Bruce Charlton's Notions

While there are people who continue to have 'traditional' forms of sensory spiritual experience - seeing visions, hearing voices, experiencing answered prayers and personal miracles, synchronicities and pre-cognition (information about the future), or phenomena like channelling or conversing-with spiritual entities - I would regard these as being impossible for many/ most people nowadays (except, perhaps, in conditions of intoxication or mental illness -which cast the validity of experience into doubt)  and as being preliminary and early aspects of a 'modern-era' spiritual life.

The main value of such experiences, I think, is to convince some people of the reality of a spiritual dimension to life. This was, indeed, the case for me - with a few instances of rapid/ miraculous answering of prayers, that were very important at the very beginning of my Christian life. The experiences were a confirmation of the reality of God.

But all of these are sensory-mediated, hence indirect, means of communication between God and Men. We see something, hear a voice saying words... and then comes an evaluation of the experience... Do we remember properly, accurately; was it an hallucination, or a coincidence?

And if we decide it was real and have an accurate record of the experience - then what does it mean for us? What was God trying to communicate, and what - exactly - did he want us to do about it?

So; once we are convinced of the reality of God - what then? After we know that God is real; that is the true beginning of spiritual life. Should we then expect or want the traditional kind of spiritual experiences to continue; are they, indeed, the best way that we can communicate with God?

This is when I return to the matter of what can be called the intuition of the real self or direct knowing. Direct knowing is - I believe - the form of spiritual experience that is available to many/ most people in the modern era. And furthermore it is, in principle, superior to the traditional forms - because it requires no extra layers of understanding and translation.

Perhaps if I draw a contrast, this will be clearer. Suppose someone has the experience of hearing God's voice, speaking words aloud in the mind. He needs to hear and understand the words, he needs to remember them (perhaps by writing them); and then he needs to ponder their meaning and implications.

But if that person was to receive knowledge directly into his understanding; he will already know what that knowledge means for him, and what he should do about it - because it all comes as a package: one moment not-there, the next moment it is there.

And direct knowledge is intended for direct action - it is typically bimodal, yes-no, two-track: either we stay with what we are doing, or else we set off onto a different path which is being given.

Now, there may be problems about remembering the experience, and so forth - but if we have acted-upon direct knowing, then that doesn't matter. And there is a much bigger problem about telling other people what has happened: that requires capturing the experience in language, tailoring it for the intended audience, and that audience will then need to receive, understand and interpret that information. The situation is the same as for traditional spiritual experience.

But direct knowing is the form of spiritual experience that goes with Romantic Christianity; and the essence of Romantic Christianity is that it is based upon direct and personal experience. Since direct experience is foundational, it means that it is indispensable. So that fact that direct knowledge cannot reliably and validly be transmitted in-directly is not surprising! It is why we need (and must have) direct experience in the first place. 

Another aspect is that direct knowing is - as a generalisation, in this mortal life - simple.

And in turn this means that we can receive direct knowledge only when we have formed our question exactly and with the proper motivation; when our mind it receptive to that form of knowledge. there are an endless ('infinite') number of false questions and wrong motivations for knowledge - and only the right questions and the right motivations will lead to direct knowing.

But once the right question and attitude are 'in place' - then direct knowing arises immediately and without any effort.

However, the knowing does not force itself upon us, overwhelm us, or compel us to do something. It is knowledge of what is right and there is a further decision about whether to embrace or reject what is right; or to argue that it is Not right. This is agency, this is free will - and is a separate 'process' from that of direct knowing. 

Agency comes in in this bimodal fashion: direct knowing tells us what is true and right; agency is concerned with whether we accept or reject this knowledge. it is not a choice between alternatives; it is a choice of 'destiny', or not-destiny.

So, direct knowing itself entails no effort, no struggle; but putting oneself into the necessary 'frame of mind' to receive it is a wholly voluntary and conscious process. Indeed, direct knowing - and to know that this is direct knowing - is possible only to those with agency, with free will.

Direct knowing doesn't 'just happen' to an unconscious person, who is thinking about other things (distracted); it doesn't happen to someone whose fundamental beliefs exclude the possibility of direct knowing... e.g. they don't believe in God, or their idea of deity is impersonal - or they don't believe that knowledge can be directly known. In such situations, there will be no direct knowing - that person is self-excluded.

To put matters the other way about - direct knowledge follows naturally upon the knowledge and love of God and the desire to follow Jesus through death to resurrected Life Eternal in Heaven. And then direct knowledge will provide the specific guidance we need in life.



 

The idea of Direct-Knowing has an important place in my understanding of the world; because I think it is the proper and best kind of 'spiritual experience' for the typical consciousness of a typical modern, Western Man.

Another important principle is that God wishes us to be active in our spiritual lives - to be conscious, to choose our direction. 

Because we live these mortal lives in order spiritually to learn (i.e. theosis) - and active learning is the most effective learning; when we meet life half-way, when we discern and interpret the lessons of experience. 

Active learning is indeed perhaps the only truly effective, kind of spiritual learning. Passive learning is unconscious, unchosen, and therefore essentially irrelevant to Christian theosis; because Christianity is an opt-in religion, and cannot be imposed. 

Real Christianity is not a social practice nor a habit; it must itself actively be chosen (sooner or later). 

Putting together direct-knowing with the principle of activity - I suggest that the usual way we experience direct-knowing is when we receive an intuitive affirmation of the validity* of some thought that we are currently thinking.

In other words, we ourselves must first think the thoughts. 

We - by our own efforts, or explorations, need to come-up with some kind of conceptual or factual knowledge - and this is 'directly' affirmed: it is endowed with a sense of valid insight. 

Direct-thinking is therefore not an emotion that accompanies a thought - it is a cognitive quality of validity... 

A recognition of such validity may be followed by an emotion, probably will; and this might be joy or excitement, or alternatively the emotions could also be shock or dread. But the apprehension of knowledge is separate from our emotional response to it.

Also; direct-knowing does not typically mean that we experience an 'alien' thought 'appearing' in the stream of our own thinking. 

More often the direct-thinking arises in the context of an ongoing stream of consciousness, which may be very mundane and non-valid - and the particular thought is plucked-out of" this stream. Emphasized. Highlighted. 

This is the necessity of spiritual striving; because - by reading, conversation, thinking, having particular experiences etc; we must firstly have the thoughts that become recognized as direct-knowing. 

*Validity does not mean necessarily-true (and, anyway, truth can only be conceptualized in a partial way, and the part is only a part of the whole creation). What is happening in direct-thinking is that there is a mind-to-mind contact; at that moment we are thinking the same thoughts as another Being. Most of our relationships is indirect, via communications that must be transmitted, received, interpreted... But with direct-knowing, we have the experience of knowing some-thing of another Being. The value of this knowing depends on the Being - but it is always valuable to know, rather than - as usual - to make indirect assumptions merely.

An aspect of Romantic Christianity that is given special emphasis by Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield is the need to become conscious of that which was previously unconscious.

(Or, this is not so much a need, but our divine destiny (at least, in The West) - it is what we are incarnated to do during our mortal lives in this era; and something which if rejected will seriously imperil our salvation, and our culture. As indeed it has.)


