Bruce Charlton's Notions

Divination enables us to become aware of the subtle psychic and spiritual forces that are at work in the background of our lives, determining the events that arise. Contemporary divinatory systems [e.g. Astrology, Tarot, Runes, the I Ching] are by no means atavistic throwbacks to an age long since surpassed, but are underpinned by a new and subtle understanding of the subtle energies that are active behind the scenes of our conscious knowing...

Nevertheless, divination does need to be approached in a different way from how it was approached in antiquity, because although it may reveal to us the spiritual and archetypal condition that lie behind a given situation, our relationship to these factors cannot be the same as that of people in antiquity...

We fail to realize our true human potential to the extent that we do not act freely... If, therefore, we practice divination, we do not do so to submit ourselves to the will of the gods, but rather to gain greater insight into our situation in order to come to a freely chosen decision as to how best to act. 

From pp 180-1 of The Future of the Ancient World, by Jeremy Naydler, 2009.


Throughout my life, and including my younger days, long before I was a Christian, I intermittently tried various divinatory practices. In my mid-twenties I bought Jung's book about the I Ching and tried to use it with coins; later I tried using runes drawn from a bag, and Tarot cards. I never persisted long with any of these things and never reached any conclusion about them - indeed, it was the lack of any validating intuitive feedback which made me give up so easily.

It now seems to me that I was self-blocked from getting attached, or addicted, to divination on the basis that I was trying to use it for the wrong reasons and with the wrong underlying motivation. For me these were technologies of power and/ or evidence of underlying 'atavistic yearnings' (yearning for the past un-conscious and immersive participation in reality, characteristic of childhood and hunter gatherer states).

Rudolf Steiner provides some clarification of this in his repeated cautions and strictures against the deployment of altered states of consciousness as technologies of clairvoyance - his insistence that the modern and future mystic should be alert, awake and purposive: that the modern clairvoyant (as a general rule, although there are exceptions) would work-from the 'consciousness soul'; and not therefore from 'passive' experiences and states such as dreams, dreamlike trances, sedating or hallucinatory drugs; not characterised by visions, hallucinations, speaking in tongues or similar signs; and we should eschew automatic writing, Ouija boards, unaware channelling and so forth.

(Probably - ultimately - excluding therefore the likes of astrology, the I Ching, runes and Tarot - excluding them, that is, as routine or focal spiritual practices - although presumably these could be acceptable and valuable as occassional, educational and remedial practices.)  

As a generalisation I believe Steiner was correct and making an important point - that the destined spiritual future is not one that incorporates technologies of divination; but that regards them as at most temporary expedients: ways of moving to the next step, means to an end.

What we ought to be aiming-at is simply to know - but to know from the basis of our alert, awake, purposive real selves (our souls).

This is true intuition - not the act of 'looking within', but the act of locating, then living-from our real selves. 

From a 1976 interview with Philip K Dick (Phil)

Phil: ...I wrote The Man In The High Castle with the I Ching.

Mike: You did?

Phil: Yeah, and I’ve been sorry ever since because when it came time to resolve the novel at the end, the I Ching didn’t know what to do. It got me through most of the book. 

Everytime they cast a hexagram I actually cast four of them and got something and assigned it to them and they proceeded on the basis of the advice given. Like when Juliana Frink decides to tell Abendsen that he’s about to be offed by an agent. I threw the coins and she got warning make known the truth to the court of the King great danger and so on. Someone comes up behind him and hits him with a club. That’s what she got. 

And so she did go warn Abendsen and if she’d got another hexagram I would not have had her go speak to Abendsen. But then when it came time to close down the novel the I Ching had no more to say. And so there’s no real ending on it. 

I like to regard it as an open ending. It will segue into a sequel sometime.

Mike: When you find somebody with the stomach to write one.

Phil: Yeah, or if the I Ching ever gets off its ass.

Mike: Do you go back from time to time and throw it to see if there is an ending to it or —

Phil: No, I don’t use the I Ching anymore. I’ll tell ya, the I Ching told me more lies than anybody else I’ve ever known. 

The I Ching has a personality and it’s very devious and very treacherous. And it feeds ya just what you want to hear. And it’s really spaced out and burned out more people than I would care to name.  

Like a friend is somebody who doesn’t tell you what you want to hear. A friend tells you what’s true. A toady is the old word for somebody who told you what you wanted to hear. The Kings all had their toadies around them who told them what they wanted to hear. The King said, am I the greatest King in the world? Yeah, you’re the greatest King in the world, yeah. 

Well, this is what the I Ching does. It tells you what you want to hear and it’s not a true friend. 

One time I really zapped it. I asked it if it was the devil. And it said yes. And then I asked it if it spoke for God, and it said no. It said I am a complete liar. I mean that was the interpretation. 

In other words I set it up. I set it up. I asked two questions simultaneously and it said I speak with forked tongue, is what it said. And then it said, oops, I didn’t mean to say that. But it had already –

Mike: Then you get a paradox.

Phil: Oh, I watched a girl do this to it once.

Mike: That’s the paradox. It’s lying when it says it’s lying.

Phil: It’s just full of, it’s a crock is what it is.

**

I bought a book about the I Ching back in... 1985 I think; and tried it a few times. But I never had any confidence in the results, never actually changed anything in my life as a consequence - never had any sense of a 'personality' at work.

Nowadays, I think (at a cultural level) divination does not work - I think that the 'evolution of human consciousness' has gone past that particular transitional phase when we were close enough to the gods that divination worked, but far enough away that we needed divination to know the gods' minds.

But of course specific individual persons may still find themselves at the transition phase where divination is both necessary and effective; and then such a person may find out the nature of who - among the gods and demons - is actually doing the divining for them.

Apparently, that what what happened to PKD.
 

We can analyse paganism, monotheism and Christianity from the perspective of the implied relationship between Man and the divine (and an understanding of the nature of divine). 

Paganism is hugely varied, each tribe and locality having its own version, and most are fluid and loosely defined - with no real attempt to hold it constant. The gods (the many little 'g'-gods) are more powerful than, but not qualitatively different from, Men. The gods are subject to the same virtues and sins as Men; have the same kind of strengths and weaknesses - therefore the religion is one of divination and propitiation - of Men discerning the will of the gods, and attempting to influence the gods by flattery, sacrifice etc
 
Monotheistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam) have a creator deity - a capital-G God; and the practice is underpinned by obedience to that God (obedience to laws/ rules/ rituals as revealed by prophets who are merely mouthpieces of the divine). The relationship between Man and God is one of the infinitely-lesser submitting to the incomprehensibly-greater - and how people feel about this is pretty irrelevant. The religion is therefore one of practice, not belief; and the ethic one of strict adherence to the rules of practice.

(There is no divination or sacrifice in monotheism, as such - since God is so infinitely removed and great; that it would be impossible to understand, predict or influence such a God.)

What of Christianity? Well, although self-identified Christianity is often corrupted by Monotheistic or Pagan elements - the intrinsic nature of Christianity is different from either.

Christianity focuses on Jesus - and on the one hand Jesus was not 'a god' (as he might be in paganism - e.g. a god in human form) - because, for Christians, Jesus lived in a reality where there was a unified creator deity - a prime God who was not Jesus.

But Jesus was divine, and brought the teaching that all Men could (by following him) also become divine (via death and resurrection).

In what sense was Jesus, the Man, also divine? Because by some means - such as the divine spirit impregnating Jesus's Mother, or the divine spirit descending upon Jesus at baptism - Jesus the Man was made god. But not just made-into 'a' god; but made a god-creator who could, and does, work-with God the prime creator.

Therefore Jesus became 'fully divine'; that is, he eventually joined-with the divine creator in the work of creation, while remaining a Man; and Jesus made it possible for other Men to do the same.

So, Christianity takes the understanding of God as the single, original prime creator from monotheism; and takes the continuity between gods and Man (the possibility of a man becoming a god) from paganism, and made a new category of god-creator - the two being brought-together in and by the centrality of Jesus Christ.

(Of course, I am assuming here that Christianity is Obviously Not a type of monotheism; which many theologians have always asserted it is - fudging the issue by Trinitarian incoherence. Evidence for the wrongness of the idea of Christian monotheism is that when Christianity has been so regarded, it takes on the qualities of monotheism - becomes essentially like Judaism and/ or Islam; that is a religion of obedience, law, ritual, submission - as contrasted with being distinctively 'Christian', as Jesus was and taught.)

I do not like blogging about my own spiritual experiences; partly from reticence and partly because spiritual guidance is designed for the benefit of the recipient not as general teaching. 

Furthermore, each experience of personal miracles, or of the guidance of the Holy Ghost, has been so different in its specifics; that the major lesson for me has been that there is no method for such matters. 

(Indeed, to teach or assume generic methods for the Christian life, or to convert personal mystical experiences into advice, seem likely to do more harm than good.) 

