing; and the effects of knowing. And victory is possible because the Ahrimanic beings assume their own passivity; that is their basic assumption, their metaphysical world picture.

When we are (or become) active and participating knowers; then They are defeated. But they do not realise how They have been defeated. Such is unknowable to Them.

The Ahrimanic magic is to induce people to regard the world passively, with detachment (as if meaning was out-there); to induce people passively to serve this machine, to deny their participation in the construction of this machine. 

Our magical challenge is therefore to see beyond the self-presentation of our world as dead, abstract, impersonal, mechanical, unconscious -- and to know the world as it really is.

The Ahrimanic magic is to make us believe the world is merely material; our counter-spell is to (our-selves) regard that world as also spiritual: more exactly the magic happens when we personally actually consciously experience the world as alive, of-beings; and embrace that experience as valid. 


This good magic will work when we know the servants of Ahriman (including our-selves) as deluded, self-suppressed, evil in avoidance of knowledge - hence respobsility for this vast structure of evil.

Good magic unmasks the beings behind the machine, unmasks the choices behind the obedience, unmasks the active promotion of evil behind the fear and despair.

A day at the office, a visit to the shops then becomes the front-line in the battlefield of spiritual warfare.

Our magic against Theirs.