By my understanding, with the modern development of consciousness there is an element of returning to the spontaneous 'animism' of young childhood, a recognition that the world is 'made of' Beings - alive and conscious, with motivations - in relationships with each other; but this time the animism is one with awareness of all elements of our world view (not merely a perspective passively resulting from instincts and socialisation).

The importance of consciousness is that it enables agency, or freedom (as in the title of Steiner's 1994 Philosophy of Freedom) - because only when we are conscious of some thing, are we free to to embrace or reject that thing. Without consciousness we are 'slaves', automatic products of our environment and instincts.

That development of consciousness which is desired is a necessary step towards a full quality of divinity that may participate in creation; without consciousness we are a part-of creation, with consciousness we are participants in creation; potentially able to join with God in this work.

Thus in this current phase of culture we have separated from God; our task (if we wish for Life Eternal in Heaven) is to rejoin with God, but this time with consciousness and by personal choice - and this entails awareness of that which was previously unconscious.


But what does this becoming conscious actually mean - and what does it Not mean?

First, we need to take into account that this is mortal life, and our world is one or impermanence - of decay, disease and death. So nothing in this world is permanent for us (as mortal Beings). That recognition immediately clarifies that the attaining of consciousness aimed-at is something that may not be remembered, may not have permanent effect, may not be acted-upon...

(...At least so far as our knowledge in this world is concerned. We have faith that such temporary attainments in this world do indeed have permanent reality in the post-mortal context of resurrected life  eternal in Heaven - but not in this world.)

So in seeking consciousness, what we are seeking us something much like 'a moment of clarity'.

This is the intuitive sense of direct knowing - and typically of becoming, for a moment, clear about something we already 'knew' but unconsciously... We knew, but until this moment did not know that we knew...


The key point is that these (and there may be many, should be many such) moments of clarity, awareness and direct knowing are IT. These moments are precisely what we seek in the evolution of consciousness - and indeed, such moments are all that we can seek.

They are our maximum attainment because the moment may be forgotten, it may be distorted by memory, may be misinterpreted retrospectively... it is only in the moment, at the moment, that it is what it should-be.


We need to understand this; because otherwise (given our habits, and Men's habits for the past couple of millennia at least) we will try to seek consciousness in the form of articulated concepts, of models - that is, we will attempt to capture the direct knowing in words or symbols and to make it part of a system.

And this is an error; because these are secondary phenomena. Direct intuitive knowing cannot be reduced to a few words or a few symbols or a simple model - of course not! Nothing can be - not even such everyday matters as the appearance of a daisy, the performance of a song, the smell of a pine forest can be described accurately and completely!

Ineffability - inexpressibility, incommunicability... this is the mystical insight, but not at all specific to mystical experiences; it is just an obvious fact.

Our experience is not pre-divided into chunks that can be separated completely - no, all is interrelated to the extent of creation. And there is no end to the inner detail of anything. We are confronted by open-ended limitlessness of complexity both as we look without and also within.

So, all that we symbolise in actual words, or communicate in language or image - all such is necessarily simplified, distorted, incomplete, secondary. The direct and immediately apprehended knowing is the only primary experience; and our awareness likewise cannot be captured nor can it be communicated except as a model - which is certainly wrong!


Therefore we should avoid going down that path which was pursued by Rudolf Steiner; in which he attempted to describe, summarise and communicate his transitory experiences of direct knowing in a truly vast, intricate and interlinked system - of a form suitable for presenting in lectures and diagrams, and publishing in scores of books, and teaching to tens of thousands of 'followers' at that time and for another century, so far.

Steiner's compounded error led to the illusion that it was necessary - or at least desirable - for us to learn, understand, memorise, further communicate this systemic model of reality, as if it was a description of real-reality. Which it not only cannot be - but the gap between such a model (any such model) and directly apprehended reality is unknowable.

The vastness and complexity of Steiner's communicated model therefore misled bot Steiner and his followers into assuming that it really captured reality, better than a simple model would or could. Yet the gap between a simple model and reality and a complex model and reality are equally limitless! Complexity does not allow us to approach closer to the truth - the truth remains as far away as ever; but the potential for delusion does increase with a model's complexity and difficulty of mastery.


(We can explicitly know that a model is simplified and distorted - but not how much it is wrong, nor in what ways it is wrong. And this fact is not affected by the 'size' of the model. Typically, a more complex model is more precise. We will tend towards ever more more-precise error - precision is a false promise of accuracy. Hence the greater potential for misleading.)

This all helps explain the sorry history of Steiner's Anthroposophical Society - which has now become just-another converged secular leftist organisation that embraces the Global Totalitarian agenda; albeit one that, currently, expresses a lot of eccentric pseudo-factual beliefs.


What of coherence? Well, coherence is also a thing that needs to be directly known. The coherence, or incoherence, of our knowing is something that we already know but unconsciously - our task is to bring this knowing to awareness.

For example, we may intuit that our knowledge is incoherent still, and needs more work, more clarification - or we may realise that it is indeed coherent, and we have grasped reality - for a moment.

But we cannot take things further than that moment of clarity, nor should we seek to do so - because any such attempt will fail, and in attempting to describe direct knowing in communicable language, we may become (as Steiner apparently did) dominated-by that false model - and assertive of its rightness, true-ness; we may assert that our ridiculously simplified System is actually itself reality and truth and that to 'know' this System is necessary, or even that to understand the System and be able to expound that System is equivalent to, or better than, the momentary clarify of direct knowledge.

Such an error is likely (and very tempting) because the System made-from direct knowing is durable and discussable, it can be a part of 'objective' public discourse; while by contrast the actuality of direct knowing is evanescent and private.

Making a fake model (untrue, but presented as if true) is therefore a possible route to status and power. For instance one might found a society, a religion or a business, which purports to be based-on direct knowing - but which is inevitably only a distorted, summarised and systemised account of the experience.


Setting aside such temptations and recognising that that which we seek will be temporary and will not be articulable; we find that becoming conscious, direct knowing, Final Participation is a much more attainable life strategy than might have been supposed.

This is great news!

Our task is (merely!) to seek such momentary clarity of insights, clarity of coherence's; and to be satisfied with that quality of experience - but (the difficult thing...) to continue to keep seeking for such moments for as long as we are alive.

Because, for as long as we are alive, we have important work to do; and that is why we remain alive.


Note: All this has been clarified for me by reading Philip K Dick's Exegesis (2011), which strikes me as exactly the book I most needed at exactly this point of my life. 

I become more convinced that "direct knowing" is required of us (unmediated intuiting, the sharing of common thoughts...); and indeed the only way of knowing that 'works' in a world where language, symbols, visions, and all kinds of perceptual experience are corrupted as well as weakened. 

Christians will find themselves - sometimes again and again - at a point where there is a stark awareness and apprehension of Me-Here-Now - a situation of direct and 'intuitive' knowing; rooted in a personal and first-hand experience, and a person to person relationship - typically in relationship to Jesus Christ. 

 

This contrasts with traditional church-based knowing; which is rooted in historical discourse and 'scholarship' of various types; and is therefore second-hand (or third-/ fourth-/ fifth-hand...). 