On the other hand; it may somewhat encouraging for other people to know that a long-term and deep personal question for which I sought a response for some years did, in the end, receive an answer - albeit slowly and by a very indirect and not-replicable route.

I am not going to discuss the answer I was given; but I will describe something of the strange and unexpected way that an answer was communicated to me - in such a way that the process got past my fundamental misunderstandings and false pre-conceptions, and convinced me intuitively of its validity. 

I have often observed that when a question does not get an answer from divine sources; this is almost always because the question is ill-formed, and contains fundamentally wrong assumptions. These are why God cannot answer us - despite His vast resources. 

Furthermore; we are (nearly always) looking for the wrong kind of answer - and often something which is self-gratifying, or perhaps fits with false ideas of our own nature and destiny. 

This may explain why I was not able to get an answer of value or validity to the question oft what I ought to be doing in my life. I had too many fantasies and day-dreams that blocked my understanding. 

So, God's problem, in trying to help me, was to work past a great mass of such preconceptions, false understandings, wrong notions of the kind of thing I sought; and the tendency to ignore the true answer if given me straightforwardly, because the simple truth 'wasn't what I wanted to hear'... 

The only positive thing I was able to do to assist the process was to maintain my intent to find an answer over a period of years. I didn't give up. 

Admittedly I wasted considerable time, money and effort on dozens of false leads; but I kept plugging away - and followed hunches. 

What proved essential in the end; I let myself pursue lines of enquiry that had some kind of here-and-now interest to me; even when these appeared 'rationally' to be dead-ends, or trivial. 

Thus I have recently been re-reading around the subject of Christian 'ceremonial magic' - in particular the books of Gareth Knight and Dion Fortune, who I regard as admirable people. But I had already read these authors in the past couple of years, and had become clear in my mind that such a ritual and symbol, organized, approach to Christian living was now obsolete: it simply does not work anymore. 

I have also been re-reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and focused on the episode when Childermass uses his 'Cards of Marseilles' (i.e. Tarot cards) to tell the fortune of Vinculus, and later to discern dishonesty and theft by Lascelles. 

Such reading led me to re-watch some DVDs of a nostalgic children's TV series from the early 1970s called Ace of Wands; which featured the hero 'Tarot' - a professional stage magician who also had some psychic powers such as telepathy, remote visualization and telekinesis. 

Having enjoyed this; I then got-out my Rider-Waite Tarot Card pack, which had featured in the TV programme; and looked-through some of its pictures.

Having replaced the cards, I absent-mindedly attempted to place it on a table; when the pack accidentally fell to the ground, and two cards jumped-out - and lay face down on the floor.  

It then came to my mind that these two cards would answer my question about what to do in my life.

I immediately thought that this was stupid, because (no matter how valid the process) I would always read-into the cards whatever answer I wanted: in other words, I would fool myself, and therefore the exercise would be useless. 

I don't believe in fortune telling; I don't believe that divination works (nowadays - although it did work in ancient times - up to the early years of the Roman Empire); and I certainly was not seeking 'guidance from the cards'.  

Nonetheless, I picked-up the cards one by one; and immediately recognized that the first card depicted myself and my condition: not as I fondly imagined myself, but as I actually was. 

This came as a shock, and I turned over the second card with some curiosity. 

The second card was one of the Greater Trumps, and I did not know its (supposed) meaning; so I looked it up in the leaflet provided - all the while thinking that it would be futile, because the descriptions are (like newspaper horoscopes) always so vague and ambiguous that they cannot possibly be sufficiently specific to serve as clear guidance for life...  

I read the sentence describing what the card meant, then - after a couple of seconds of dawning recognition - I realized that this was exactly the answer I needed and it was true. 

The generic phrases each and all had specific relevance to my condition.

The answer was obvious, banal, simple - and it was clearly the truth; yet I had missed it and missed it, for a very long time. 

I had to be set-up for this knowledge, in the right frame of mind and expectation; and I had to be surprised by the answer. 

What I think can be learned from the above is that if we persist in seeking an answer to an important question; then God can and will find a way to get that answer to us; and will prepare us to receive that answer. 

And God can do this even when we are (as I was) asking almost exactly the opposite question to the one we needed to ask; and when the mind is clouded and confused by innumerable wrong notions and hopes. 

Therefore; don't give up, and be prepared to follow where inner promptings indicate - even when these are pointing in apparently trivial or useless directions. 

And I think it is worthwhile to recall that the answer will be personal, very exactly tailored to you as an individual and your circumstances.

Also; the method by which God works to deliver the answer will be... Whatever does the job - and that method, too, will be one-off, unique - hence completely unpredictable.  

Which is exactly what is necessary. 

*
Given that repentance is vital to the Christian in a world where men are weak and temptations are many and strong,

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/why-is-mortal-life-so-full-of.html

more needs to be said on the subject.

*

Repentance is a psychological act that is made possible - in other words it is made effective - by the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

If it was not for Christ, then repentance would be merely a state of mind, or a change of mind; but because of Christ it is made effectual - because of Christ, repentance saves.

*

Humans have Free Will, that attribute does not depend on Christ, but the main, the primary function of Free Will is to repent.

Everybody, in every situation, is able to repent if they choose. And every act of repentance will be effective in negating the spiritual consequences of error, failure, weakness, sin, exhaustion, gullibility... everything.

*

The set-up is that we can always repent everything; because of Free Will repentance simply cannot be stopped or prevented by any power on earth, and because of Christ it is always effective.

This is each person's ultimate invulnerability against the world. And it was necessary that each person be so powerfully protected in order that earthly mortal life be 'a risk worth taking'.

If it were not for repentance, it would be better not to be born as incarnate mortals - but simply to be spirits in Heaven; because without repentance we would have near-zero chance of getting through life without becoming much worse than we began it, and would be be almost certain, after we died, to make the disastrous choice of pride, rejection of God and Hell.

But, by sending Men into mortal life equipped with repentance, which is Free Will weaponized against sin by Christ - this evil fate was prevented; unless after death we actively-choose Hell through refusal to repent that which we know is sin.

* 

Christ made this defence for us by his life, death and resurrection; and he made it for everybody (including those who lived before Christ).

Repentance works for everyone in all circumstances - including those who have never heard of Christ.

What then is the point of telling people about Christ, what is the point of being Christian?

*

The first answer is that if we know about Christ it ought to make us better at, and more thorough about, and less resistant to repenting.

If we know how the world is set-up - that ought to be a help.

(Of course, sometimes, self-identified 'Christianity' becomes distorted and corrupted, and makes matters worse not better. For instance 'liberal Christianity' which denies the need for repentance of some sins; which indeed encourages pride in some sins is worse than 'nothing' - i.e. worse than Man's natural, spontaneous, 'animistic' religion.)

*

The second answer is that repentance, although essential, is not the end of the matter.

Living life is also about theosis, sanctification, spiritual progress or 'divination' - in other words, mortal earthly life is an opportunity to grow-up, mature and become more god-like - which is our destiny through eternity.

But, for us mortals, that glorious work and privilege only comes on the other side of repentance; only comes if our safety through life is assured by repentance. 

*

Many modern Christians, including real Christians, have a reflexive and inflexible hostility to 'Religious Experience' - that is, to anything like mysticism, magic or what they term the occult.

Such attitudes come-out, for example, in the visceral hostility to JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Harry Potter as being demonically-inspired and/ or tending to lead people into evil preoccupations and practices - such as conjuring spirits.

This particular mind set is associated with Low Church, Charismatic type Protestants (especially in the USA). Such people claim to be able to draw a sharp line between Religious Experience (such as speaking in tongues or faith healings: good) and Magic (bad), usually defined on the presence of key words or practices such as wizard, witch, divination and spells. 

Similar - albeit 'less extreme' attitudes are also prevalent in a mind-set to be found among Western and Eastern Catholics of a Traditionalist type, and the more traditionalist, scriptural Protestant churches.

What this amounts-to is the belief that normal everyday consciousness is the only 'safe' way to be - and any form of altered consciousness - such as is associated with mystical, magical and occult experiences or knowledge - is to be avoided, absolutely (or rejected if it happens) as being likely to be of demonic origin.

In a nutshell, such people are real Christians - and yet they are solidly against Religious Experiences, in the modern world; because these may be evil in origin or effect. 

Such traditionalists will acknowledge that in theory Religious and mystical experiences may also be of divine or angelic origin (as is amply attested in The Bible, the early church, among Christian Saints of the past etc.). This might be taken to imply a middle path - of approving mystical experience but with caution; and indeed that is my own view of things.

But in practice, Traditionalists are prejudiced against Religious Experiences - by which I mean they pre-judge all claims of mysticism to be fraudulent or deluded unless-proven-otherwise; and in practice there never-can-be objective, public proof otherwise.

