Bruce Charlton's Notions

The consciousness of our real self is largely beyond the understanding of our more familiar 'personality self'. 

At its most fundamental level, the real will is divine; and at this level the purpose of the real will mixes perfectly with the purposes of other divine beings. 

The real will is the manifesting of this already-harmonised divine purpose throughout the lower levels of creation, and eventually right down to the physical level. 

Thus our real self witnesses itself as it becomes more fully mature and at the same time helps to perfect the purposes of others. The real self has this power in it as a part of our divine heritage. 

All nature responds to the proper command of the real will of the real self. But the will does not command 'willfully' - it achieves command by being more fully what it is. Thus the 'sound' of the quality of its individual being mingles more loudly with the creative sound of God. 

What we usually call 'will' is actually more like 'desire power' and 'idea power', through which our lower self focuses on things it feels it wants or needs. 

But what we feel as a need in the deepest sense is not something we can 'make a decision about', we just pretend that it is a decision. Our real will has already-decided, and is something we can only be either true-to, or untrue-to: the real will is not something we are in a position to use.

Edited - for clarity, punctuation, emphasis and language - from the Summary of chapter sixteen - The Will; from A Geography of Consciousness, by William Arkle, 1974.

Notes:

1. The true individual nature of each person is divine - that is, it belongs to the nature and function of the absolute - as a consequence of all men and women being God's children.

2. Therefore, we are, each of us, directly in touch with the power and purpose of the absolute, with the divine nature - at least potentially; simply because some of the divine nature is within us.

3. However, although the divine is active within us; we are initially (personally and culturally - in childhood and in early tribal societies) unconscious of the divine within ourselves. It affects us - but we are not aware of the fact.

4. As human consciousness evolves towards higher (ie. including more self-aware) levels - we get to a 'dead centre' of total self-consciousness cut off fro awareness of the divine. This state has been called the 'dead centre' of consciousness, or the consciousness soul - it is the adolescence of human personal and cultural evolution - a necessary transition phase. This position must be moved-through before we can become actively aware of the divine within us; that is the actual experience of the divine within us (not merely the abstract fact of their being a divine element in us). 

5. But, even before we are actively aware of the divine within-us; it may be at work in an unconscious way - expressing itself (or at least trying to express itself) as may be evident implicitly. For example, our behaviours may be shaped against our conscious will - our superficial and intellectually- or socially-moulded plans and schemes may be self-sabotaged; or synchronicities may channel us in certain directions.

6. The real self - that is, the divine self, is attuned-with the divine level of action. Each person is, in this way, an essential part of the divine plan of creation. However, to participate; he or she must freely opt-in to this plan, on the basis of love and awareness of the divine plan (made possible by the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

7. At the highest and deepest level our Life is a destiny - and indeed an unique destiny - yet that destiny is a gift, and as-such it may be declined.

8. At the deepest and highest level the true 'will'  of our true self is not chosen by us - because only at this divine level - in which the wills of many beings are harmonised.

9. Thus, because of this high-level harmonisation; the will of any one individual cannot 'sabotage' the divine plan of creation by any act or will at a lower level of consciousness. Each individual can either join in the work of creation, bringing his or her unique nature to the open-ended task; or he or she may decline to participate - leaving a gap in the original divine plan, and causing a change in the unfolding of creation.

10. The divine plan cannot be sabotaged in its character and aim (the specific plan is optional, non-mandatory, freely chosen); but it can be changed in its specifics (the plan is not a blueprint but evolutionary, pluralist, endlessly creative).  

The idea is that our consciousness - which can be understood as our conscious will 

This 'evolved' or developmentally-unfolded through human history, and an analogous development typically happens through our modern life - at least in the The West. 

The conscious will - which is where we feel our-selves to be located, the 'I' or ego that looks-out on the world - can be regarded as an intermediary between the body and the perceptions on the outside, and our real-divine self which is on the 'inside'. 

