Bruce Charlton's Notions

I have written a fair but about Primary Thinking in an attempt to clarify what Owen Barfield meant by Final Participation.

The difficulty with the 'thinking' aspect of the term, is that most of thinking is not primary - and I have felt a misleading temptation to strive to attain a new and different 'method' of thinking - perhaps a meditation technique. I know this is an error, and method/ technique is not a path to wisdom - but the call to change the mode of thinking seems to lead in that direction...

I am currently finding it more helpful to think of what I am aiming at in terms of Intuitive Knowing, with a metal emphasis on the 'ing' aspect of knowing - that intuitively know-ing something is not a thing static and categorical, but an active process; the attribute of a conscious Being.

And, for me, Intuitive Knowing is a proper goal however is may be achieved, by whatever method or technique or by none at all. I need to know intuitively - that is the goal; and how this best happens may vary widely or open-endedly according to the unique situation. 

My understanding is that - in life - there is a lot which we 'know' in a shallow, contingent, secondhand fashion; but that the aim is to base all knowledge, thought, action on only that which we know directly and intuitively - know for our-selves, from that of us which is divine.

In this mortal life, intuitive knowing only happens sometimes and temporarily - it cannot be attained as a permanent state. That is sad but not tragic; because this mortal life (for those of us who have it, the minority of Men who survive the womb and early childhood) is a time of experiencing and learning - a vital yet transitional phase.

This mortal life is a time of change - the one thing impossible is any fixed state of Being. Fixity is not an option. This situation intrinsically maximises our experience; we must keep learning, because we always keep experiencing change.

Since I am still alive, I have more that I ought-to learn; more situations in which I need to discern and rely-upon direct and intuitive knowing. Beyond death - if I actively wish it - I could live eternally in a state where intuitive knowing is the norm.

But clearly, for me, there is value in continuing to live here, now, in my situation; because there are things that I can learn best in mortality.

My conclusion is that I should seek intuitive knowing; but should not despair that it is an exceptional state that cannot be held-onto. Not holding-onto is one of the things I must learn.

The advice to live by intuitive knowing (primary thinking) is difficult - even for short spells. Difficult to remember, in the first place; but also difficult because - at times when it is most important - to follow intuitive knowing will mean contradicting natural instincts and intellectual observation.

We personally need to go-against not just the intellectually expressed social assumptions and expectations that we have imbibed insensibly from culture and consciously from education; but also our 'gut feelings' which will be tending instantaneously to 'react' to the given-situation (e.g. with fear, lust, resentment).

Against these very powerful influences, we ought-to-be listening to the quiet sureness of intuitive knowing; but that is something that only we our-selves can know.

Even when we see our way clear to do what is right, and have courage to do it; how can we justify ourselves to others in face of what seems like logic, probability and impulse?

In the end, we may not be able to. 'Other people' tend Not to respond constructively when one explains 'because I Just Know; even when that is the simple truth of the matter.

I personally tend to state this fact 'I Just Know' somewhere in my explanation - at the beginning or the end; but in explanations I try to set-aside instinct and impulse as being temporary hence unreliable; and make some space for what I instinctively know is right by emphasising the uncertainties of intellect, thinking and prediction - how these almost-never can predict with sufficient certainty and accuracy to be used as a justification for what we do.

So, intellectual observation based on social knowledge may suggest that X is 'the best' course of action (which contradicts intuitive knowing); but this can only ever be based upon probabilities - since there are other factors we don't know about, and long, unpredictable chains of causality between now and then.

And conversely, doing what one intuitively knows is the proper thing May - by whatever improbable, unlikely chain of events - end up 'for the best'.

And that has to be enough. Others may well still say that you are wrong, but from their perspective it is 'merely' the wrongness of making a 'long shot' bet on the future at high odds, instead of (as they would advise) backing the favourite. Perhaps foolish, but not utterly insane.

While in reality, in its true frame; you are not aiming at publicly-defined-success in this mortal life; but at 'success' conceptualised in ultimate, divine terms and beyond the portal of so-called death.

 

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. 

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. 

(Note: These are not really 'constraints', because they are not externally imposed. Nor is 'limitations' the right word. I am simply talking of the nature of intuitive knowing)

I am trying to think with the heart; that is, trying to think primarily - such that my thoughts will be realities (not merely 'about' realities...). I am trying to know intuitively, by an act of direct apprehension (and not indirectly, by making and testing hypothetical models).

And I find that this is not possible for much of the stuff in my thinking. As expected; because primary thinking is self-validating, and much of what I think is not valid.