Church-knowing is indirect knowledge-about... rather than experience-of. It is something we learn and strive to remember... rather than apprehend with instantaneous clarity and conviction. 

Because modern Men are self-aware, because we are conscious of our own consciousness; we distinguish these two 'ways of knowing' whereas at times in history these would have been regarded as aspects of a unity...  

Indeed they were not distinguished, because the individual was then immersed in the group's thinking; and often had experienced none-other; his beliefs were spontaneously and unconsciously those of the social group, and these beliefs were apparently stable, apparently 'eternal'. 

Man in the past did not distinguish even the possibility of himself having direct and personal knowledge that diverged from knowledge he absorbed insensibly and by training and education from his society. 

Therefore in the past - when Men's consciousness was different; the basis of Christianity rooted in a church was natural, inevitable, and right. 

But Now we experience self-validating truth for-ourselves, intermittently; in flashes, or 'epiphanies'; yet brief because we are then in a state of self-awareness that of-itself interrupts that which is being-observed. 

As soon as we know we are knowing - that consciousness slips-away into mere knowing that we know...

But anyone who has known by this kind of directly-apprehended, wordless intuition; is aware of its utter distinction from those vast masses of external and historical 'knowledge' which constitute 'a religion' or 'a science' or 'literature'...

The question then arises; why should we believe secondhand church-knowledge? 

Such a 'why' question would not have occurred in the past - but now it has; and it demands an answer; that is, assuming we are to give some version of church-knowledge absolute primacy* over all other contesting knowledge-claims... 

For a Christian, we see on the one hand an enormous, heavy, complex system of historical claims which constitutions a denomination or church; all of which includes the claim that this is (in some essential fashion) the unchanging truth, and our job is to worship and obey. 

Or job as a church-Christian is primarily to learn-about this body of historical material - and submit-to it. 

Therefore, Me-Here-Now and (what feels like) direct knowing; must be fitted-into - and submit-to - this mass of external stuff. 

 

For a church-Christian; Nothing we might ever possibly experience, think, say or do - past, present or future - can ever affect the directionality of that relationship. 

The Church - and therefore History - is absolute and primary; we our-selves are contingent and secondary. 

(And the same applies if, for instance, The Church is replaced by Scripture, or Tradition - it's all History, ultimately; all external - all given-us by a particular body of Men, all based-on historical claims.)

So, this is the crux. We have our own most intense, most real, most true and most important convictions - rooted in (what feels like) a direct-knowing of reality...

Or we have (what feels like) a secondary, second-hand, submission to (what purports to be) a vast bulk of mixed historical claims - cross-referencing the validity of authority, scriptures, traditions and practices, beliefs etc. 

These two possibilities (for many perhaps almost all) people have separated, their combination was a consequence of unconsciousness - and now we are conscious - and they have been split apart by this consciousness.

Thus Romantic Christianity became a possibility, and the decision concerning ultimate authority became a necessity. 

We can either acknowledge or deny the crux - but denial is dishonest. 

What to do we do; where place our primary loyalty, where look for salvation? By submission and obedience to History (i.e. Our Church)?

Or; do we instead start the process of re-knowing, re-learning, re-making Christianity from the basis of the primacy of intuition, direct-knowing, heart-thinking (whatever we call it)...

(Which is (for Christians) intuition of the divine within us (as we are children of God), and our apprehension of the Holy Ghost without?)

 

The crux is: Do we trust our-selves and personal-knowing primarily; or we we trust... whatever we have been told by our favoured historians concerning church-history, and organize everything else around that?   

Is Christian faith to be rooted in the Here-and-Now experience - or in curated historical claims? 

Romantic of Traditional? 

*Note: 'Primary' and Primacy' are used here to indicates which comes first and is foundational. It is not a matter of either/ or Romantic versus Historical Christianity - but which is primary and foundational; about which judges and discerns the other. Thus a Romantic Christian may be a full church member and believer - but at root he will have intuitively-discerned and evaluated the truth of the church's claims (at least; those which are of core importance to him), and consciously chosen to accept them. The Historical-Church Christian may experience intuitive direct knowing, but will accept or reject such insights in accordance with his primary obedience to the church - therefore no personal knowledge could ever (as a matter of principle) challenge or overturn the church's instruction and teaching. What a church-Christian experiences and knows here-and-now, will only be allowed validity when it supports the church's 'historically-based' understanding; and any other insights will be rejected as erroneous or evil. 

I am re-reading Colin Wilson's excellent book about Rudolf Steiner: the man and his vision (1985) - which he opens by saying that Steiner's core assumption is twofold: that there is a super-sensible, spiritual world hidden 'behind' the everyday world of the senses - and from-which the perceived world is derived. And secondly; that thus world is knowable by those who choose to develop their latent abilities. 

So far, this is hardly distinctive; except that the way in which the hidden ('occult') world was discovered was not by trance, dream or other 'hallucinatory'-state but by an intensification of the alert, awake, clear thinking that Steiner regarded as characteristic of science.

Steiner therefore called his practice a Spiritual Science (and the specific type of spiritual science he recommended, he termed Anthroposophy).

But when we are told of a spiritual world behind the perceptual world; this naturally seems to evoke a picture in our minds of two perceptual worlds. 

In other words, we often imagine the surface everyday world of solid-things, then - separated from it by a barrier - another world of spirit-things. 

When we imagine ourselves knowing the spiritual world, therefore we imagine seeing/ hearing/ touching the spiritual world by something like of an extra set of new senses.  

At times, especially in his later career as a leader in the Theosophical Society then originator of Anthroposophy; Steiner writes exactly like that about his own experiences. 

It is interesting to reflect on how many proposed 'methods' there are for 'raising consciousness'. 

In the mainstream, this refers to use of the mass media, education and propaganda to manipulate public opinion. It means, roughly, getting people to think about some-thing - in either a positive or negative way. 

For example, to become aware of some rare type of disease, so that they might contribute money to organizations purporting to 'do something' for sufferers or carers. Or to turn public opinion against to actual or virtual group of people by linking a name with alleged acts of meanness, crime, terrorism. 

This stuff is the staple of daily public discourse in all modern institutions (including most Christian churches). 

A small version of the mechanism can be seen in this blog, or any communication medium including speaking. 

I used to think of my writings as potentially able to spread to almost anywhere, on the basis that such things have happened: a few words written in a specific place have propagated and been reproduced to reach vast numbers of people (who maybe 'needed' them, or alternatively were vulnerable to them) - and these communications (words, images, music etc.) have an apparent effect on them.  

Another version of the idea is that God works through us - and God can and will amplify our works to reach many people - when this is helpful for God's purposes. The creator need not worry or concern himself about 'spreading the word', or 'reaching an audience', but only about creating some good communication - and God will do the rest. 

In New Age type spirituality circles, raising consciousness often refers to a proposed mechanism whereby the spiritual level of large numbers of people (or all people) is lifted by some kind of external effect. A divine being or tendency may increase the frequency or vibrational level acting-upon human - which is presumed to awaken or spiritualize their thinking and living. 

Or an individual who meditates (in the proper fashion) is assumed to have a very general and beneficial effect on everybody in the world; implicitly perhaps by some (probably very small) enhancement of an sort of 'spiritual ether' that is 'bathing' all our consciousnesses... 