Such people will never actually be convinced of any proof of or evidence for the validity of mystical experience - at least not when mystical claims are made by people or groups they dislike - which amounts to people outwith their own denomination +/- a shortlist of other approved churches.

(Part of this is that they typically have an unexamined assumption that true Religious Experiences only happen to those of exceptional sanctity; and such people are extremely rare, especially in the modern world. Where they get this assumption, given the vast number of Biblical and real-life counter-examples - and the fact that Jesus came, and Christianity was founded, explicity for sinners - I can't imagine: but they clearly do assume it.)   

I am sure that the Fundamentalist or Traditionalist prejudices against Religious Experience/ magic and mysticism is a very major error of modern Christianity; because Christianity is essentially a mystical religion, and if mystical aspects (whether they are labelled magic, occult or whatever) are excluded; then the faith is dead - becomes a mere matter of obedience to a bureaucracy or set or rules.

(Obedience to legitimate authority is a virtue - true; but I see not the slightest sign that Jesus regarded it as the primary virtue!)

Particularly damaging is that this prejudice against Religious Experiences implicitly consigns modern Christianity to operate within Modern Consciousness - which is of its nature materialist, reductionist and positivist. Indeed Modern Consciousness is a truly horrible thing; which drains contemporary life of felt meaning and purpose; so that the Christian who lives within it can have a faith only 'in theory' - because any validating mystical experiences will be rejected as demonic.

If ever there was a playing into Satan's hands, and doing just exactly what he wants: then this is it! - A Christianity which (from a secular perspective) has all the disadvantages of an absurdly magical foundation; yet vehemently rejects all possible experiential advantages of a magical consciousness!

So we get the weird spectacle of the adherents of a magical religion, with a magically validated organisation (i.e. a church), who spend their time reading and discussing magical events (in the Bible, lives of Saints etc), and performing magical rituals such as the Eucharist and Prayer... yet living within a distinctively modern and rootedly anti-magical discourse which expends great energy in distancing itself from any people who actually experience magic in the here and now and strive to live in a more expanded and sensitive consciousness than that of a modern bureaucracy!

In sum Christianity need to be spiritual as well as religious; and must not be squeamish or prejudiced against mysticism, magic, the occult.

Yes, this is a risk; but Life is a risk: intrinsically (Christianity takes a middle-way about pretty much everything except Love, Repentance and Forgiveness) - and the opposite risk of promoting a dry, legalistic, merely doctrinal Christianity is to advocate a mere corpse of Christianity.

Mysticism is, simply, a risk we have to take.

It seems that there is an almost irresistible tendency for 'religions' (and other things like 'religions' to bulk-up with time: to become, if not more genuinely complex, greater and greater in quantity of assertions. 

More and more 'revelations' are added to the original foundations until... well, in the first place the original foundations may become obscured, the reality of the religion may be distorted away from its primary core; and eventually - which may not take long - the actuality of the religion may be directed in the opposite direction from its origins in several or many respects. 

In the end, a religion - in its actual practice and effect - may become the inversion of how it began.  

This can be seen with Christianity if, like me, one regards the Fourth Gospel as a valid record its its origins. It seems that the primal simplicity of Jesus Christ's example and teaching was substantially added-to (and thereby, significantly, both obscured and distorted) almost immediately after his ascension; and the process continued for centuries.  

Some of these post-Christ revelations were helpful clarifications and extrapolations of the consequences of what Jesus said; but most were not; and many were contradictions. 

Ideally, it seems to me, it would be best to take the primal simplicity of the origins, and to examine the implications, and to explore what these mean in individual lives and the lives of groups and nations. 

However, this process seems to be rare - perhaps because it is cognitively difficult; and because Men have an innate interest in novelty; and in getting immediate answers to their own personal and urgent questions, rather than to exploring the implications of the foundation. 

And sometimes because there are successful attempts to manipulate Men; by snowing them with unmanageable information, by generating the incomprehensible, by creating a fixed attitude of inadequacy and therefore de facto obedience and passivity in relation to authority.  

At any rate, I observe a very similar trajectory of accumulations of assertions in those religious and spiritual movements of which I have some knowledge. 

Mormonism underwent enormous accumulative changes through its first decades from the origins in 1830; and soon became hardly recognizable both in terms of style and content, and in terms of the scale of emphasis.  

Similarly Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science movement rapidly accumulated a truly vast mass of assertions, almost wholly from Steiner himself; from its simple origins in the philosophical works and Christian conversion of the late 19th century; and through next quarter century - only terminated by Steiner's death. 

The most extreme example is the New Age movement. This was never simple nor coherent, because always eclectic; drawing on CG Jung, the Westernized versions of several Eastern religions, and the 'beatnik'/ hippie youth cultures. 

But the New Age movement grew almost entirely by addition. Interest and motivation was maintained by heaping-up more and more possibilities - more alternative healing systems, more techniques of meditation... different psychoactive drugs; divination by astrology, magic or tarot; artifacts such as crystals, pyramids; ever more varieties of neo-paganism (Wicca, Drudism, Shamanism...). And so on. 

There were periodic attempts to bring some kind of coherence - for example John Michell's 1969 The View over Atlantis - which linked several themes such as UFOs and ETs, ley lines, and Atlantis as an archetype of ancient high civilizations - my means of a revived Neo-Platonism. 

But even in Michell's own work, the strong tendency to accumulate overwhelmed the rigorous exploration of principles. And the New Age movement as a whole simply absorbed and absorbed - and any rigor of reasoning was itself in a playful spirit; designed more to stimulate and entertain rather than to explore the implications of truth.  

(In such a situation, the true ruling principles of New Age became those of society at large - in this instance the acceptability boundaries of hegemonic materialistic, atheistic, leftism - within-which all New Age activity functioned. Thus the phenomenon of 'convergence'. New Agers might 'believe' almost anything spiritual - but are united in regarding (e.g.) climate change, racism, and the sexual revolution as among the most important moral issues of the day.)

   

I see much the same tendency at work in almost all domains of human action; including science where vast superstructures of 'research' are built on arbitrary or false claims (CO2 warmism - with its foundational lie of being able to predict global climate - is the egregious example). And in law - where legally-nonsensical and/or undefined-undefinable principles (such as 'hate crimes', 'racism', 'asylum-seeker', 'diversity', 'inclusion') are used to underpin truly enormous superstructures of bureaucracy; and to determine the fate of nations and civilizations. 

All these many tendencies have led to where we now stand; where Men's mind are utterly stunned and rendered ineffective by the incomprehensibly enormous accumulation of assertions. 

This leads, inevitably, to passivity; and to an attitude of 'not even trying' to understand but instead a stance of fluid, pragmatic, unprincipled, unmoored, here-and-now, expediency - getting-by, getting-along, making-the-best-of-it...

And yet: anther possibility remains as a living alternative. To discover, each for himself, the stark simplicities that underpin the incomprehensible superstructures: first and crucially in religion, especially including Christianity - but also everywhere else. 

...And then to determine whether these fundamentals are indeed true to reality as we know it; simply by paying them sustained attention, and learning from what eventuates. 

It seems possible that Christianity came very early to Britain, shortly after the ascension of Christ, and probably to Glastonbury; at the time of the native Celtic Britons. 

Perhaps because of this, and for many centuries, there was historically very little conflict in the British Isles (and no recorded conflict at all in Ireland) between Celtic paganism and the new Christianity.

This had a lasting effect. Because the new Christians were not persecuted by pagans, when Christians became dominant they did not persecute the pagans but assimilated them. Churches were deliberately built on the pagan sacred sites. 

And the old pagan deities were downgraded rather than suppressed; to be named among ancient kings, mythic heroes, or even being transformed to saints.  

Also Britain was the centre of druidism, the place where continental Celts sent their druids for a very prolonged and difficult education - presumably in colleges of some kind; all this knowledge being memorized and never written (although there was perhaps a written language at the time, using ogham letters)

Druids were leaders of the Celts; with, apparently, a wide-ranging role including ritual, scholarship, divination, healing and warfare. They conducted sacrifices, including human. And these druidic pagans were exceptional in the known world for their strong belief in a personal afterlife - an afterlife in which Men retained their individual identities. 

That this belief in an afterlife was strong is evidenced by Julius Caesar, who gave it as the reason for the exceptional courage in battle of the Britons; that it involved retained personal identity may be inferred from the Ancient Briton's practice of guaranteeing loans (IOUs) to be paid-off in this afterlife. 

Both of these imply that the Celts knew a lot about the afterlife - in that they had apparently rather exact expectations of what it would be like. 

The Celtic expectation of eternal life contrasted with the Greco-Roman and Jewish belief in a afterlife as merely depersonalized ghosts in Hades/ Sheol. The Greco-Romans apparently interpreted the Celtic belief as reincarnation - like the Pythagoreans - but it was more likely a belief in Paradise: Men living eternally in an ideal kind of society and situation (on a magical island to the west, for instance).  