Even more: much of what I think cannot be validated because it is Abstract - hence systematically-distorted in un-knowable ways.


Much/ Most (perhaps all) of what I am fed (to 'think about') by the mass media, government officialdom, propaganda at educational institutions and workplaces... the general world of public discourse... is Abstract. It is disconnected from the reality I experience and know. It is made up of definitions, models, hypotheses, 'concepts', 'ideals' (aims and objectives, mission statements, slogans) and the like - many of these are incoherent or nonsensical.

There is no connection between my living and this content from the very beginning.


So much modern 'thinking' takes place in this realm of Abstraction! Discussions of economics, ethics, fashion... everything, pretty much. The assumption behind it all is that My Life is a subset of these Abstractions - and the Abstractions are real, and if I cannot related my life to the Abstractions, then it is my fault.

The Abstractions (Democracy, Social Justice, The Environment, The Economy, Peace, Climate...) are the real reality - it's my job to conform to this reality...

The Abstractions are real because that is what Everybody is talking about, all the time - especially powerful people. They are real because they are on the agenda, they are voted-about, they lead-to public policy, to law - to all manner of decisions...

It is the Abstractions that tell us about the future, what to love and what to fear; tell us what to think and believe and approve about the future; and then we organise our entire world because of these Abstractions.


The world is organised to encourage or discourage 'trade', nations aim at 'growth'... then Trade and Growth are destroyed to control the Climate... The the destruction of Trade and Growth are inverted by reference to Sustainability. There are phenomena like Immigration, Diversity, Human Rights... and we are told why-they-are-Good; or we try (by thinking-about 'evidence', and by reasoning) to understand whether they really are good...

But these are Abstractions. Such knowledge is based upon simplified models, and 'tested' using perceptions which we know are not true (seeing is not believing, neither is hearing - especially not when it comes to generalities) - so we can never know about such things. The questions are ill-formed, the evaluations are of unknown meaning...


In sum, intuition does not work on Abstractions - how could it? We can know intuitively (only) about that which can be grasped intuitively.

We might know the validity of some Abstraction like an aspect of mathematics, or about the coherence of a theory - but that tells us nothing about actual, real world 'applications' of such generalities...

Thus, we can intuit about Abstractions, but we cannot intuit the extent to which Abstractions apply to specifics - which is what we are very often trying to do.


In fact, I think that the low reputation of intuition partly derives from the fact that it can-not (therefore should-not) be used to evaluate the kinds of things that feature as Most Important in modern public discourse.

We cannot intuitively answer such questions as whether women are equal with men in modern society - or whether they should be - or what it would mean if they were. We cannot intuitively know what people mean by racial prejudice, what race 'is' (or is not), whether racial prejudice is responsible for racial differences - and what any such differences mean.

Almost the entirety of the content and theme of major discourse is beyond intuition, because unreal. And this has a profound effect on us. We live inside a System that is not just evil or trivial, but which is untrue, hence incoherent, hence permanently and incurably disorientating. 


We can (and should) be 'using' intuitive knowing to understand well-formed questions about 'concrete' (especially personal) realities such as the goodness or evil of individuals in public life, or the effect of new changes, the quality of actual buildings or landscapes, the beauty of some piece of music - and of course in dealing with the human beings (and animals, and plants) of our lives; the Creator, Jesus, spiritual beings etc...

Such questions cannot be answered by hypothesis and evidence; can only be known by direct intuition - and we need to learn to rely upon that which (potentially) works, not that which which we know for sure cannot work.

The ability to use intuition forms a kind of litmus test of reality. The great mass of modern phenomena are beyond the scope of intuition because they are not really-real - and this is why there is unbounded and intractable capacity for error in modern life.  

The conclusion is that our public world is based upon unwarranted - indeed unwarran-table - assumptions; and is unverifiable by direct intuition. We are prevented from primary thinking so long as we are engaged in this bureaucratic-media system...

But then, we knew that in our hearts already, surely?

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.

'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. 

One way of thinking about Direct Christianity is that - in this modern era, and due to the limited scope and corruptions of the Christian Churches - we may experience Jesus directly, that is without the traditional sources of revelation such as church, scripture and practice.

I explored this possibility in a post last summer (before I had developed the idea of Direct Christianity) on Albion Awakening, which I excerpt and edit below:

Rudolf Steiner realised that it was God's hope, and the time was ripe, for modern Western Man to move to a new kind of intuitive spirituality of thinking. It was therefore Man's destiny to move forward from the dominant materialism, and spiritual blindness, of the modern era; and if this happened then there would be new and expanded possibilities of direct, intuitive knowing.