Although actually the real-self is not tied to the body; yet incarnation means that in a significant sense the real-self is located in time and space. Thus incarnation is what gives us greater freedom and an unique perspective. 

Without incarnation the real-self is not distinctly separated-from the divine will and thought; and is less of an agent, less free. But with a developed conscious will that comes between our perceptions and our real-self; we have the ability to shift, direct and focus attention. 

This means that our conscious will can choose to present different phenomena, for consideration by the real-self. The conscious will can (in effect) move our bodies to a new environment, can choose to focus attention on particular aspects of the perceived environment, or can retrieve memories - and these are then brought to the attention of the real-self. 

The conscious will can focus on perceptions, on inner body states, on memories - or it can focus on the real-self - and on the thoughts that are 'emerging' from the real-self. 

By this model; primary thinking is what happens when the conscious-will is attending to the real-self; and the conscious-will is (in a sense) subordinating-itself to the real self. 

So that, for example, the conscious-will moves the body to a different place, alters that which is perceived (by seeking particular kinds of experience), and shifts attention in line with the requirements of the real-self. 

This is to live in Final Participation; led by the real (and divine) self, and with intuition (= primary thinking) leading the conscious will. 

But in Final Participation always there is (and must be) the conscious choice about where to direct the conscious-will, moment-by-moment.

So, in Final Participation; conscious choice is voluntarily aligned-with the divine; it is aligned via the real self which is that which is divine within us.  

Continuing on the theme from earlier about behaviour in the modern world (following the spontaneous, evolved, pattern of archetypical female threat assessment) - it is absolutely stunning what is Not regarded as a significant problem. 

If the mass media and officialdom don't mention a subject - or state that it is not a problem, but 'in fact' a benefit - then... well people don't react. 

Because people don't react, then it just isn't a problem. Indeed, it is not really happening At All. 

What you can observe for yourself, what those competent people that you know and trust report to you; what you can work-out by simply logic and common sense reasoning... Such 'evidence' might as well not exist, for all the impact it has on human behaviour.

This has become truly staggering in its scale since early 2020. People's actual daily lives - stretching over a period of more than a year - might as well never have happened, for all the effect it has had on anybody's basic understanding of real and significant problems. 

What is the roots of this extreme failure of inference? 

My impression is that we are seeing the consequences of the sequestration of each person's Real Self. 

Our individual capacity to reason is derived from the Real Self, which is the part of each man that is divine. When Men are truly thinking for themselves; they are thinking from this Real Self. 

The Real Self looks out upon the world, and - using conceptual and interpretative abilities that are divine and valid - the Real Self makes sense of the world. 

There is a diagram in William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness that shows how this sequestration of the Real Self can be envisaged. We begin life, all of us, with the Real Self communicating with our surface 'personality self'. 

The personality self develops more and more interconnections due to socialization and external interactions - until the surface personality self gets only a very small proportion of its perspective from the Real Self: a small proportion and easily ignored...

But this process may continue until the Real Self becomes sealed-off by the surface personality; not only ignorable, but undetectable. At this stage the person becomes cut-off from the divine; and floats adrift in the labile ocean of 'communications' between the surface personality and its adaptations to the communications it receives from the outside world. 

At this point the person has no centre, no core, no cohesion: he becomes simply a floating collection of processes and actions. 

That is where we are, here-and-now; for most people, nearly all the time. 

For such people (nearly everybody, it seems) perhaps the Real Self emerges during sleep, or when intoxicated, or during pathological brain states... but then there is typically a different kind of derangement from the abnormality and incoherence of cerebral processing. There may be a core coherence in such states - but the interpretation of external communication is deformed, and its expression is disarticulated from society...  

So, Men deny the reality of the Real Self; because - subjectively - it has ceased to exist. Of course, this denial of the Real Self is supported by public discourse (including biological science, which assumes the absence of the divine - therefore cannot ever detect or measure it). 

The Real Self continues to exist - but is so cut off and excluded from thinking and behaving that it might as well not exist. 