This means that when a pagan Celt converted to Christianity and a belief in Heaven it was qualitatively different from the situation for a Roman or Jew. The Roman or Jew expected annihilation of the self - while the Celt expected preservation of the self. 

Therefore, for the Roman or Jew Christianity Heaven offered a qualitative transformation of the self, whereas for the Celt it was more like a quantitative enhancement - a divinization - of the self.

I would speculate that this difference in pre-conversion expectations may have led to a difference after conversion. The Greco-Roman or Jew perhaps focused on the new fact of eternal life - and was therefor almost exclusively concerned with salvation. While the Celt would have been more impressed by the enhancement of the self towards becoming a god: a 'Son of God', much like the ascended Jesus - and therefore more focused on theosis - on working to become 'more divine' during mortal life. 

At any rate, mainstream Roman/ Western Christianity was rather vague (and indeed uncertain) as to the details of the afterlife; at least until the Mormon revelations from 1830, which began to provide a much more detailed description - and expectations. 

But I would guess that the Celtic Christians would have had similarly detailed expectations of Heaven, inherited from their pagan predecessors. 

In terms of its organization, Celtic Christianity resembled Eastern Orthodoxy much more than Roman Christianity. Whereas the Roman church was dominated by Bishops and Priests; Orthodoxy is spiritually dominated by Abbots and Monks - and with semi-autonomous hermits inhabiting remote 'desert' regions and performing heroic acts of asceticism (fasts, vigils, prayer), often at the summit of holiness. 

But Celtic Christianity was substantially cut off from Constantinople, as well as Rome; and developed along the native lines established very early. These included a great emphasis on mysticism (communion with God) and miracles, with most of the Saints being wonder-workers (most famously Cuthbert).

Although normal in Eastern Orthodoxy, given the pagan assimilation this mysticism may also link up with druidic initiation, which went through many rigorous levels and aiming at spiritual powers that were regarded as magical. 

In particular; it may be that the folk heroes of the British may be traced back to those ancient Celtic Gods, assimilating into Christianity. According to the work of Geoffrey Ashe (e.g. Avalonian Quest); Arthur may have derived by many steps from the original primordial titan that was assumed (in the oldest chronicles) to be the ruler of England when it was invaded by Men originally from Troy. This character reappears as the giant Albion in William Blake's prophecies. 

Merlin (originally Myrddin) may go back even further, to an even more ancient God who ruled the island of Britain originally. Merlin was originally a place-name for a fortress - but became a personal name. The first recorded name for Britain can be translated as Merlin’s Precinct, or enclosure. The Merlin of literature could have been derived from this ancient god. 

By Geoffrey Ashe's account in Merlin: the prophet and his history; the Merlin that we know from literature seems to be derived from a title, role or nature of a person - probably one with prophetic and magical abilities, due a relationship with the ancient god - perhaps as a reincarnation or by divine inspiration.

This led to the the first two known historical Merlins - Ambrosius/ Emrys, the Welsh magician prophet Merlin who mostly contributed to the Arthurian mythos via Geoffrey of Monmouth's History; and Lailoken the later mad prophet Scottish Merlin - who is represented in Geoffrey's later Merlin poem, and who features in the stories of the Scottish Saint Kentigern/ Mungo (the first Bishop of Glasgow, and a missionary of major historical importance). 

Another 'Merlin' may have been the Welsh bard Taliesin, author of the oldest surviving native poetry; he is recorded as a companion of Lailoken-Merlin, by Geoffrey.    

The Merlin of literature (and his descendants among many other wizards) exerts a continued - perhaps increasing - fascination in Britain (and the Anglosphere more generally). This may have spiritual significance, as some kind of folk-memory of the Celtic Merlin god, via the historical-and-legendary Merlins of the Dark Ages - as assimilated and transformed by the unique nature of Celtic Christianity. 

It may even be that - to the Romantic Christian imagination - Merlin is a Celtic name for the archangel of Albion: the angelic being who has been responsible for that ancient and indomitable spiritual reality which underlies modern 'Britain'. 

The idea of an evolution of human consciousness throughout history has been a part of spiritual thinking for more than a century - I know it mainly through considering the work of Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield and William Arkle over the past couple of years.

(I encountered the idea over thirty years ago summarized in the work of Colin Wilson, but did not then pay much attention.)

The idea of an historical evolution of consciousness seems to go-with a belief in reincarnation, because reincarnation allows each person to participate in the different stages of evolution that are aiming-at a fully divine form of consciousness.

Steiner and Barfield describe this aimed-at state in some detail - in essence it combines on the one hand a direct involvement with, and participation in, reality such as was characteristic of early man and remains characteristic of early childhood; with, on the other hand, a fully alert, self-aware, purposive and analytic consciousness which is characteristic of the adult consciousness and the modern phase of Western history. 

So, the idea is that I am personally experiencing the distinctive modern, alienated consciousness now - including the knowledge and aspiration towards a future state; however, in earlier lives I have also personally experienced, and benefited from, earlier phases of human consciousness. At some point later this life, and perhaps further lives, I may incrementally, a step at a time, learn how to combine the positive qualities of all phases. This aimed-at fully divine conscious state is what Barfield calls Final Participation.

According to Steiner and Barfield, these earlier life phases include non-incarnated lives - lives when we were conscious but had no body. So the theory is really one of multiple lives, rather than re incarnation.

Therefore the human spirit or soul (i.e. that entity which is reincarnated) is here conceptualized as undergoing an educational process toward which each life is contributing.

Repeated lives, many lives, seem to be necessary in order to allow for the very large amount of experience and learning required to bridge the gap between being a man and becoming a god. Certainly, one mortal life seems grossly inadequate for this, especially given that most human lives in history were terminated either in the womb or in early infancy - a small minority of humans have reached adulthood, and even fewer of these have had a full experience of marriage, family, maturity and growing old etc.

So, evolution of consciousness and reincarnation seem to make a neat package. However, this package is, if not incompatible with Christianity, at least somewhat alien to the structure of Christianity; which places a great deal of emphasis on the individual life which we are experiencing now, and sees 'this life' as having potentially decisive consequences for eternity.

And certainly, while reincarnation seems to described in the Bible - most notably in the case of John the Baptist apparently being a reincarnated Prophet Elijah - there isn't any scriptural description of a scheme of reincarnation as the norm. And especially not of multiple lives.

My interpretation is that ancient Christianity saw reincarnation as true, but as an exceptional possibility, done in exceptional cases and for specific purposes - rather than as the standard procedure for the majority of people.

Does an exclusion of reincarnation then rule-out the evolution of consciousness throughout human history? No, but denial of reincarnation with multiple lives does limit the role of evolution of consciousness in the lives of individual spirits or souls - it breaks the link between the evolution of consciousness in history and the evolution of my consciousness and the specific consciousnesses of every other individual.

Put differently, the arguments which (in particular) Owen Barfield makes for different types of consciousness in human history, such as his insights into the changing scope and meaning of words, may well be true; but they lose their relevance to the evolution of my consciousness and your consciousness if we were not present (in earlier lives) actually to experience the several stages of this historical evolution.

In sum, the historical evolution of consciousness is a matter of historical but not personal interest, if we ourselves were not present during that history.

My own belief is therefore that I accept Barfield's description of human consciousness having changed throughout history and in broadly the way he describes; and I also accept that we are meant (or destined) to achieve that mode of consciousness Barfield terms 'Final Participation'. But I do not accept that the two are causally linked - for instance I do not believe that I have, myself, personally participated in the historical phases of the evolution of consciousness during previous lives.   

Rather, I see the evolution of consciousness as a sequence which is recapitulated in different scales in different situations: e.g. through human history, in each person's individual development from childhood to maturity, and also in the largest cosmic scale of our salvation and divination across eternity.

(To clarify this last point: the Barfieldian sequence of Original Participation, the Consciousness Soul and Final Participation can be mapped onto the Mormon theological sequence of pre-mortal spirit life, mortal incarnate life, and post-mortal eternal incarnate life.)

I therefore would modify the Steiner/ Barfield model, since I regard this evolutionary sequence of consciousness as a basic and necessary process in terms of Man as a whole and also individual men working towards fuller divinity. And I think it is because the process is basic and necessary that we see it appearing and re-appearing here and there throughout reality; operating at many scales and across many time-frames.

Note: Previous posts on reincarnation
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=reincarnation

Some weeks ago, I wrote about the interesting fact that ancient societies were able to predict (and prophecy) almost as a matter of routine - certainly divination was integrated into ancient societies at the highest levels; whereas now prediction (of many kinds, including supposedly-scientific, or statistical) seems to be getting worse with each passing decade. 