So when that medium of consciousness is enhanced by the mental efforts of one or many spiritual persons, it is suggested that we all experience this enhancement (or could do, if we became attuned to it).

I think of these are 'physicsy' ways of thinking; which regarded spirituality rather like the radiations of the sun, incident upon the earth - perhaps some kind of cosmic ray that passes through the earth but potentially interacts with welcoming or susceptible minds en route. 

The way in which I tend to suppose consciousness can be raised posits a 'world of thought'. Or, more exactly, not all thoughts (which are mostly trivial, passive, 'automatic') but a world of 'real' thought, primary thoughts, thoughts that originate from our true and divine selves when we are living as free agents. 

This world of thoughts is contributed-to by many thinking Beings (living and 'dead', incarnated and spiritual, human and otherwise). This world of thinking may be accessed by anybody (any Being) who actively chooses to communicate with it. 

Such a concept privileges thoughts and their direct sharing or interaction, mind to mind; above the indirect and multistep processes of public communications and media. This I call 'direct knowing' and I regard it as the basis of genuine intuition. 

By this account, if I have an idea or an insight; then it is the having of it that matters more than the physical expression. For instance, it is implied that having the idea for this blog post was more important than writing and publishing that idea.  

Did I then really need to write and publish this post? Would it not have been just as good - maybe better (because more direct) to think but not publish it?

Yet there is a middle ground; which is that (for me, anyway) writing is thinking - at least to a significant extent; and further that writing-thinking is (for me) improved by the intent to publish, or share, it. 

In a sense, often (but not always) I do not really know my idea until I am writing it, or have written it. The process of writing seems to accelerate the evaluation and clarification of ideas. 

So consciousness is raised primarily by thinking, and this may secondarily amplified by communication. 

And at the other end - the way in which we may each directly attune to the 'world of thinking' is (for most of us) difficult, intermittent - and only able to cope with simple concepts. 

For instance, by direct thinking and knowing it is much more likely that we can discover a 'Yes or No' answer to a simple and precise question like 'should I quit my job?; than we could discern a plan of action in response to a question like 'what should I be doing with my life?'

Thus, given two Beings, both aligned with God and in sympathy, a physical communication like a blog post might be able to make a bridge to the world of thinking and direct knowing. So we might read (or listen, or view) a communication; and then (immediately upon comprehension) we may experience an intuitive confirmation of its validity.

The communication is therefore affirmed by direct knowing. 

In this way, by accelerating our intuitive grasping of things, communications may help us discover and evaluate our primary assumptions concerning the world - establishing a metaphysical basis upon-which all other kinds of knowledge depend. 

Note added: It is probably significant that I forgot to include what may have been the most prevalent or important form of consciousness raising at times and places in the past - which is by supernatural/ paranormal communications - such as dreams, visions (visual and auditory), visitations (by spiritual beings) and mediumship generally. 

In sum - by perceptual contact with the spiritual world: e.g. an angel speaks, a vision is shown. And any communicated perception is subject to distortion at many stages.  

I forgot to mention these, because such methods have become progressively less common, impossible for many people - and usually only attainable by deliberate practice or deliberate consciousness alteration. And all of these make any communications more liable to be misperceived or misunderstood; and which tend to impair discernment concerning the source and value of communications, and impair memory. 

I believe that direct knowing is both superior - because it is direct and cuts-out the problems of distorted perception, misunderstanding etc - and also that direct knowing is the destined way that modern Men in modern conditions are intended (by God) to have consciousness raised. A way that cannot be interfered-with by evil external powers. 

I think we need a metaphysics of direct knowing - so we may escape from the incoherent, self-contradicting, auto-destruction that is modern metaphysics.

(We need not feel guilty of 'wishful thinking' when we reject an inadequate and nonsensical metaphysics! This is something our culture ought to have done 200 years ago, and only eight generations of inattention and inadequate concentration has defended the absolute garbage that passes for 'scientific' or 'rational' or 'realistic' thinking in modern, mainstream public discourse.)

The physical world we learn of by sensory perception - and this imposes itself upon us: perceptions happen-to-us, and we are therefore passive in relation to them. Nonetheless, we also know that sensory perceptions are unreliable (we experience illusions, misinterpretaions, hallucinations etc), and differ between individuals (and within one person, over time) - so sensory perception cannot be a fundamental basis for life.

The world of the body is known by feelings - that is, by our awareness of emotions (emotions being our brain's monitoring of inner body states). Feelings also impose upon us - like perceptions, we are over-whelmed by feelings - we are (mostly) passive in face of feelings. Yet we know that feelings are evanescent - they fade, they change, they are different between different people at different times - feelings cannot be a fundamental basis for life.

Currently, the mainstream highest conscious understanding of things; and the basis for public discourse, is abstract models. Abstract models are simplified and selective simulations of reality - and they are the currency of what passes-for rationality - I mean such word-concepts as the ideals of equality, happiness, suffering; education, wealth, violence; health, justice, virtue... And the models used in managment, science, law, the military etc. In public discourse such abstractions are given 'operational definitions' which we know-for-sure are incomplete/ biased/ wrong... but we treat abstract models asif real because (we are assured) there is nothing else.

(Modern public discourse is intrinsically coercive: based on compulsory assertion that TINA... There Is No Alternative - i.e. no alternative is allowed, no alternative will be taken seriously, any proposed alternative will simply be ignored - the current abstract model is mandatory.)

Thus it is facile to demonstrate that all the current, available bases for public discourse, for Life, are certainly-wrong, and lack any coherent basis - except for the assertion that there is nothing else better.


But there Is something else better; there is a coherent metaphysics which could serve as a solid basis for Life, and for public discourse - which is that there is a single reality that we can each of us know directly.

By directly I mean unmediated - and not by a chain of unreliable perceptions, or by contingent feelings, or by means of incomplete biased models.

Direct, in fact, entails identity - to know directly universal single reality, entails that the knower is (to that extent) joined-with and becomes a part-of that reality. Direct knowledge entails participation in reality... (And this is where Owen Barfield's term comes from.)  

Participation is not with the whole-of reality - but a part of it (real and direct - but partial - participation) ... Thus our direct knowing is real, but (extremely) incomplete and biased... that is, direct knowing is partial, and that partiality is not a microcosm of the whole.


So we have the possibility (by definition, by metaphysical assumption) of real knowledge of reality - real truth; but incomplete and distorted... But over time our knowledge of truth can get greater and we can learn more of the context hence increase its representativeness.

We have a personal perspective, and we have had limited experience; therefore we do not have all truth about everything - and to know fully any specific truth requires knowledge of how it fits into everything...

Different individuals will grasp different portions of the total reality from different perspectives, and with different degrees of completeness - hence disagreement between individuals is to be expected. But over time, individuals will tend (spontaneously) to converge on the single true reality.

Furthermore; although our knowledge may direct and correct, when we communicate this knowedge to others we are back in the realms of perceptions, feelings and abstractions - and this is another source of inter-individual disagreement. 


The above coherent metaphysics is possible - but it cannot be forced upon anybody; it must be chosen.

Metaphysical assumptions cannot ever be proven - they are assumptions (and assumptions are necessary for proof).