Yet the Real Self is indeed detectable and measurable - objectively, scientifically, publically - by the negative consequences of its absence. 

Detectable and measurable by the gross biological and psychological maladaptiveness of mass, mainstream, approved, official and broadcast human behaviour.   

The negative consequences of the absence of Real Self from the minds of Men are all around us. 

 

If the magic of Original Participation was Sympathetic Magic; and that of the modern Consciousness Soul era was Ritual Magic - then the magic of the future could be Magical Thinking.

Magical Thinking is Primary Thinking - considered as a form of magic. 

In Magical Thinking, the real self - that is the divine self, that which we inherited from God as being Sons and Daughters of God - knows, predicts and creates.

You have probably experienced this - for example during 'enchanted' times when you knew that the world was an unfolding delight, and that you could depend on 'synchronicity' to make good things happen. Those times and moods when you know that around that corner, over that hill, in that cafe there will be something important and delightful: and there always is.

As long as we stay in the enchanted mode of thinking, then life is good, we are involved-with the world and other people, and all will go well. This is Magical Thinking.

It is Enchant-ment but is Not Enchant-ed - this state of being is not 'imposed' by the surroundings, nor is it 'imagined' by our-selves - instead Magical Thinking is precisely that there is participation going-on between both self and world.

In Primary Thinking, our knowledge of the world is based on our participation-in the unfolding reality of the world; and therefore is bound up with the creativity of our real selves.

Creativity is intrinsic to the Final Participation situation, because Primary Thinking is the thinking of our real, divine and free selves: free in the sense of agent, and agent meaning that the divine mind is an origin of thinking (having 'free will' should be understood in this sense of being an uncaused cause: specifically, an uncaused-cause in the realm of Primary Thinking).

In different words: The real self is divine, hence generates thinking not merely caused, but itself causal - hence the real self knows reality, and is original and creative. The real self knows reality directly, unmediated; and this is also a consequence of Participation - the real self knows reality because in its Primary Thinking, it is identical-with reality.

(In the Original Participation of childhood or early tribal man, the individual also knows reality directly; because he lacks full consciousness, his self is passively immersed in reality. The purpose of the developmental evolution of consciousness is exactly that we become able to participate in reality again; but actively-participate; with freedom and creativity: the fully-divine mode of being.)

Thus in Primary Thinking the thinking is original and generative - it is intrinsically creative. The thinking participates-in the world and brings something new to this world.

Thus Magical Thinking is something by which you change the world, but not by 'manipulating' reality. Instead, the world inevitable changes as a consequence of the unity of the self with reality; and the fact that the self brings something new, original, self-generated to reality.

Magical Thinking is therefore our individual contribution to the God's ongoing creation. It is a real magic, because we personally can know reality including some ability to predict reality; and we personally make-a-difference to reality.

But by Magical Thinking we cannot and will not shape reality to our own personal ends - but only to divine ends.

Thus there cannot be a 'black magic' of Magical Thinking. Magical Thinking is (as we experience it) intrinsically good because it is the divine in us (God immanent) really participating-in the reality of continuing divine creation.

Spiritual progress is possible - but it may be almost invisible to others in terms of behavioural change; especially when judged by the highest standards of behaviour.

This, I think, it part of what Jesus meant when he said he had come to save 'sinners'. He mostly meant that he had come to save (those who would 'follow' him) from death and loss of the self; but he also meant that those saved from death would always be breakers of God's laws. 

(I understand this 'breaking of law' to mean that we behave in ways that conflict with the divine motivations of God's creation, in which we all dwell. Any verbal description of 'laws' is necessarily a partial and distorted model for explaining disharmony with creation.) 

And that it was part of being-saved to know that we personally are a breaker of God's laws - and in a situation where the breaking of any single divine law at any time (no matter how apparently 'trivial') is 'just as bad' as breaking many of God's laws most of the time. 

(In other words, there can be no salvation by perfect adherence to God's laws; because not only is it impossible in practice - but also in theory; because the belief that it is possible to live in full accordance with God's laws is itself a breaking of God's laws!) 