Part of this is the high prevalence of dishonesty; so that 'predictions' (such as election polling, economic predictions, climate predictions) are in actuality merely rhetorical attempts to manipulate people; they are 'not even trying' to predict what will really happen. 

But part of it is that the world is becoming dominated, more and more, by top-down Sorathic - that is chaotically destructive - evil. 

This is relevant because destruction is much easier than sustaining and creating, therefore can be pursued simultaneously on multiple fronts.  

An increasing domination by chaotic-evil, means that prediction becomes much more imprecise. When people are trying to make things better, or trying to follow a plan; then their options and methods are limited and therefore what they do will be relatively predictable...

But how can destruction be predicted? Destruction can crop-up almost anywhere in the world, from almost anybody, and may be effective in a very side range of forms.

So, we can know that (barring a cataclysmic change of global trends) things will continue getting worse in those parts of the world where the Evil Global Establishment have power; but the rate-of-change, and timescale of irreversible collapse, is impossible to predict. 

It seems to have been a constant factor of known history that particular living people have claimed to have some kind of direct and personal contact with specific dead people. This has various forms - including some that are perceptual such as having visions and/or conversations; automatic writing, Ouija boards and channeling; and direct mind-to-mind contact in trance states or dreams. 

Tribal peoples (especially hunter-gatherers) seem to have regarded contact between the living and the dead as both normal and significant; a necessary and valued part of everyday life. To the extent that 'human society' included both the living and the dead in a perpetual partnership and familial relationship.  

When the contact claimed is with a famous person, it may be linked with claims of special authority for the one who is claiming the contact - and this kind of 'vested interest' means that the subject is plagued with both charlatanry and self-deception. 

In other words, some people try to get fame or money from claiming a special relationship with some important dead person, while others make themselves feel important through a claimed relationship - just as people often 'name-drop' the famous living people they have met. 

Nonetheless, the ubiquity of the phenomenon through cultures and history - and the high stature of some of those who claim such contact - can reasonably sustain an assumption that contact with the dead really does happen. 

And if it does happen, then it is likely to be important. 

 

However, when the phenomenon is considered from the perspective that human consciousness has undergone a linear development through history; it can be seen that there has been a change in the nature of such claims. 

Contact with the dead seems to have begun as something that everybody did everyday, then to have become the preserve of an increasingly-professional and specialized priesthood - who might undergo training and initiation procedures, and might deploy formal methods of deliberately-induced deliberate trance states, then systems of divination.

When the spiritualist movement broke upon The West in the later 19th century (originating the USA) it used technologies such the Ouija board but also deep-trance mediums who were unconscious of the dead persons they were 'channeling'. 

Coming in the early 20th century, Rudolf Steiner announced and advocated that this era was ending, and that henceforth contact with the dead should happen in a different and fully conscious way - but he was never able to explain clearly just how this would happen - although he left many clues. yet he seems to have been right to the extent that the spiritualist-type contact has been in decline for a century - despite more and more extreme attempts to sustain it - for example by powerful hallucinogenic drugs. 

The situation now (in The West) is difficult to know - since it seems that Steiner was correct and the nature of contact with the dead has transformed as human consciousness has transformed; to the extent that contact may not be recognizable as such - may  be denied, or explained-away, or simply kept secret. 

And indeed, I think that in 2021 contact with the dead is meant to be - if not denied (because that would be dishonest) then kept 'secret' or not-talked-about; so that the actuality will not be contaminated or distorted by the actuality or accusations of status/ money seeking. 

This applies to all modern spiritual experiences; we should avoid the position of trying to defend them or of to convince other people about them. They, like 'everyday miracles', are best regarded as being For us specifically and personally - for our salvation and theosis; so that we may learn spiritually from the experiences of this life.

But in this general way; I would suggest that almost everybody could and should be having experiences of contact with the dead of some kind. And furthermore, that it is almost certain that someone of the dead is probably trying to establish contact with you at this moment. 

Who that person is is a personal matter - it could be a friend or relative, or it could be someone who was famous or from history - but I think that the initiative of genuine contact nearly always comes from the dead - and not by the desires of the living. 

It is, indeed, the desire of the living to contact specific dead persons (regardless of the needs and wants of those specific dead persons) that has led to much of the self- and -other-deception of spiritualism in its various forms. 

I think the way it works is that some person of the dead attempts to establish contact with some living person (for some reason that may never become clear) - and that the living person will become aware of this 'pressure' by the frequent, and perhaps inexplicable, recurrence of thoughts about the dead person pressing-upon their consciousness. 

I would also suggest that expectations of some kind of two-way, question and answer, call and response 'conversation' between the living and the dead be set aside. However it was in the past and in other places; that seems not to be possible or desirable at this stage of the evolution of human consciousness in The West.

Rather, I think the dead may communicate directly, thought-to-thought; but this may be unconscious (for example during sleep); and the living side of the interaction needs to bring this to consciousness and to understanding. 

Only when the living person has clarified and comprehended the thought-communication of the dead; can the dead person become aware of the living person's response. 

In other words, the interaction may be slow, simple, almost like yes-or-no in terms of information; and one-way at a time. 

The dead may also influence the motivation, interest, rewards of a living person - and contribute to discernment and creativity. 

A common example is from music; when some form of communion between a specific performer and a specific dead composer leads to an especially musically valuable interpretation of that composer's work. This seems to be very common - albeit it is not necessarily explicitly claimed to be a contact. For instance: in the case of John Lill and Beethoven it is thus claimed; in the case of Glenn Gould and JS Bach the link is powerful but implicit - but in both cases the results are objectively verifiable.    

The main potential value of such is for the living person himself; who experiences some enhancement of possibilities and the value of confirmation of the reality of the spiritual world and personal destiny.

There are many prehistoric monuments in England - the earliest seem to be under the ground - such as West Kennet Long Barrow of some five and half thousand years ago, perhaps the centre of the religious landscape of that time...


While somewhat later are the more famous stone circles such as Avebury (near to West Kennet, and part of the same 'ritual landscape')


In general, through human development it has become more and more difficult to contact the divine. And this may be related to the assumed whereabouts of the divine.

Probably (there are no records), the earliest humans lived always 'in' the divine world - there was no separation between divine and mundane. Later, among the recorded simple hunter gatherers - contact with gods and spirits was more difficult; only attainable intermittently by a minority of specialist 'shamans' - who had to undergo some training, or else learn to use altered conscious states.

I would guess that the next stage - after the development of agriculture, and corresponding to the early Neolithic as at West Kennet - involved a professional priesthood, each of whom would experience a prolonged initiation. And also sensory deprivation and isolation - hence the underground sacred places.

(The Pyramids of Ancient Egypt are likely a highly developed version of this - the inside of the pyramid being the sacred space.) 

Under-ground was also the place of the divine - corresponding to the intuition that the divine was 'within' everyone and every-thing.

The monument Seahenge had an upside-down oak tree at its centre - roots above the surface, trunk and branches projecting deep into the earth - perhaps linking the divine underworld with this mundane surface world...


In the later neolithic, and into the bronze age - it seems likely that the contact with the divine became even more difficult - such that the gods were no longer experienced 'inside' - but in the sky, far away, imperceptible - and only indirectly and abstractly contactable by such methods as divination.

Hence the great stone circles (and pyramidal 'mounds' such as Silbury) were 'sky temples' - astronomically-shaped and aligned. I also assume that there was a supreme single god, by this time (henotheism); corresponding to centralised priestly government. 'Heaven' also means sky.

(The gods-under-ground, and god-in-the-sky temples seem to have co-existed for a long time - perhaps catering to different types of person; but the distinct impression is that the sky temples to the supreme god had the highest status, at least among the ruling group - since the greatest efforts were put into these structures.)

By this point, the kind of knowledge-based, abstract, priest-led religion was established which survived (gradually changing, becoming more theoretical and less direct) right through to the Reformation, and (somewhat modified) into modernity - after which it declined.

Until, from the advent of modernity (?1500s) increasing up-to nowadays, most people cannot contact the divine at all, under any circumstances - and deny its reality.

The idea of Romantic Christianity is that - starting with a few people from about the middle 1750s, and increasing, modern people are implicitly aware of the divine in a different, and individual, way; but which is not recognised as divine contact.

This is the process of conscious intuition, which I have often tried to describe on this blog. My understanding is that it happens to many (or most) people - but that nearly-always its validity is denied, and it implications ignored.

The modern sacred space is each Man's consciousness.

Note: If you are interested by the above line of argument, although not the specifics, you can find it superbly explored in Jeremy Naydler's The Future of the Ancient World, 2009.

'Clairvoyance' implies clear-seeing - and usually means perceiving that which is normally unseen; and it can include being a 'seer' - who can more clearly perceive the future. (I am using the term clairvoyance to include all kinds of perceived experiences - seeing visions, hearing voices, performing divination etc.).