Metaphysical assumptions are not supported by evidence, so don't look for any! Because they are assumptions (and assumptions are necessary to define the nature and status of evidence).

So we must choose to assume metaphysics - and when we are contradicting the metaphysics that we have unconsciously-absorbed from society and unthinkingly reproduce - then we must consciously choose our metaphysical assumptions.


This seems strange - it may seem bogus. Because perceptions, and feelings force-themselves upon us - and we are used to being compelled to accept abstract models on the basis that 'there is no alternative' - it seems artificial, contrived, dubious for us consciously to choose-to-assume the fundamental basis of our reality; to assume the nature of reality.

But that is what we must do if we want to have a coherent metaphysics. 


Direct knowing is active, not passive; it is individual not groupish; its objectivity (sameness between individuals) is a product of multiple individual increases in knowing - as they spontaneously converge on the underlying singleness of reality.

When there is (honest and well-motivated) disagreement, the answer is simple: all individuals should attain more knowledge - because as individuals attain more knowledge, they will agree more.

And because communication is inherently indirect; there is an important sense in which each of us must (sooner or later) learn and know for himself.


The future is individual, the future entails greater knowledge, the future is chosen... it is more-and-more conscious. And it is unbounded - since (form our individual finite perspective, and with finite experience) there is always more to know.

Such a Life is intrinsically-creative - because to know is to participate, and all knowing is individual.

A valid understanding of "clairvoyance" would be clear-seeing; which could be translated into the concept of direct-knowing. 

And this is part of the idea that our divine destiny - if not in this mortal life, albeit very partially, then in resurrected eternal life - is to move-towards a knowledge based on direct, experiential knowing. 

This is a consequence of the dawning recognition that what might be termed public knowledge - all quasi-objective forms of indirect, societal communication, mediated by language or other symbols - cannot and should-not be relied upon. 

(Of course; this 'cannot/ should-not be relied upon' applies to science, and mathematics, as much as to all other forms of public knowledge.) 

Aside from the ultimate and insoluble problem that we can never be sure that we are validly receiving and understanding symbolic truth - we can in addition (and especially since 2020) see how easily public knowledge is manipulated and exploited; how quickly and effectively lies and other types of untruth can be incorporated into public knowledge and enter 'history'... 

...Such that we cannot any more regard public knowledge as objective; and are thus pushed towards what God actually wants from us; which is to rely (as bottom-line) on directly-intuited knowing - from God within, and from the Holy Ghost. 

Of course (if you think about it!) such knowledge is only objectively valid in its original form - as directly known; and as soon as it is systematized, as soon as it is made-into language or other symbols and communicated... then that primary truth and validity is lost, and we are back in the realm of manipulable public knowledge. 

This is why it is unwise, and sometimes fatal, to try and persuade others of the validity of that which has been directly-known. Whatever we say, write, or otherwise notate; will always fail to be that direct knowledge which we actually-received - plus; how our communications are received by other people is subject to their own prior perspective and motivations.   

For Christians; the age of argument, polemic and persuasion is passing; the age of clear and personal, individual statement is upon us and growing. 

We need, above all, to achieve clear-seeing of-and-for our-selves; and if we then choose to render it (imperfectly)  symbolically/ linguistically - it is up to 'other people' to receive it by direct knowing... or not, as the case may be. 

 

There are so many physical reasons to fear catastrophic events in "the future" (i.e. any time from now onwards) - that we need repeatedly to remind ourselves that fear is a sin. 

For example; yesterday I heard that (officially) the mass immigration into the UK had reached record levels and expanded the population by more than one percent, more than 700, 000*. This is an increase in population about the size of Sheffield - which is a big and densely inhabited place. Nearly all of these people will be subsidized by many 10,000s of pounds each; also housed and educated and given health care etc. - all at the expense of the native population. A high proportion of the new arrivals are young men, and a significant proportion of these will be violent and criminal. And the real numbers are certain to be larger. 

Yet this is just one of many, many ways in which the leadership class are actively, and increasingly with every year, destroying the UK. Meanwhile the masses are keen on this, or oblivious, or indifferent; because people have no purpose beyond short-termist hedonism and status wrangling.  

If we are focused upon the physical, and on probabilities, there is every reason for extreme pessimism; and no plausible reason to expect any reversal or improvement in trends. Physical, material suffering, societal decline and collapse... such outcomes are near certainties. 

Therefore, it is imperative that we repeatedly repent our fear; and continually remind ourselves of the spiritual context of human life, and of our own personal business here in this mortal existence. 

We each need to clarify and make explicit our spiritual purpose, and seek the spiritual meaning of the actual conditions of our life.  

If we are to roll-back the sin of fear; we cannot allow ourselves to be put into a defensive, besieged, mental posture. 

Our attitude to life must come from our-selves (because there is nobody, no powerful group, no church out there that is even trying to do what is needed). 

We need to see ourselves as a beacon of good-thinking; radiating-out true, beautiful and virtuous thoughts that will affect eternal life. 

To defeat fear we need to take the initiative; our motivations need to emanate from our-selves - our motivations need to be from within-to-out: generative. 

We need to choose, and to will - but what?

My increasing conviction is that we need to think less abstractly, and more personally; in terms of relationships rather than ideologies (or hypotheses, or models, or even theologies)... 

We need to expand our relationships beyond the decadent and evil values of the physical, material world; and that means into the spiritual world. 

We need, I think, to establish relationships with the resurrected dead. These need to have a role in the world, in and in our lives, going-forward. 

What role? Well, that can only be known after there are such relationships. 

The first step must be to establish contact. With whom? - well, that will depend on each individual and his needs, experiences, motivations; and with who (among the resurrected dead) is trying to contact us, from the spiritual world. 

And how is such contact made: what form might it take? Not, I believe, in the forms of old-style 'mediums', and not in the form of 'channeling', nor of 'conversations'...

Instead; I think that contact with the resurrected dead will be direct: and via mind-to-mind sharing of primary (wordless, imageless) thoughts.

I have previously called this direct-knowing; because it is not mediated by language, symbol or any other intermediary. 

In direct knowing, we know because we share in the knowing of another Being. 

Direct knowing as as valid as the knowledge of the other Being, and our own capacity for understanding. 

And direct knowing is self-validating, a positive and pleasurable experience; and expansion of the scope of thinking - because we are participating in a larger, spiritual and more-divine personal consciousness. 

Here is a kind of plan, or the outline of a possible plan: 

Strive for contact with the resurrected dead whom you love, greatly esteem; and/or who you feel want to contact you. Expect contact rather than communication. And be open to learn from these experiences - because that learning will be the basis for whatever plans you adopt. 

Nobody can do this for you. It depends on your initiative, the Good-ness of your motivation, and your intuitive validation of whatever happens.  

And your path and contribution will be unique. 

(If you do not make this contribution, nobody else can or will - that is how important is the job.)  

*Note: This demonstrates clearly that there has in reality been no Brexit at all with even the slightest significance (since Brexit was 99% motivated by stopping perpetual and accelerating mass immigration, and the consequent population/ cultural annihilation and replacement). All the vast political effort of getting an EU referendum in 2016, and its strong popular Leave vote - had either zero effect; or more plausibly served only to energize the totalitarian-globalist Establishment in pursuing their Sorathic agenda. 