One vital and crucial aspect of this was that If Man developed this new spirituality, Then he would come to experience Christ as a living and active personal presence in the world - not by seeing, hearing or touching Christ in his body (this would have to be an imagined Christ, an hallucinated Christ); but instead by a direct, intuitive knowing of Christ in thinking.

What this means, in practice, is that for modern Man it is more important to become spiritual than to become 'a Christian' because to become a non-spiritual Christian is not enough; while to become truly spiritual will also, inevitably, sooner-or-later, lead to becoming a Christian by direct personal experience.

Could it really be that - here and now, in this modern world - well-motivated sincere spirituality of the true self will lead to true Christianity for any serious, seeking individual, without any other input being necessary?

Yes, I think so.

This sounds outrageous at first; but it is clear that merely 'being a Christian' in the usual sense is not enough now (if it ever was).

Modern Christians are often terribly lacking in discernment, and wide-open to demonic deceptions, corruptions and inversions.

The traditions of the churches are wrecked, Biblical interpretation deeply distorted, philosophy riddled with false assumptions; the general culture is one of lies, ugliness and sin-enforced as virtue; many or most church leaders, priests and pastors are primarily secular Left materialists working strategically to harness Christianity to politics; Good to evil...

There are so few safe and reliable sources of Christianity that it seems we must have direct knowledge of the truth - or else what we learn may be worse than nothing.

Specifically: we need direct and personal knowledge of Christ, or we are lost. 

If that is what we absolutely need, then that is what God will surely have provided.

Because we need direct knowledge of spiritual truths, that is now made available to us; and the method by which this is possible should therefore be our first priority.

A stopped clock is not right twice a day - it is never right; because it never knows it is right.

It is knowing that is everything - and knowing is a matter of provenance: that is, a matter of where the knowledge comes from - its lineage.

A distorted version of this view is common - perhaps normal - among unreflective scientists, who regard provenance in terms of 'evidence'; begging the question of what counts as evidence.

But the corruption of science shows us that what counts as evidence, what counts as correct interpretation of evidence, is part of a circularity of definition which pre-decides all questions.

This is why we cannot, nowadays, avoid explicit metaphysics. We can no longer take metaphysics for granted (that genie is out of the bottle) - nor can we pretend that evidence supersedes metaphysics (unless we are happy to accept that hermetically-sealed bureaucratic careerism really-is science).

So we can only be right on the basis of true metaphysics, true basic-assumptions - and true basic assumptions can only be known (here and now) by the direct and intuitive knowing of our divine selves.

So it is that specific provenance - direct knowing of our divine selves - which is the sole guarantor of truth.

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.

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. 

Christians are often confused about how they can love God, as they are instructed to do - because they feel that they cannot get to know God. 

This confusion mostly derives from the (un-Christian) error of regarding God as primarily a philosophical-deity, an 'infinite' 'God of the philosophers' - a God derived-from concepts; and especially from the philosophical Supergod or Omni-God concept that pre-dated Christianity.

This error has plagued has plagued Christianity throughout its history - early theologians having (uncomfortably) inserted Jesus's teachings into this pre-existing framework, rather like the legendary Procrustean Bed - with this abstract/ infinite/ conceptual Super-/ Omni-God often being imposed from the highest levels of theology and the churches. 

The Supergod error and its incompatibility with knowing and loving God does not prevent Christians from loving God in practice, in real life (as many 'simple' Christians attest) - but it does introduce a contradiction, an incoherence, a mutual negation into Christianity - a contradiction between theology and living faith - which is a weakness that the enemies of Christianity have exposed and exploited. 

This is also a contradiction that may prevent conversion or lead away-from faith. 

Supergod is God conceptualized primarily in terms of abstract and infinite attributes; especially omnipotence and omniscience. Other attributes include God being outside the universe, outside of time, and having created every-thing from no-thing - such that God is therefore qualitatively different from every-thing. 

All these combine to make God alien, unhuman, and incomprehensible. 

When God has been thus conceptualized so abstractly and in such a way as to make him infinitely remote from the human - how can God be known, personally? 

We cannot 'get to know' the infinite. We cannot even get closer-towards knowing the infinite - because we are always (whatever we do, whatever happens) infinitely far away from knowing the infinite. 

And if not knowable personally, how can Supergod be loved? And (more important) how could we know that Supergod loves us?