Therefore true, significant spiritual progress should not be measured - Is Not measured, by God - in terms of quantitative adherence to the degree of behavioural compliance with divine laws. It is measured in terms of our knowing what God wants of us, and therefore knowing when (nearly all the time!) we do not live up to this. 

Since what is wanted is not at the behavioural level; we cannot monitor spiritual progress by perceptual means. Which also means that it is extremely rare that we can monitor the spiritual progress of others (although such monitoring can, to some extent, be done for those persons we love and know best.)

In other words we must (must) be able to monitor our own spiritual progress and to do so by the standards and in the way that accords with what God wants. 

This is possible because we are all Sons of God. Which means that we all have in us something of the divine.

The situation can be 'modeled' by stating that there is in each of us a real self that is also divine, and which therefore knows what is in-accordance-with God's ongoing creation; and what is not. 

So - it is spiritual progress to know that we each have a real and divine self; and it is further spiritual progress to be able to discern the evaluations of our own real and divine self. 

Even more progress comes from the choice that inevitably arises when we discern that our own choices and actions are going-against the laws of God/ the harmony of divine creation: the progress comes from our choosing to take the side of God and creation as our highest aspiration. 

It is certain that we will Not be able to put this discernment into action - we cannot align all of our behaviours with God's laws and God's creation: in other words we are always going to be lapsing-into sin, again and again; and we will be unable to prevent this. 

We may align perfectly with God for a moment or two; so we can know what this is like and can choose  - can want it.  

We will always - soon - lapse back into behaviours that fall-away from this known-ideal. 

But it is genuine spiritual progress to be able to discern from our real self; to distinguish the real self from the many fake selves that fit-in with the demands of this mortal world; and to make that recurring choice For God.

So do not despair! 

Spiritual progress is possible even for the worst back-slider (and we are all back-sliders - without any exceptions). 

Judge your-self as you are judged by God; not as you are judged by Men. 

In Original Participation we live dominated by the real (divine) self - of which we are unconscious, and towards which we are passive. 

As consciousness develops we become aware that the real self is a distinct 'entity' - we are able to distinguish thinking of the real self from other kinds of thinking (such as thinking in response to perceptions, emotions, memories...). 

Then we learn to block the thinking of the real self - to exclude it from consciousness. At this point (the Consciousness Soul) we have become free of our innate divine nature. 

From this point, to attend to the real self becomes a conscious choice. 

We can choose to attend to the real self, or choose not to attend to it - we can even choose to deny that the real self is real. 

We can choose to regard the thinking of the real self as delusional, a sickness, childishness, wishful fantasy... This is normal and mainstream in the modern world - both among the atheist majority, and among the majority of Christians. 

Final Participation is when, by contrast, we choose to ally ourselves with the real self and give primacy to the thinking of the real self: when we choose - moment by moment, from freedom - to allow the divine within us again to dominate. 

 

There isn't an agreed word to describe the kind of Christian I am - so I will label it Intuitive Christianity for present purposes - and compare it with what might broadly be called Catholic and Protestant versions. Understand that this is a short post - and what is described are 'ideal types' meant to capture a particular essence of each version. I am talking of ultimates - not of practical living - which will surely be multi-factorial...

The transition between childhood and adulthood takes place at adolescence - and adolescence is the only path from the one to the other. The essence of this transition - from an ultimate and divine perspective - is the transition from Obedience to Freedom.

(Noting that Freedom means something like Agency - i.e. becoming a conscious, actively-autonomous, personally-strategic adult: a source of innate motivation, decision, creativity.)

Obedience roots The Good externally - in some person, institution or social group. The Christian assumption is that these external sources are conduits of God's will.

(As in childhood - the child's role is to know and follow the guidance of parents, family, church, school, social group etc. - and such obedience is 'passive' - it does not require consciousness, and indeed young children are only somewhat conscious.) 

Freedom roots The Good in The Self, internally. The Christian assumption here is that God is within-us - as a deep, true Real Self.