'Seeing' more generally implies perception, and this reflects that clairvoyant-type experiences are necessarily at several removes from reality, indirect. 

In this respect 'clairvoyance' - perhaps surprisingly - can be seen as typical of all the normal, everyday, indirect - including 'official' - forms of knowing. 

Intuition, by contrast, is direct-knowing of the primary level of reality.

Therefore, intuition (in its pure form) must not include anything that renders experience indirect or mediated; e.g. no language or symbolism, nor translation, nor interpretation. 

In this respect intuition (in its essential, original, private form*) can be regarded as categorically different from any other kind of knowing. 

I believe that intuition can best be understood as Primary Thinking; when Thinking is itself the 'primary' (ultimate) reality: such that God and creation are to be understood as (primarily) Thinking. 

This means that when we engage in Primary Thinking, we are directly participating-in ultimate reality. 

There is no 'mediation' - such that in Primary Thinking (and only in PT) we are part-of the ultimate reality of things. 

This means that clairvoyance - because it includes perceptions - is at several removes from reality. 

For instance:

1. If Primary Thinking is ultimate reality... 

2. Reality needs to be translated into symbolism, such as language... 

3. This symbolism needs to be communicated, transmitted...

4. The received communication needs to be interpreted and understood. 

This same, multi-layered indirectness (selectivity, summary, hence distortion) implies to all external sources that are received by the senses - even when it is assumed that the external source is working honestly on the basis of valid knowledge of reality. 

This constraint applies to external personal and institutional authority, to all written (and spoken, and visual) inputs, to all socialization, training, education...

In sum - the above explains why we must ultimately, at the deepest and foundational level of knowledge of reality level know for ourselves.  

No form of external and indirect knowledge can substitute: 

We must do Primary Thinking for ourselves - or it will not be done; and we cannot be grounded in knowledge of reality. 

**

We must do Primary Thinking for ourselves if we want a direct relationship with the world; yet there is no 'method' for doing it; and many or most people probably assume that they cannot do it - and have no idea how to start...

There is no 'method' for Primary Thinking - but there is a 'framework' of sorts; various 'assumptions' which enable Primary Thinking to happen.

For example: to know that Primary Thinking is both real and possible, both necessary and a Good Thing. To knowing that this is a creation we inhabit; that God is the creator; and that God loves us each as his child and desires our salvation - and will therefore ensure that anything we need in this mortal life will be possible. 

And then by wanting to do it: by wanting to know the truth of things, wanting to experience reality - and wanting to participate in reality by Primary Thinking.  

If, then, we experience what seems (on reflection and examination) be be Primary Thinking, then we would be wise to regard it as true (unless or until further intuition modifies it) - because there is no comparably valid source. 

Yet (again I emphasize) we cannot communicate the results of intuition to others, nor should we expect others to be bound by our own Primary Thinking; and in general this 'trying to convince others' ought not to be attempted because public discourse can only use public language/ symbolism/ imagery etc.

On the other hand, intuitive knowing can and should affect public discourse indirectly; as the most important influence for an individual on evaluating public knowledge claims, and discerning between rival claims. 

And - insofar as a intuitions is a valid participation in reality; then another-person's intuition of the same part-of-reality (if indeed, it is the identical part-of-reality that is being considered) will be the same insight - albeit within constraints of ability, time, effort etc. 

But this is only true when mortal Men are living as-if already in Heaven. 

*Note: The commonest criticisms of intuition come from those who focus on secondary and indirect communications of the (alleged) experience of intuition - in other words, the criticisms are directed against those who are regarded as arguing that 'other people' should accept as valid, linguistic interpretations and summaries of experiences that were originally wordless and private. 

Let us assume that there is such a thing as 'esoteric knowledge' - in particular correct information that is accessible via... well, perhaps we could call it supernatural means.

In other words, not by being told it by other people, nor reading it in a book, nor reasoning it out, nor any other of the other usual, accepted, ways of gaining knowledge.

I am talking about the kind of claims, which have occurred in almost all cultures throughout history, and indeed still do occur even in the modern West, that there are sources of knowledge which may become accessible during trances, dreams, by divination etc.


The claimed source of such knowledge may be personal or abstract - personal would be when the esoteric knowledge comes from a supernatural person - a spirit, god, angel, demon or God for example.

The provenance of personally-given information is easily understood - but abstract information less so.

By abstract I mean when the knowledge is supposed to have come from a record or chronicle which is to be found out-with normal reality - for example the 'Akashic' records of theosophy and anthroposophy - which is conceptualized as an account of spiritual realities to be found on the astral plane of existence.


This concept led me to speculate on what properties such a record might have - if it were real.

1. It seems plausible that there might indeed be some kind of spiritual record of all significant knowledge - indeed, most religious people would believe this - although mostly they would assume that such knowledge was in the 'memory' of the gods or God.

2. If such a record was not in personal and private memory, but was more like an annal or chronicle that could be consulted by many people, then it would seem that - since hardly anybody can read it - such a record is not meant to be universally read; at least not as a matter of routine.

3. I would expect that any such record, if accessed, would be difficult to understand and easy to misunderstand - since this is the case with other forms of record, such as multi-volume encyclopaedias or ancient archives of newspapers. Understanding needs contextual knowledge.

4. Such a record would have to be extraordinarily vast and of widely varying comprehensibility - which would presumably mean some parts of it were more accessible than others.

5. Since most people cannot (or cannot consciously) access abstract esoteric records for most of the time, the ability to link to the would presumably be via some sort of sympathy, resonance, special motivation or brooding desire - which would inevitably be specific.

6. Perhaps, access to abstract records is difficult because it is personally controlled (by some higher power, or the laws established by a higher power) - and would only be allowed to somebody judged worthy. The usual situation in a large library is that access is restricted; a given person is allowed access to a specific part of the record only.

7. There is no convincing evidence that I know of where someone has learned by esoteric means anything which is implausibly beyond their interest and competence - except when the person or persons are plausibly prophets or divinely inspired, when there are what seem to be miracles of knowledge, just as there are miracles of healing. Usually the knowledge is very specific, or a matter of filling in gaps; but in some instances more extensive texts have been produced.

8. Overall, if it is accepted that valid knowledge is available via esoteric routes, then it can be seen that such knowledge is not exempted from the constraints of ordinary, mundane knowledge. In other words even if the source it eternal and truthful, the transcription and translation and interpretation of that source can be wrong, can contain errors - is to some extent susceptible to the intrinsic selectivity and bias of the reader; and any further readers of that reader.


Esoteric knowledge can be no more infallible than any other type of knowledge; indeed, since its form is usually reported as very different from mundane knowledge, then esoteric knowledge may be especially prone to error and misunderstanding - reporting esoteric knowledge might be less like translating a foreign language, and more like trying to describe an orchestral symphony by making small clay models; or summarizing a philosophical treatise by dancing.

This would explain why there is often a convergence of basic simple ideas between apparently valid sources of esoteric knowledge, but great differences in detail (and the more detail, the more differences).


Alternatively, it could be argued that everybody accesses eternal abstract esoteric records all of the time (which form some kind of collective unconscious, perhaps; which are perhaps even that which binds conscious beings in unity through Time); but most people are mostly simply unaware of doing so; they do not realise it is happening (because they do not need to know, so long as it just happens) - maybe because such access is like a physiological process (analogous to digestion, of immunity) that just happens unconsciously.


Or maybe access occurs during sleep, and we are aware of it then: but afterwards it is forgotten.

Or, maybe accessing the records is so alien a process to waking consciousness and reason, that we can't make any sense of it  - but just live-by the results.  

If one of the above, then people who claim to access these records may, in fact, simply be becoming more-aware of something - some process - which happens to almost everybody pretty much all of the time.

It could be like a life-support-system undetectably plumbed into us - but only a handful of people have ever noticed.

A few days ago I stated my view that the 'standard methods' of attaining spiritual experiences have  the disadvantage of failing to be associated with spiritual development; such that people who have frequent and intense spiritual experiences are often entirely lacking in spiritual wisdom.

Specifically, I said that magic and ritual systems of divination on the one hand; and training in meditation methods or induing of altered consciousness on the other hand; were both ineffective when it comes to developing the Romantic Christian life which I believe ought to be our priority, in The West.

Yet the Romantic Christian life is one that aims to restore the spiritual to life, so that we may reconnect with creation, and ultimately participate in creation; because Western people are dying of alienation - and mainstream Christianity does not even begin to address this core malaise - mainly because it emerged in an already alienated world, and grew to incorporate the alienated consciousness.

This is why the spiritual 'techniques' above operate separately from the kind of development in consciousness that is needed; the needed development is in the future and unprecedented; while the methods of the past only draw us back towards an obsolete consciousness that we cannot return to, nor would it be good for us if we could return.