Have you ever noticed, as I did even in my teens, that your best-friend's other best friends were usually people you found to be distinctly... underwhelming. Sometimes, I even disliked them. And my own best friends often did not get-along very well - lacking any genuine affinity. 

This might be supposed to be due to jealousy, or that that each friend represented a different aspect in me; but I think the reason runs deeper.

Something similar applies with authors that I regard as mentors; my absolute favourite writers: those with whom I had a strong relationship, and whose influence on me has been significant. 

It is natural to seek further such mentors by tackling those who my favorite author regarded as his favourite authors... 

Yet this was typically a blind alley. No matter how deeply I admired and empathized with writer X; I nearly always discovered writer X's favourite, most significant, influences were disappointing; and often completely unappealing.

Furthermore, books recommended me by friends who liked the same things as I did, were often duds; and my own recommendations of the "you will love this" type, typically fell upon stony ground. 

The same applies with classical music, and indeed folk music - an exploration of the "influences" behind my favourite artistes and composers was almost uniformly unsatisfying.     

Such instances can be put-together; and a lesson drawn from them to make a kind of law: The Law of Direct Knowing.  

This is: We can only truly-know a person or personage in a direct and dyadic fashion.

We can - in other words - only truly know in terms of a meeting of just-two minds; and this applies whether in everyday-life or in our intense imaginative thinking-life. 

Thus; friendship and influence must alike be directly inter-personal - without any degrees of separation. 

Indeed; it strikes me that with the Law of Direct Knowing we are perhaps confronted here by a fundamental principle of divine creation - because (as I understand it) creation is rooted in love: and, more exactly, in dyadic love - love between "twos".

Love is both what holds-creation-together; and what gives creation its dynamism: its motivation and direction. 

Creation originated (I believe) in the love of our Heavenly Parents to constitute that which we term God; and divine creation began with God's love of all the Beings of reality - each individually relating back to God, via love, in a dyadic fashion. 

Creation then proceeds by multiple (and overlapping, interlocking) instances of dyadic love between the Beings of divine creation - to make the whole of creation bound and motivated by many mutual links.

What this means is that our evanescent mundane love/ relationships are -- in their partial and often temporary ways; and while continually being un-done by the depredations of entropy and the motivations of evil -- instances of that "power of love" which make creation. 

This mortal world is therefore a dynamic equilibrium - which may be strengthening or else falling-apart, at various scales - between the binding and creative powers of love - and that-which opposes love.  

And (at least, for Christians) Heaven can be understood as the place where such dyadic relations are permanent and pure in their nature - such that creation becomes wholly positive and progressive...

So that more-and-more of Heaven, is always being bound more-and-more strongly, by the direct knowing of dyadic love. 

 

Clearly The News is one of the primary mediators of evil in the world; but what to do about it?

Obviously we should not 'believe' The News; and should try to avoid exposure to it - but we cannot avoid it, it is forced upon on and literally demands a response. If we do not believe it, then what do we believe instead?

Simple negation or reversal would be ludicrous and counter-productive (on the basis that the most dangerous lies are veined with truth - contradiction of The News would be merely to exchange one falsehood for another). Another trap is to 'decode' the news, using a balance of sources, or 'alternative media' sources. This is just another loop back-into News obsession and enslavement - obsessive and addictive News-engagement disguised by 'trying to get to the bottom' of a 'story'...

A first step is to recognise that those who produce The News have 1001 tricks to manipulate us, and so long as we rely upon News we cannot outwit The News. Since we do not know the 'real' answers underneath the manifold deceptions of The News, and cannot find relevant information except via the media itself, even the attempt to find 'the real answer' increases the domination of The News.

Yet, if we don't believe The News, what do we believe? What 'alternative source' can there be which is untainted?

Churches are no use; because they are tainted as well - and as long as they comment on The News in public discourse they also rely on The News; the churches are drawn-into the problem and become part of it - The News gets woven-into the church teachings, into prayer, into priorities...

The News is public communication, and what opposes The News is intuition: private knowing. Direct knowledge of ultimate reality - which is, in principle, universally accessible; but accessible only by intuitive thinking of our Real (which is divine) Self.

But typical modern Man lacks access to intuition - because his mind has been filled with automatic cognitive processes such that his real Self is inactive; and because modern Man denies the reality of the divine, and his fundamental assumptions therefore regard intuition as necessarily a subjective delusion rather than direct knowing.

Consequently, even when modern Man knows in his heart that The News is wrong (a common feeling, perhaps), and even when he knows what is real and true - this state-of-knowing is ignored and indeed suppressed; because of its provenance in (presumed) mere-subjectivity and wishful-thinking. 

The location of News in public discourse leads to the requirement that we communicate about it; and the discourse is poisoned with lies, evil perspectives and covert materialist assumptions. One who speaks from intuition, and who tries to justify and defend intuition using the resources of public discourse, will find in doing-so he is weaving and strengthening one or other element of corruption.

So - we encounter News, we are compelled to respond in some way, we can neither believe nor automatically-contradict; yet we cannot be selective and interpret without accepting corruption...

The answer is to interpret from our own intuitive and direct knowing, and be honest about the provenance of our direct knowing - to state our conclusions, but not to engage in trying to defend or convince.

Of course this speaking-from-intuition is a conversation-stopper; but when it comes to News, that is necessary. And of course, it seems crazy or simple-minded - but that too is unavoidable: evil is held-in-place by expediency.

We must do the inexpedient for the sake of our salvation and spiritual development. And in doing so there is a chance - but no guarantee - that we may point others at the same intuited truths we have come to know.

It is a plague of all those who attempt or achieve some kind of 'spiritual contact' to know what is the provenance of those Beings that they contact. 

Are they who they claim, or are they someone or something else?

I regard it as an advantage of what I have termed primary thinking or direct knowing - that, because it is 'direct', a sharing of thoughts between Beings, it brings with it a knowledge of provenance - of who is being-contacted.

In other words, when 'communication' is mind-to-mind, we know who or what we are dealing-with; whereas when communication is mediated by sensory factors - words (whether spoken or written) or visions or any kind of symbolism - then this introduces an indirect layer between the minds; which may serve to conceal provenance. 

So direct knowing is intrinsically more reliable and valid. 

On the other hand, indirect communications are tempting - because they are often more precise, and occur (or can be induced) in higher volume and on-demand. 

In other words, direct knowing tends to have a low amount of simple information; but (I would say) can be relied upon more solidly. 

Yet even direct thinking is not wholly reliable; because while a Being may be known for who 'it' is, nonetheless a Being can conceal its intent. The motivation behind the thinking is part of the real-self, the ultimate and irreducible basis of our individual being; hence inaccessible to any other Being (inaccessible even to God). 

(This ultimate 'privacy' is the reason why Beings have agency or 'free will'.)

My point here is that we would be wise to be satisfied with the lower quantity and precision of direct thinking; and therefore not to crave (or insist upon) detailed and specific information on... whatever we suppose we want, or think we need, to know!  