Well, the answer is that we can only know secondhand, by being-told, by 'revelation' handed-down - especially by scripture; and via the authorities that interpret this revelation. 

Therefore we can only know Supergod at one (or more) removes; secondhand, via trusted authorities and sources, and via language. 

We cannot - even theoretically - know Supergod for ourselves. 

And how can we love such a Supergod? 

Supergod can only be 'loved' by redefining love; by making Love something qualitatively-other than what love is between humans (something more abstract); and such a 'special' kind of (infinitely-different) abstract, divine-love can end-up as being so alien to our understanding that it does not seem like normal love at all. 

Supergod is therefore difficult/ impossible to distinguish from the monotheistic God of Judaism or Islam; who is not meant to be understandable, whose 'love' for us is not understandable - whom we can only obey, and to whom we should submit uncomprehendingly (by following the law and prescribed rituals). 

(Perhaps this is a reason why the 'pure monotheisms' have a special attraction for intellectuals? - often more so than Christianity; because at a philosophical level they are more coherent.) 

Yes, the monotheistic God and the (qualitatively similar, but mystically triune) Christian Supergod are meant to be 'loved' - but the nature of this love must be different-in-kind from (and not an amplification- and perfection-of) the love a child should have for his mother or father in an ideal family.  

(This, I think, is why it is that the more that the Supergod concept dominates Christianity - the more similar the religious-social structure will resemble that of the other monotheisms.)

If Supergod is neither knowable nor love-able - at least not in the ways that knowing and loving are applied between people - then how can we know and love God? 

Do Christians , indeed, need to know and love God? Surely to know and obey God's will, God's laws, should be enough? 

Well, probably it was enough in the past - when there were Christian nations, and when those nations had churches that were (overall) faithful and good; and when nearly-all Men were spontaneously religious and spiritual. 

But that is far from the case now. 

Now, Christians need to know and love God directly, for-themselves; and without reliance on scriptures that have been corrupted and corruptly interpreted by Churches and denominations that are corrupted, worldly; and aligned with a global, secular, leftist, totalitarian regime that is an agent of supernatural evil. 

  

So how can one get to know God, and then potentially love God? 

In other first place, we need to know something of what we are trying to get-to-know; and that is a God who is our 'Heavenly Father', that is our parent. We are God's children - and God loves us like an ideal and perfected earthly Father and also like a Mother.

(I personally believe that the Mormon theology - that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother - two beings always and eternally distinct yet bound eternally by love - is correct; but the argument here works the same even if one believes that God is a Father only, or a unified Father-Mother.) 

Everyone who is himself capable of love contains an innate understanding of the ideal love between child and parent - even when he has not himself experienced such love. We know this because we want it (and those who have not had it may want it all the more strongly). 

Then we need to recognize that the creator has this ideal parent and child relationship with us. 

So we should seek to know God the creator and our loving parent - and do so by some combination of prayer and meditation : that is by purposively orientating our thinking and our-selves towards that goal, and being receptive to responses in our own intuitive heart-thinking. 

We can then know God in the same way that a child can know his Father or his Mother. The gap in knowledge and ability is irrelevant; because what the child needs to know is that his parent loves him and will always be working things to that child's ultimate good; to the best of the parents' ability (given the constraints under which they operate). 

It is this parental love (in an ideal family relationship, which perhaps all families attain - albeit briefly) that enables children to trust their parents: which means to trust their parents' motivations. 

This is the same as a Christian having Faith in God. Faith means to trust that God loves us and is motivated always for our Good. 

Therefore, a young child continues to love and to trust (...have-faith-in ) his mother, even when she denies him sweets, slaps him for some un-comprehended misdemeanor; even when she compels him to attend a place of misery (i.e. school). 

This love, trust, faith is based upon a perfect confidence of the mother's love; which the child knows is real - and he knows this directly, not by inference.  

Same with our knowing of God. A Christian know God's love for us directly, personally - not by inference, not by hypothesis and proof. 

Such a knowing of God is equally possible to a young child, older child, adolescent or adult - regardless of intelligence, ability, personality. 

The fact that (as the creator) God is vastly (but Not 'infinitely') more intelligent and able, and also that God has an everlasting firmness and constancy of love for us, and motivation for our well-being - are facts not relevant to this basic knowing and loving of God.  

As we get older we may close-the-gap (a little) between God's abilities and ours - but the love, trust and faith in God is not - in principle - something affected by such development; except that we will reach a point in our growing-up when we must consciously choose to love, have faith in and trust God.  