This seems to set-up an impasse, in which on the one hand we must-have spiritual experiences - and I mean must; because I think that this is an absolute essential in The West if we are to avoid continuing down our path to mass chosen damnation... yet on the other hand we must-not seek such spiritual experiences using any of the standard, historical methods of doing so.

So, if not, then what? If not these methods, yet we must become more spiritual - then what should we do?

My answer is related to the idea of final participation as being our goal in consciousness (to use Owen Barfield's term); this is the consciousness that we will attain as resurrected beings dwelling in Heaven - but we need to attain this same quality of consciousness, as much as possible (as frequently and intensely as possible), during mortal life; in order to respond to the special challenges of this era.

To be in final participation is to participate in God's ongoing work of creation; it happens when we are thinking from our real self - because our real self is divine. Our real self - being divine - is free, and therefore our personal thinking adds to God's creation, is woven-into it; and this is indeed the main 'work' of our Heavenly lives.

When we attain to Final Participation in our mortal lives, we are having a spiritual experience. We are a part of the ongoing work of creation, which we experience in the mode of thinking. Our thinking is also divine thinking. Yet when this happens it is not in an 'altered state of consciousness' such as a trance or a dream; nor is it the narrowed and channelled consciousness of a ritual - it is simply ordinary thinking, rooted in the real self and raised to the fullness of clarity and simplicity.

Such thinking is, if we let it, self-validating - intuitively valid. We know that we know.

And I think many people have experienced this kind of thinking; although they seldom have a name for it; and very often deny its special significance. In my own life, the times when I have been thinking in this way make up a special sequence of memories I have termed the Golden Thread; the times and events that feel as if they were the only truly significant things (with all the great mass of routine and shallow pleasures falling away, barely remembered).

(These might include phenomena such as peak experiences, flow states, self-remembering, holiday consciousness, epiphanies and the like - as discussed often in the works of Colin Wilson.)

Yet these Golden Thread moments include many seemingly 'trivial' things, often unplanned and surprising; and apparently 'not real' things like reading something, or imagining something. And in the past I was more puzzled by them than inspired by them.

And this is the danger - that we have spiritual experiences but fail to notice and learn from them, for the simple reason that we discount them, disvalue them - regard them as trivial instead of The most Important Things in our lives.

In sum, spiritual experiences - properly understood - happen as a by-product of a proper way of living and understanding. And, as many people have noticed; the more they are noticed and learned-from; the more often they will happen.

So - the proper action to take is a kind of self-awareness, not simply to drift through life half-asleep; but be aware of what is happening, as it happens; and to recognise value the best of life as it deserves on the basis of intuitive experience rather than theory.

The hardly-known Ancient English Neolithic 'high civilisation' (which continued into the early Bronze Age) is something that increasingly fascinates me - especially in comparison and contrast with the roughly contemporary but vastly better-documented and far more technologically-sophisticated Ancient Egypt.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Neolithic

I am going to speculate freely on the nature and spiritual life of the Neolithic.

This was a society of magic rather than machines (things were done by magic that were later and elsewhere done by machines) - the obviously 'man-made' was disliked, and complex technology was regarded with revulsion and suspicion.

Since the economy was based on farming, the landscape was of course substantially re-made. There were long, winding or snaking roads and pathways - and these were unpaved - merely short grass, perhaps worn or scraped clear of turf to expose the natural chalk or other stone beneath. Large earthworks were not faced with rock but merely scraped clear of turf to stand-out white, grey or brown against the horizon or green fields.

Monuments were constructed as a matter of primary social activity - yet there was an attitude of minimal intervention. The standing stones and structures were left substantially natural, rough-hewn; various in size, placed according to a sense of rightness and without precise, abstract mathematical placement.

Those who harp-on about 'numerology' and the celestial alignments of Neolithic monuments have made a false emphasis - a society which strives for abstract geometry would, like Ancient Egypt, make monuments from exactly replicated blocks, with straight edges, sharp points, smooth surfaces; precision placed onto stone fixings - not variously sized and shaped, rough stones placed onto grass. There were alignments - but the whole flavour was organic and approximate - the fine interpretative 'tuning' was done on the basis of magic and wisdom - not 'read-off' like a scientific precision instrument.

Indeed, there is no point in attempting exact celestial geometry in England where clouds cover the sun, moon and stars most of the time - that kind of alignment only works under reliably unrelenting clear blue skies.

In Neolithic times, things were arranged in a suggestively symbolic fashion; features were made clearer, more obvious using contrast, colour, accumulations of earth, stone, rocks and wood - but the ideal was that no matter how obvious the features should seem to arise from the natural landscape; as if organic growths.

(Stonehenge is a late, indeed terminal, feature of this society - and marks the onset of corruption with an attempt at precision and a cult of death and sacrifice.)

The Neolithic was organised and literate - but the organisation was in the form of a fluid confederated druidical hierarchy of graded initiates, working individually and informally as mobile masters and apprentices and not organised into static colleges or temples.  The literacy deployed a symbolic and pictorial language - instead of sentences and paragraphs there were complex diagrams - each unique but with standard components - incised on leather and wood, or scraped onto stone; the subtle interpretation of which was an arcane art (so there was no need for secrecy - ordinary people could not comprehend the 'writing').

The pace of life was slow, measured. The focus of life was religious - the primary deity being associated with the Sun, the secondary deities with the Moon and stars. The stars made up a permanent and unchanging eternal basic of life; the wandering planets tracked the linearity of time such that each year was unique; the Sun was the long term timekeeper by the seasons, the Moon phases provided the monthly scale organization of daily life.

Military strength (and this was an internally peaceful society) was directed against invasion - and was achieved by the capacity to assemble and deploy vast armies, unified by religious belief, trained to work together by participation in constructing the vast earthworks and monuments, and impossible to rout or demoralise. They used projectile weapons (probably storms of spears, thrown in coordinated waves) to devastating effect; followed by stone axes wielded by powerful and untiring arms trained in day after day spent earthmoving and stone lifting and shaping.

Hostile invaders, who necessarily came in small groups by ship, poorly supplied, without anywhere to retreat-to, different in appearance, language, behaviours - stood no chance against these massive and cohesive defensive hordes.

The farming, and the villages were a patchwork of shapes, no two the same yet fitted together; all rounded, all curves and bows - no straight edges or lines, no arches, no triangles, squares or perfect circles... Animals roamed with their shepherds.

The arts were of alliterating poetry - always chanted or sung from memory; the instrumental music for accompaniment and dancing was from pipes, percussion and drones. In singing, high clear graceful voices were prized above all; low gravelly voices were for humour and ribaldry.

There were no wagons, only beasts of burden; but there were boats everywhere - mostly flat bottomed rafts pulled from the river bank, or paddled canoes that resembled tree trunks on the lakes and inland waters. But the use of boats were governed by Moon and weather, magic and divination.

And they were waiting - spiritually waiting. The whole society was prepared and poised for the coming revelation, and the transformation of earth into Heaven.

England was like two gigantic hands, cupped and waiting to receive.

**

The differences between the two contemporaneous, magical High Civilisations of England and Egypt can be encapsulated by a comparison of Neolithic standing stone 'growing' from the earth into the mist of England (this one from Avebury):

*
For Mormons, God the Father has a body. This is often depicted as absurd by the Classical theology of mainstream Christians; despite that a common sense reading of the Bible would suggest God the Father does have a body - like his Son Jesus Christ.

(And, of course, countless millions of simple but devout Christians always have believed that God the Father has a body.)

An insistence that God is a spiritual being without a body has many implications - or perhaps it is clearer to say that a God without body goes-with a whole constellation of theological ideas; and this is precisely the constellation which the Restored Gospel inverts.

So the fact of God having a body is part of a strikingly different set of interlocking perspectives in Mormonism.

*

If Man has a body and God the Father does not, if Man is incarnate and God a spirit, this implies (not logically, but it does suggest) that the body is a disadvantage. The idea fits into a scheme whereby spirit is good and body is bad - a drag.

Since Man is incarnated in mortal earthly life with a body, then this suggests mortal life is a punishment - or at least a penance - but certainly an incarnate mortal life cannot be presented as an unalloyed spiritual advance or opportunity.

Even resurrection will have a double edged quality if it means we are forever trapped in a body. Christ has a resurrected body - but Christ is also a simultaneous God-Man in some mysterious sense, and part of a Trinity which is likewise impossible to understand in a common sense fashion; so the human situation remains obscure.

*

There has always been a tension, or perhaps it is rather a confusion, in mainstream Christianity and Classical theology about why resurrection is a good thing - because so many implications suggests that a purely spiritual existence is better than life with a body.

From Classical theology it is hard to understand why the body should be retained, since the body is seen in essentially a negative way - as dragging the spirit down, causing temptations and pains...