When I wrote recently about Spiritual Stuckness (which, for me, is a daily experience, and often lasts for days on end) - my take-home message was that there was no 'generic' answer - such as are often suggested by the traditional Christian writings. 

First; the 'overcoming' is not meant to be achievement of a high spiritual state on a permanent basis; but is meant to be learning the lesson that the stuckness is here to teach us. 

And that lesson is likely to be personal and specific; designed (by God) to address our own particular problems and needs. 

Yet it may also be helpful to recognize that the overcoming should not be assumed to be something that happens by traditional means. In historical writings, spiritual stuckness may be overcome by rather spectacular perceptions such as visions of the divine, or hearing the voice of God - maybe in response to intense prayer, meditation or ascetic denial - or participation in communal religious ritual. 

These methods are often, I think, ineffectual for modern people: partly because they simply don't work for everybody; partly that the extremity in derangement of consciousness required to generate visions and voices (for example) renders memory and understanding defective; partly that such attempts are highly prone to mislead (being contaminated by wishful thinking). 

Therefore it may be helpful to consider that 'communications' from God (guidance of the Holy Ghost, perhaps) may be direct, rather than perceptual. That is, they may appear in consciousness simply as knowing some-thing.  

Even before I was a Christian; I would often know that some-thing was wrong; that I should stop doing some-thing (even when I had no clue what I ought to be doing instead. 

So, I might know 'I should Not do This job' - but I did not know what alternative job I ought to do; I might know I had done or thought evil, without understanding why it was evil - or indeed what evil meant. 

That is one kind of leading. But it is negative rather than positive. How about direct knowing by positive guidance? 

Positive direct knowing may go unrecognized because it is drowned-out (on the one side) - for instance by the inputs of mass media or socializing. Or (on the other side) no attention is being given to such inner knowing - because of the habit of directing attention, outwards, or towards past memories, or future plans. 

Not many people, it seems, give attention to the present moment of thinking; when knowing may occur in thinking.  

The idea that we are primarily supposed to learn-from our stuckness, rather than cure (or behaviourally-changed-by) our state of stuckness, is a difficult one to accept and retain - yet this is probably the key to everything else. 

Francis Berger has written a masterly essay that deserves serious attention. 

People are often, and correctly, advised to seek direct knowledge of the reality of God by direct revelation.

But the process of direct revelation is 'cognitively' very simple - I mean that it can be considered to be something like a binary or yes-no kind of answer.

That is, in general, for most people (and perhaps especially the kind of spiritual 'beginners' who would be seeking knowledge concerning the reality of God) - direct knowing of fundamental matters is only solid when we are seeking an answer to a question that can be framed in a form more-or-less like: Is This True?

This matter of making assumptions concerning the nature and motivations of God before seeking knowledge by revelation/ direct knowing is therefore crucially important. If we want to know whether 'God' is real, then we need to become clear in our minds as to what kind of God we are enquiring about.

In other words: There can be no satisfactory answer to the very general question of: Is there a God? - because it depends what we mean by God.

It would be perfectly reasonable and expected to seek of knowledge of the reality of God and be convinced that No, there is no 'God'.

Assuming there is a God; then if we were actually enquiring about a false conception of God, or if we are so unclear/ confused/ imprecise what we mean by God - then it may well be more true to say: No, there is no God (if that is what you mean by God); or, more likely, no knowledge at all will be forthcoming: no answer.

This was certainly my own experience through decades of being an atheist. Advise from Christians (and others) to pray for an answer was useless or even counter-productive; because people seemed unwilling or unable to be precise enough about what they meant by God (perhaps because they were unwilling to 'limit' the concept of God); perhaps because they themselves lacked genuine knowledge of God - and/ or perhaps because they themselves had a false or contradictory idea of God.

At any rate, once I had a reasonably clear and correct idea of the nature and motivations of actual God, then I rapidly received revelation and knowledge of its (overall) correctness; and then I was gradually able to become clearer and clearer about such matters by subsequent more precise questioning.

Thus faith was established, strengthened and developed.

WmJas Tychonievich clarifies that the invented 'ethical' imperative against 'ex-clusion' masks the fact of coercive and mandatory in-clusion of all individuals within the global totalitarian System ('the Matrix'); also that, increasingly, self-exclusion (that is, anybody choosing to live outside of the System and its tightly-controlled ideology) is forbidden. 

But does forbidden mean impossible? Well... not exactly. Because the System is - by design - a machine of damnation - Therefore They want everybody to want to live inside it. This is why They invited the fake positive morality of inclusion, and manufactured abhorrence of exclusion. The built-in covert assumption behind-which is that everybody, necessarily and always, wants to be on the inside.  

Because the crucially damning (i.e. salvation-rejecting) effect of the System is when people embrace and endorse the System - think by it. To regard the System as Good is a demonic value-inversion; which entails regarding Heaven as bad. 

However, the System ceases to be an effective instrument of evil when someone knows the nature of evil (i.e. opposition to God, divine creation, The Good), has recognized the System as being evil, and has rejected the System for that reason. 

The global totalitarian System is a material one, which excludes the spiritual (denies the reality of the spiritual) - because only the material realm is controllable. The System now includes all of public discourse, and all major institutions (including the churches); and its grip increases daily. 

Of course, those demonic Beings who control the System are not themselves material - and They know perfectly well the reality of God, creation and The Good (which they oppose). It is this larger perspective of the demons that enables them to control the System and to make it served the goals of damnation - while their human servants and dupes are mostly oblivious. 

The strategy of totalitarian evil is to induce an habitual, passive, unconscious materialism among all humans; thus to confine them completely within the System - hence to be able fully to monitor and control them.   

So, it is not - after all - difficult to escape the System; because the spiritual realm lies beyond. But escape is not in the physical realm - not in the realm of society or culture - not in any institution (including not in a church - when church is functioning in the public realm) - since all of these are by-now net-absorbed-into the System (corrupted, converged); and the System is evil. 

The spiritual real is explicitly known only in the realm of thinking; and within thinking in that kind of thinking that could be called direct knowing, conscious intuition or heart-thinking: in other words the spiritual is to be found in thinking that comes from our real (and divine) self. 

Such thinking is undetectable and uncontrollable by the System. 

And such thinking participates in a realm of primary thinking that is shared by, contributed-to, accessed-by - all other Beings who are engaged in intuitive direct knowing. So, we are not alone. 

Yet, heart-thinking and direct knowing are only temporary and partial states in this mortal life - which is instituted for our experience and learning - for our 'education'. We who live in this era of global totalitarianism have each, personally, much to learn from the experiences (which is indeed why we are alive, now).  

And we may - if we have made the right choices and have the right values - also have a life outside of the System in addition to the spiritual realm of primary thinking; I mean the realm of love: love of family, spouse, children, real-friends - and including (for some people) love that crosses the portal and encompasses some of the 'so-called-dead'.

So there is life outside the System; life which always and necessarily escapes the System and is free! Yet, as the System increases its scope and grip, this free and loving life is a more-and-more completely a spiritual life, which we may consciously know almost wholly in the realm of (primary) thinking.  

Originally, Men simply perceived and believed the suprasensory reality - they saw and heard the voices of spirits, gods and demons...