This is closely analogous to the fact that a growing, developing child usually reaches a point (usually in adolescence) when he becomes free to choose whether or not to continue a loving, trusting, faithful relationship with his a parent - or to what degree this can and should be maintained.

In sum, getting to know God is simple if we regard God as our parent, and if we are able directly to know (in our hearts, our heart-thinking) God's love for us, and God's parental motivations for us.

Such knowledge is not affected by 'what happens' to us, nor by 'evidence' - it is a basic assumption that underlies our interpretations of our experiences in life.   

And it is possible because, as parent/s and child, God and Man are related, share an ultimate and divine sameness of kind; and it is this God-in-us, the divine in our real selves, that makes-possible our knowing of God. 

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.

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.

*

In academic psychology, there are two concepts of creativity:

1. an older one which sees creativity in terms of dreamlike cognition, psychoticism, 'primary process' thinking, and thoughts linked-by emotional-associations; and

2. a newer one which sees creativity in terms of 'openness to experience' - that is neophilia, novelty-generation, random permutations and combination of memorized information.

I believe that the earlier concept is much closer to the truth, or to validity - and that indeed the idea of creativity as Openness is a modern, bureaucratic and politically-correct corruption and hijacking of creativity: creativity redefined such that the shallow childishness of modernist art and the committee-defined-consensus of Big Science counts asif creative in the same way as the great art and natural philosophy of the past.

*

But there is, I suspect, something intrinsically corrupt in the concept of creativity; which emerged into public discourse at about the time of the Romantic movement in the late 17th and early 18th centuries; as a contrast with scholastic logic, and an explanation for the difference between philosophy/ science and the arts.

Properly speaking, rather than the twin poles of creativity and logic as the basis of human knowledge, I think the proper (or closer) conceptualization is intuition and reason.

*

Intuition is inborn, spontaneous, it comes first, and everything is based upon it and it varies between people.

Intuition is related to 'common sense' and also to understanding other people and to instant apprehension of situations. It is related to the emotions; and seems to proceed by emotional association.

*

Reason is also mostly innate, although partial forms can be learned (e.g. mathematics, geometry, formal logic), and it also varies between individuals.

*

However there is not a close correlation between intuitive ability and reason; and people can be unusually high in one and unusually low in the other.

Indeed, there is probably an inverse correlation between intuitive ability and reason among healthy people; although the correlation is not very close and there are exceptions (which get rarer as they get more extreme).

These exceptions are the very rare 'creative geniuses' who are both intelligent and intuitive...

...and the more numerous and more obviously dysfunctional people who lack both intuition and intelligence - the number of these vary between societies, because intelligence and intuition can both simultaneously be damaged by brain pathology (due to degenerative disease, trauma, infection, malnutrition etc.) and the causes of brain pathology vary widely in frequency between societies.

Intelligent people who are lacking in intuition are much commoner. These are the 'clever sillies', more-or-less - the i.e. bulk of the modern ruling elite.

And also common are highly intuitive people of moderate or lower-than-average intelligence. This group includes, but is not confined-to, people with irrational ideas and illogical thought processes who may be psychotic - or regarded as mentally ill by the high intelligence-low intuition types.

*

My point is that while these processes of knowing I have called intuition and reason can be statistically separated and contrasted, ultimately they are meant to work together.

It is only reliable for knowledge to proceed such that both intuition and intelligence are satisfied by each step and conclusion.

Otherwise we get the strange distortions which are usually conceptualized as of logic unsupported by emotion; or emotionality unchecked by logic - more correctly this is reasoning in contradiction to intuition and intuition apart from the context of reason.

*

I am sure that humans cannot function unless intuition and reason go together; otherwise we mistrust ourselves and become detached (alienated), proud, despondent, exploitative - oscillating between domination by logic and then by emotions in unrelated sequence.

In other words we get the normal mainstream fragmentary, sound-bite-sized, conduct of modern public discourse.

We get the counter-cultural advocates of impulse and instinct alternating with the absurdly restricted and legalistic procedures of bureaucracy.

*

At root, I think we need to recognize that neither creativity nor intelligence are good in themselves: which recognition is easy to say, but hard to do. 

We must recognize that creativity can be, has been, highly destructive, proud and evil. Many of the worst tyrants and sinners of history have been highly intuitive creative individuals: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao.

And that reason/ intelligence is also, more often than not, highly destructive - as evidenced by communism and its descendant political correctness.