Why should we want or need a body for the rest of eternity?

*

But if it is accepted that God the Father, as well as his Son Jesus Christ, have bodies and we are in their image - so they both have bodies of the kind we have; then the body is straightforwardly and common-sensically an enhancement.

To be incarnated into mortal life is therefore a positive thing, a step in spiritual progression, or divination - it is a theosis, bringing us closer in our nature to God.

Thus our incarnate mortal life can be seen as a positive thing, a step in the right direction - of being more like God, rather than a punishment.

(Whereas if a body is bad, this depicts a God who is limiting us, rather than enhancing us.)

And to be resurrected - with a purified spirit in a perfected body - is therefore a positive thing, because it is better to have a body than not to have a body - and this applies to eternity as it does to our present life on earth.

*

The implications go even further, because the Mormon schema implies a God that works linearly in the world and in time - it fits with theosis conceptualised as a necessarily step-wise process.

(Because if God could simply make us incarnate and provide us with the experience of earthly life instantaneously, 'by waving a wand' as it were - then presumably He would. The fact that He did not, and had us incarnated and living mortal lives, implies that this is necessary - or at least optimal - for our spiritual development. Which implies that God is working inside time and inside constraints of the universe.)

So altogether Mormonism makes (or restores to) Christianity the explanatory model of relationship at the focus. For Mormonism the love of God and love by God which is at the heart of Christianity is the love between persons - persons of the same kind although  widely differing degree.

The primary explanatory model of Mormonism is human relationship; so God's love for us is not a special abstract thing called Agape but rather the same-kind of love that we have for each other and for Him, but taken to a vastly greater degree and purity.

*

Therefore, an insistence that God the Father has no body can be seen to have been a key factor in enforcing the highly abstracted and philosophical nature of mainstream Christianity; whereas a simple acceptance that God has a body fits with a simple and lucid Christian faith in which everything is what it seems, by common-sense criteria; and where the core of the faith does not have to be redefined as a philosophical abstraction, nor set out-with common sense and any possible explanation, as paradoxical formulae and utterly incomprehensible mysteries.

*

The history of human societies is consistent with an assertion that religion is necessary for long-term human survival.

Without a religion, humans go crazy (become incoherent about matters of basic common sense - look around you...) and they despair; strategically destroying their own societies; and on-average they grossly fail to reproduce even at the minimum replacement level.

Of course some religions 'work' better than others in any particular situation, they out-compete the others; but I want to focus on the fact that religion-as-such is necessary, and to ask: Where does religion come from?

A true but partial answer is that a religious perspective is built-into all healthy humans, and is present at least in young childhood - even if it is later suppressed or lost.  In other words, religion is innate; and atheism and materialism are acquired.

But why is religion innate? Why are we all born into the world with a spontaneously religious attitude - believing in all sorts of immaterial things like the soul, gods, life beyond death, the aliveness and consciousness of (what adults term) 'inanimate' objects etc. ?


One answer is that religion is a fortunate accident.

It 'just happened', for no purposive reason (maybe some undirected mutations that just happened to happen...); but religion is found in humans because if it were not found, then there would be no humans.

(As a negative thought experiment: those ancient humans that inherited an immunity to religion, did not leave behind as many offspring, so their genes became extinct - or something on those lines...)

This is a non-explanation, masquerading as an explanation; but some modern people are happy for things to be non-explained that way - and if so then that is an end of discussion.


Or else (if we actual require a real explanation) religion was Put There.

But what-by? Some kind of deity must be the answer; even if that deity is just 'the way things are in this universe'. Or it may be put-there by a personal god or gods.

Religion may be found because it is 'in-born' or because it is externally-communicated - or both.

If it is inborn; then we know about religion by knowing what is within us (by introspection, or intuition); although we will surely make mistakes about this knowledge due to our limited capacity and various biases (accounting for the variety of religions around the world and through time).

(And - for Christians - we all know inwardly about religion because we are children of God; we know about deity because there is deity within each of us.)

And/ or we may have religion communicated to us by revelation (by being told by the deity, one way or another) - or some variant of revelation, such as divination. Again the constraints will apply - we can only know as limited by our capacity and via our personal biases.


That seems to be the situation: everybody normal (non-pathological) is born with religion built-in by some combination of, or selection from, inborn-internal and revealed-external sources. Such 'generic' religion is necessary for the sustainable biological and psychological functioning of humans.

It seems distinctly possible that there can be no viable priesthood, including Christian priesthood, that is not understood to be magic-using: that is, understood to be magic-using both by the laity and the priests themselves.

(When I speak of magic here, I use the word in the loose fashion employed by modern secular people- and typically a belief in which is imputed to others (rather than the speaker himself) - which would include 'belief in' things such as healings, foresight and divination, revelations, answered prayer, angelic and demonic beings, ghosts, talismans or other objects with special power... anything which is associated with the world beyond the material. To the modern mind everything of this type is equally 'magic'; and all real religion is therefore magic.)

Magic is probably essential for priesthood authority - and for this authority to be legitimate the magic must be real - at least to the extent that there is some real magic being done by some of the priesthood.

*

I make this inference based on history, especially that of the longest-lived societies. Pre-Christ Egypt - with its magician priesthood ruled by a supreme god-priest - sets the benchmark; since then the Byzantine empire is the longest enduring polity, and it was a society saturated with magic, and the spiritual leadership was based-upon miracle-working monastics and hermits (who, by this analysis, were the true 'priests' even though mostly not-ordained).

The Roman Catholic church likewise seems to have been strongest when most associated with magical occurrences and a society which expected these - of course The Mass is (by this definition) a magical event which can only be done by a priest.

Among Protestants of strong faith, there is much magic - faith healings, revelations, explicit divine guidance via prayer, direct instruction from scripture, speaking in tongues and so forth; however, for Protestants these are not associated with priests but available throughout all faithful church members: priests have no specially magical authority or powers qua priests (but only perhaps as charismatic individuals), consequently they are not regarded as priests - and indeed the word is seldom used.

Among Mormons, all members have direct revelations from the divine concerning their own lives and other topics; all men in good standing are priests, and have special access to magical powers such as blessing and healing. Designated priests (Patriarchs) have a special clairvoyant power of foresight and wise advice; church general authorities - and especially the Prophet - uniquely have such powers concerning matters to do with the whole church.

*

Modern culture - and much of the best of it, that which seems to oppose the demonic hedonic materialism - has an explicit focus on broadly, or indeed specifically, magical themes. Magic is everywhere - yet many Christians affect to oppose this magic, while yet (as I describe above) devout Christian's lives are permeated with  (what seems to secular people) magic.

This weakens Christianity; maims it, sets it at war with itself and its potential allies.

The point about magic is motivation. The modern people who describe themselves as 'magicians' (witches, wiccans, warlocks, druids, wizards etc) and make a big thing about magic-described-as-such are (whatever they may claim) mostly intending to use magic as a form of power used to get what they personally want (which is often of a sexual nature - as generally happens outwith religion; sex being the second most powerful motivator, on average).

What is wrong with modern magicians is not their magic but their motivation - which is either personal or if not, then secular Leftist; hence (to put it bluntly!) evil. 

*

On the one hand we ought not to regard magic as anything other than a natural part of real life. Societies that deny the reality of magic destroy themselves - first spiritually, then materially.

But there is something necessarily new and different about the modern attitude to magic - due to the change in consciousness which has come over us as cultures and as individuals. As Owen Barfield described so well; our modern minds work in a different way from minds of the past - we are so self-conscious that we can even distinguish our selves from our thoughts (such, during introspection, even that our own thoughts may seem alien).

Magic may be natural, but we moderns cannot naturally be magic in the same way as a Medieval European, a Byzantine or an Ancient Egyptian was magic - we can only attain such unselfconscious immersion in magic via altered states of consciousness, by some kind of intoxication (deliberate self-impairment of thinking, especially in terms of clarity and purposiveness - a stripping-away or suppression of the self); including the group-frenzy of crowds focused on a charismatic magician/ priest,

But this is on the one hand a temporary and encapsulated magic, inadequate to our purposes; on the other hand it is misleading in terms of what is most needed and wanted.

Of course we need to acknowledge and live-by magic - but in a way that gives full authority to the self-aware modern mind; the magic we regard as real and effectual requires to be integrated fully into ordinary everyday, practical, social consciousness - not just for extended-moments of solitude or recreation.

In conclusion; we want and need magic in our lives; if we are to have priests they must be a group acknowledged to be especially 'expert' - knowledgeable and skillful - in the use of magic; but modern magic must not be (merely) a revival of the magic of the past - accessible only to children or those in altered states of consciousness: the magic of now and the future must be everyday and supersensory, spontaneous and purposive; powerful, but only in the service of divine destiny.