Then the world became more confined to perception by the five senses. The spirit reality could only be perceived as a result of special rituals.  First there were shamans who specialised in contacting the spirit realm, then there were priests...

Now the spirit reality is so remote to us that we cannot perceive it at all, except in altered states of consciousness such that our consciousness, our self of self awareness, is suppressed - by drug intoxication, disease, in sleep... When we are awake, alert and in clear consciousness we live in a world of five senses merely, from which spirits, gods and demons are absent.

*

But we are supposed to be aware of spirit reality by a different means - not by passive sensory perception but by active direct knowing.

Instead we live in an age of passive delusion: people do, in fact, believe without sensory evidence, they believe in what is Not actually perceived or/ or is contradicted by experience. That is the delusional 'virtual world' of modern mainstream reality - enforced by officialdom, mass media and large institutions...

But what modern mainstream people believe is not merely false because self-contradicting, but also frequently changing; this being sustained by an incoherent brew of metaphysical assumptions of 'relativism', individualism, biological reductionism, abstract imprecise principles and imperatives (Justice, Equality, Diversity...) and the inaccessibility of real-reality and true-truth...

The one thing moderns know they know, deep down - is that they do not really know...

Modern man is therefore, and rightly, alienated from the world, from other people, and even from himself and his own thoughts: he doubts everything, including his doubts - and he fears.

(Alienation is our friend - it is the divine inner guidance system telling us we are on the wrong track utterly - not merely unhappy but living under false assumptions and in false delusions.) 

Modern Man's only release is in seeking un-consciousness: oblivion in distraction or pleasure. His great 'hope' is therefore to cease to be a Man, to revert to animal un-self-consciousness...

*

In principle, modern Men are right to live in 'delusions' - in the sense that we are meant to know without external evidence; to know by direct apprehension. That is the evolutionary destiny.

But we must live by 'true delusions' - that is, by the intuitive insights of our own real selves - not those fake delusions of multiple, contradictory, labile and socially/ media created selves...

Man's destiny is to be free and agent, like God: as a god. To know everything, incrementally and asymptotically, from our selves thinking. Because true thinking is reality, because it is divine. 

We must know by active and true thinking; not by passive absorption.

*

A hunter gatherer walked through life seeing and hearing spirits, they took this for granted; and were passive in relation to the spirit world; they assumed it was 'out there' and its meanings were 'out there' - not knowing that spirits are not just out-there but also in-here, and we participate in them.

(Man is necessary for reality.)

Modern Man cannot see spirits, and assumes that because they are not merely out-there, then they are nowhere! - yet he also assumes that what is believes is not really real. Modern Man is trapped by his metaphysical assumptions in a loop of nihilism and despair.

We are meant to walk through life not perceiving but directly knowing the reality of spirits (and many other things out-with sensory phenomena); knowing more-and-more of the reality of things without any ultimate bounds to that knowledge - while aware of our real selves; alert and in clear consciousness.

SO - do not expect to see spirits and other 'supernatural' phenomena out-there and 'objective' - instead expect to know spirits, angels, demons, God: know directly; that is simply by thinking properly, from our (true) selves.

And in such thinking we will (quite naturally and spontaneously) know for ourselves and by direct experience what is real and relevant.

Due to the subversion, corruption and inversion of the mass media and all major social institutions...

Communication is useless.

(That is, communication via the senses - via visual and auditory channels)

*

What remains is direct knowing.

...In which pure thinking (of an individual) participates-in universal reality - thereby knowing other people, places, times, things... directly.

Our world, here-and-now, is one of Fake thinking generating Fake knowledge - yet we swim in a sea of mutually-reinforcing fakery, and are unaware of the fact.

For us only the Fake is Real... 

*

Awakening cannot be compelled - nor is it a mass phenomenon. It is a consequence of individual freedom, it must be chosen.

What, then, could compel people - I mean individual persons - to a situation in which the choice of Awakening was stark and simple, and evasion become all-but impossible?

*

In The West, we go further and further into the false knowledge of false selves: this is our public world; and (with mass media, social media, propaganda) our public world is more and more pervasive.

We inhabit a vast superstructure of deliberately-manufactured and elaborately-sustained falseness, irrelevance, uselessness: a fake world.

But if this fake world is not continuously sustained, imposed, fuelled, repaired; then it will collapse within the mind - and an individual will be confronted by its opposite: which is intuitive knowing.

So, awakening may come to a person when he or she is confronted by the fake knowledge of their fake selves. The two go together: the self and the knowledge. Both the self and our knowledge need to be recognised as fake simultaneously.

*

In a world were communication is pervasive and addictive and fake - communication is the core of evil. The enemy of communication is direct knowing.

Our primary task is therefore to know directly; which entails to live from the primary thinking of our true selves.

We will all, sooner or later, be confronted by this reality: confronted but not compelled - we cannot be compelled to reject the fake and embrace the truth.

But we can be compelled to make the choice in a situation of maximum clarity about the issue at stake; that issue being the salvation of our souls.


The above is edited and excerpted from an essay at Albion Awakening.

I have pretty much always believed that telepathy was a reality; from manyfold personal experience. Indeed, if telepathy is assumed to be possible, then many other supposedly 'paranormal' phenomena become straightforwardly explicable.

But for most of my (pre-Christian) life, belief in telepathy did not have any challenging implications - because my hypothetical explanation for telepathy was purely materialistic; it simply slotted into my mainstream, scientistic world view: part of the world of observation, hypothesis, testing...

This was because I regarded telepathy in terms of some kind of sensory process of communication. I assumed that some kind of thought waves or forms were being 'beamed' between people's brains - or else there was a tuning-into thoughts; but that because this process was unreliable, not under control of human will but rather 'instinctive'; therefore the mechanism had not (yet) been unravelled by science.

However, I now regard what I used to call telepathy as a instance of direct knowing, of intuition; which I now understand to be more like two people thinking the same thought simultaneously.

It is not a form of communication, and nothing like a signal passes between brains. Rather, the telepathic process entails two people being simultaneously attuned to the 'collective consciousness', the 'inner world' - the single world within every person, every 'thing' - the same world we visit in dreams, the world of 'the gods' (the Ancient Egyptian dwat) and of 'the dead' (Hades/ Sheol).

When telepathy is understood in this way, it becomes an instance of (become 'evidence' of) something that goes beyond science, goes beyond the mainstream modern world view - it becomes an experience of a life beyond the senses/ models/ data; and itself a taste of primary thinking and direct knowing.

Telepathy therefore opens us to a qualitatively different way of being, beyond observations and hypotheses; and becomes a possible model for gaining knowledge on other topics of concern. If telepathy usually happens with people who are important to us, especially people we love; then the telepathic kind of thinking may become a direct way of experiencing, learning, and knowing matters that are important to us - matters of love.


Note: This example illustrates how metaphysical assumptions - the basic framework of our understanding of reality - are more important than our specific observations or beliefs. In other words; metaphysics shapes evidence; metaphysics tells us what counts as evidence, and what that evidence means. By contrast, evidence cannot rationally affect metaphysics. Metaphysics is primary - evidence (including science, history etc.) is secondary. The implications of telepathy therefore depended on my metaphysical understanding of reality; and when my understanding of reality changed - the implications of telepathy changed.