*

When it comes to Christianity we cannot allow either reason or intuition to go ahead alone; the one must always be able to catch up with the other, in each of us.

This sets a limit to how far we can go in understanding.

Rational understanding (following a line of logic) cannot go further than intuition allows; and intuition cannot go further than is check-able by reason.

So we should not follow systematic theology further than our intuition can follow; and we should not follow what seem to be personal insights and revelations further than we can personally support with reason.

*

In this refusal we must each of us be stubborn - especially in a secular and corrupt world where valid spiritual advice may be impossible to find.

Better not to know than to know wrongly.

To do otherwise - and to allow logic or emotion to run-away independently - is to pull-apart human understanding and to split our souls when they should be unified.

*

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. 

Frank Berger has done an excellent post today, in which he discusses that 'most vital of subjects' for our times: I mean intuition (which I have also discussed under the names of Direct Knowing, and Final Participation - do the appropriate word searches if need to to know more).

To generalise, I would say that it is an important rule of thumb (here-and-now, but not necessarily at all times and places) to be alert against those who warn you against intuitive knowing. Why? Because intuition is - ultimately - your only bastion of independent and autonomous - hence free - thought.

What are the alternatives? Well, one anti-intuitive point of vew being pushed is by the anti-conspiracy theory movement. Frank links to an excellent, and concise, example of this new kind of propaganda. It can readily be seen that anti-conspiracy theory is a new pseudo-academic discourse which has been much funded and pushed over the past few years; with the usual apparatus of grants, conferences, papers and books (look at the reference list for example, which show how very recent this all is). 


Just as with all other mainstream discourse in the 'social sciences' - Marxian class analysis, feminism, antiracism and colonial studies, peace studies, gender studies, climate science - this is dishonest, manipulative rhetorical discourse masquerading as objective and impartial; and intrinsically supportive of the Global Elite agenda.

And likewise it is fake-radical; while actually being a mouthpiece of the exact and evolving narrative pushed by the ultra-rich, super-powerful plans of the Supra-national, Great Reset, New World Order Establishment (as catered for by Davos, Bilderberg, the UN/ WHO/ EU etc - with The Economist, WSJ and Financial Times as its House Journals.  

So, we need to ask ourselves that vital question:

If Not; Then What?


If Not intuition - Then What exactly should be our ultimate source of authority? Because anyone dissing intuition is simultaneously pushing something else...

The United Nations? Or a Western government bureaucracy? A university? The 'legacy' mass media (NYT? BBC?). Professional research as published in journals like Nature, Science, NEJM or The Lancet? Or some NGO, perhaps? Senior Judges? Multinational corps? Or the leadership/ public relations and media outlets of one of more of the major Christian churches? 

Because in the end (and not very deep down) all these authorities are actually The Same Thing - that is The System.


The System's unifying linkages are there, obvious and complex - if one takes the trouble to dig a litle (and only a very little digging is needed - I mean ten minutes excavation on the internet).

But very few people can or will do any digging at all; and for them it is only necessary to know that every assertion needs to be checked by intuition; and any that input has Not been checked should be rejected as Almost Certainly an evil lie.

That is; not merely dishonest and incompetent, but also designed specifically to mislead and harm your ultimate spiritual well-being.


In short: anyone or any-institution advising you to ignore your intuition, or to over-ride it with some external source of mainstream authority, should be assumed to be on the side of Satan and his demonic minions; unless the source can specifically (that is by direct personal knowledge backed by intuition) be shown to be motivated on-the-side-of God, Good and divine creation.

This is one of the ways in which living in these End Times makes life very simple! Simple to discern, if not simple to live.

Almost everything that reaches us without our-selves having made a conscious effort - everything that relies on our passive or unconscious absorption, is going to be ('net', overall, in aim) Lying Evil - so we can safely use that as a baseline assumption.


Beyond such an assumption; it is a matter of inferring which side of the spiritual war the source is working-for- asking what are the actual, underlying motivations of the persons or institutions from-which the information is emanating; and that, too, is usually very easy to know.

If the side is not obviously, explicity, consciously with God; then it is evil. 

(See what I mean by 'easy'?)

Matthew: Chapter 22: 34-40. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.


There is no doubt that The Bible, including the Old Testament Ten Commandments and the Gospels, commands us to Love God as the first, greatest and most important thing we must do...

But how is this possible? How may love be commanded?

The apparent problem is that we assume Love is a feeling, and a feeling cannot be manufactured; but even if it could, what would be the good of manufacturing a feeling of Love for God?

My understanding is that the The First and Great Commandment is about metaphysics, not feelings; it is about our first principles as a Christian, our most basic assumptions concerning how things truly are, how reality works.

Therefore, we are being told that everything in the Christian life 'hangs' on our assumption that God loves us. That is why God made everything, why God made this earth, why God made men and women, why we are incarnated and placed in mortal lives, and why we experience all the things we experience including death. All this is because God loves us.

It implies also the the nature of God is such that he loves - however we envisage God, we must represent the deity in a way compatible with love being God's primary characteristic.

How we may do this is set-out: because the most frequent term for God in the Gospels is 'Father'; and we are described as Sons and Daughters of God.

In sum, the Christian must interpret life and the world in this way - as a product of God's love. And this is non-negotiable - it is not put forward as a proposition to be tested by experience or reason; it is a metaphysical assumption.

If we ever interpret anything as contradictory to the fact and assumption of God loving us; we are definitely making a mistake.

But how can each of us, personally, reach such an assumption? Well, how did we, as (let's assume) a child of a real life loving Father and Mother, reach a similar assumption about our parents? Not from evidence, clearly - not from some kind of balance-sheet.

Such convictions come from direct, intuitive knowing - beyond the senses, beyond logic, beyond measurement. And that this direct form of intuitive knowledge is valid, is therefore required by Christianity.

If you want to be a Christian, you must know that God loves us; and know it in the same kind of way that you know your Father and Mother love you. And live life on that basis. That is the first and great commandment.

And you must find this out by introspection, by intuition; you must just-know-it above and beyond and behind all other things you know; this solid assumption framing and interpreting all other things you know.

And that this direct knowing of God's love is possible and valid and achievable is also implied by the first and great commandment. 

Christianity is a religion rooted in history - it depends on the reality that Jesus was born, died, resurrected, ascended - and necessarily in some place and time. 

Although what Jesus does not, it seems to me, hinge upon him being born in any particular place or time - these things must have-happened, and during human history. 

Therefore; Christianity cannot be - as apparently Buddhism is (at least, to Western scholars) - almost indifferent to whether any particular Buddha ever existed at all any actual point of history. Or whether that Buddha is instead 'merely' a vehicle for education, a story pointing at truth, the symbolic exemplification of a particular teaching. 

Yet, although Jesus must be historical; on the other hand he should not be primarily historical. 

It is a snare when Christians become so fixed upon the historical aspects of Christianity; that they become slaves to the academic historical disciplines - comparative study of ancient languages, the study of ancient texts, archaeology etc. 

This is not a solid basis for faith - as evidenced  by the fact that Christian churches have declined and collapsed over the past couple of centuries, while Christian scholarship has waxed, and accumulated vast amounts of contextual evidence and interpretative sophistication.

Christianity (it seems to me) needs to be rooted in personal interaction between the individual and Jesus Christ. 

This means that a Christianity that depends on academic historical knowledge is at second-hand - just as a Christianity rooted in obedience to a church is secondhand, or a Christianity rooted in adherence to tradition is secondhand... 

This despite the potentially great value of such secondary supports and knowledge-bases. The root needs to be personal.  

What we seem to end-up-with is the 'paradox' that Christianity cannot be derived from any kind of "history", but neither can Christianity be something essentially symbolic - that is, subjectively-created, like a poem. 

But paradox indicates that we have asked the wrong question, or made false assumptions. In this case we have assumed a too-restricted understanding of knowledge sources, and of history. 

We have conflated the secondary social and the primary personal... 

Conflated the business of attaining and enforcing scholarly consensus by agreeing upon a limited and simplified models and approved methods, by professional training and accreditation etc (all of which social institutions and mechanisms can-be, and have-been, corrupted to anti-Christian aims)... 

And we are mixing-this-up with the qualitatively different matter of achieving a strong, adequately true and accurate, and sufficiently-stable, personal faith that we may live-by.

 

In other words; the paradox of history in Christianity points us at the need to consider an altogether other form of knowing the past - a different way of getting historical knowledge that is neither symbolic nor academic. 

It is a way of knowing that is 'objective' in the sense that it regards the history of Jesus as real, happening in a real place and time; and also 'subjective' in the sense that this knowledge is derived from personal - and spiritual - ways of knowing. 

In sum: I think we each need to seek whatever historical knowledge is necessary, primarily by personal endeavor and from the guidance of the Holy Ghost - by direct-knowing, mind-to-mind. 

Often by formulating our own ideas (using whatever sources we regard as authoritative, and we can discover and grasp sufficiently) - and seeking for intuitive divine endorsement of those ideas. 

This is, of course, a trial-and-error process - since it depends on our own capacities and is affected by our own motivations. Nonetheless; if we are genuinely seeking the truth, we will (by living personal interaction with the Holy Ghost, by the divine within each of us) be guided through our own errors; will zig-zag to sufficient truth for our purposes. 

 

'God' is a dyad of Heavenly Mother and Father, they are co-creators and parents of all. The metaphysical reality is that all persons are male or female and there is no-one who is neither or both.

The whole person is therefore neither man nor woman - each being incomplete - but a dyad of the two complementary persons man and woman; sealed in an eternal loving relationship.

Traditional Christianity - for good reasons - has focused on God the Father, but the time has come for change. While we might continue to refer to 'God' as tacitly implying the two personages, this is coming to seem evasive, and even dishonest.

Of course the potential for being misunderstood, and deliberately misrepresented, is vast - it is a hazardous, dangerous doctrine; but that applies to Christianity in general - and so, where there is need, hazard does not deter.

The key fact is the grounding in the dyadic and complementary metaphysics; this is the basic assumption, which is attested by direct intuitive knowing and coherence, not by empirical 'evidence'. It is thus metaphysical assumption rooted in faith and personal knowledge which clarifies and protects the concept of Heavenly Mother.

What she is, is a matter that need attention, now.

*

What she is not?... She is not the same as the Father, not another name for the Father, certainly not an equal to the Father. Complementarity means dissimilarity: two complementary things are not the same, are not equal - their quality is that both in combination are needed to make the whole, the unit.

Heavenly Mother is a part of the dyad of God - not a Goddess; she is not any kind of revival - because she has never been acknowledged nor known up to now. She is of the future, not the past.

She is nothing to do with feminism, and is indeed ultimately the opposite of feminism. She is not in any way 'for women' rather than or in preference to being for men (any more that the legitimate Queen of a nation is for the women of that nation more than the men! Or that mothers are for their daughters more than their sons. Nonsense!).

She is not a 'balance' yet not a take-over either... Heavenly Mother is a fact and a necessity.

*

Heavenly Mother is a mystery - because divine; but she is a person we already know, from our long pre-mortal lives as her sons and daughters; we have known her for as long as we consciously knew anything.

If, for good reasons, we have been focused on Heavenly Father (and the reality of our Mother awaited the Mormon revelations of the middle 1800s) - then why do we need her now?

We need her now because the unilateral focus on the Father is preventing our divinely-destined spiritual progression. Where we are now (culturally, individually) is nihilism, despair and death; but we cannot (and should not) go back (which is why all attempts have failed); yet going forward is blocked by a partial and distorted understanding which cuts to the root; progression entails acknowledging the fullness of fundamental understanding, and building-upon that.

At some deep and intuitive level we know this, or we can know it - each for himself or herself - for the asking (serious asking). And we can find out more, and as much as we need, by addressing questions in prayer and meditation and listening for the responses - observing the responses.

(This is not really a matter of 'worship' because the incremental collapse of that concept is representative of the reasons why our Heavenly Mother's time has come. It is instead a matter of acknowledged reality, followed by love; and of conversation, communion, communication.)

*

This is not a matter of capturing Heavenly Mother in definitions, any more than this is helpful for our Father; because persons are known, not defined.

There is no need and little value from dividing-up the powers and responsibilities of our Heavenly parents any more than our real parents - yes they are different, and rightly; but no, the difference is not a consequence of, nor captured by, legal categories.

Persons are primary; loving relations are the cohesion and source of organisation.

*

How important is this - is it necessary? Since the idea of Heavenly Mother is unsafe, will be deliberately and carelessly misunderstood and misrepresented, will be a reason for hatred and loathing... is she not better set-aside, down-played, kept-quiet about?

That is a decision you need to make for yourself. You need to feel that Heavenly Mother is something we need to know - now: urgently; and which honesty requires that we know - openly, explicitly; knowledge the lack of which is poisoning us in many ways.

The impulse is there, the impulse is in our hearts and unfolding in Western culture. If the impulse is refused and kept  unconscious; it will nonetheless emerge in distorted and inverted forms (like feminism, like misogyny, like resentment and competitive exploitation between men and women).

But if Heavenly Mother is acknowledged and takes her place explicitly and joyously as a completion of our knowledge of God and the basis of our mortal lives; then the destined new era of consciousness may commence.