Note that Freedom (that is Agency) is truly Good only if the Real Self is Good. And in practice this is a matter of contention among Christians - because clearly the overall-self is not wholly Good - so some kind of discrimination, definition and distinction concerning the Self is required.

1. The Catholic belief is that the Church (the mystical Church, contrasted with the organisation) is Good, is the conduit of God's will - but the individual is fallen and (in essence) depraved such that for the individual to be Good entails Obedience to the (mystical) Church.

God intervenes to ensure that The Church is and remains the conduit for God's will, and worthy of Obedience. Freedom is mostly about choosing this Obedience.

In practice, therefore, all Men are more-or-less permanently children; so permanent Obedience a necessity. Freedom/ Agency of The Self would be a cruelty; because as individual agents all Men are damned... self-damned by their sin and incapacities.

Freedom is therefore, and necessarily, tightly circumscribed by the overall duty of Obedience.  

2. The Protestant also believes that Men are depraved; but with the capacity to know Good by Obedience to divine revelation, especially as encapsulated in Scripture.

That is, all Men - as autonomous selves - are incapable of Freedom in the ultimate sense of agency rooted in the Self; but all Men have the innate capacity to understand Scripture and choose Obedience to it.

God intervenes to make this understanding of scripture possible; and that the Freedom of choosing to obey Scripture will be under God's will. Freedom is tightly circumscribed by the overall duty of Obedience.

3. My understanding (Intuitive Christianity) is that Freedom/ Agency is our proper, divinely-destined and ultimate goal - here-and-now, in The West; superseding the primacy of Obedience (whether to Church, Scripture or any other external source).

Christianity therefore ought to be rooted in the Real Self and pervasively based upon the Real Self; and Freedom ought not to be constrained to the primal chose of Obedience to Church or Scripture; but this discerning Freedom ought to be incrementally extended to all other matters of primary importance.

This is based upon a conviction that the Real Self is in fact God-within-us; and also distinctive to ourselves alone. In other words, as children of God we inherit God's divinity - but also each child is unique and has an unique destiny within creation.

(There must be a distinction between the true-real-divine Self which is intrinsically Good - and the multiptude of false selves which arise from error, sin, by inculcation, for expedience etc. - which may be good or evil; but are not divine, are often arbitrary and typically transient.) 

We all (potentially) know The Good innately and directly - and the ultimate authority is therefore with, not external; the ultimate value is Freedom to live from the Real Self, not by Obedience to any external source excepting our direct knowing of God.

Therefore, in an ultimate sense, my conviction is that Man - any man, any woman - may attain to salvation and live a life of theosis from-within; without membership of The Church or access to Scripture of other external sources; and, indeed, in an ultimate sense it is proper and best for a Christian's Life to be rooted in n the Freedom of the Real Self, and not in any external source.

In sum: Freedom is a higher (more mature, more adult) value than Obedience. 

External sources may of course be helpful, perhaps very helpful - but here-and-now in The West external sources may also be extremely harmful - the Church may be (usually is) subverted, corrupted and anti-Christian; Scripture, its translation and its interpretation is likewise usually corrupted, distorted, selective, misrepresented - inverted.

Indeed, it is precisely this situation that creates the urgent necessity of an Intuitive Christianity based on the individual and Freedom.

My understanding, therefore, is that Freedom has always been an essential element of Christianity; but in the past Freedom was used to make a single choice of Obedience; of whom or what to serve. In the past Obedience was more important than Freedom.

My contention is that this primal and vital Christian Freedom ought now to be extended to all major and significant aspects of Faith. From now, Freedom is more important than Obedience. That is our divine destiny; if Man is to move from his current spiritual adolescence into adult maturity.

The problem (for God) is to harmonise the individual free-wills of a multitude of men. This must be on the one hand a choice, yet on the other hand robust - permanent - if Heaven is to be viable.

It was the work of Jesus to enable free wills to harmonise in this way.

This could not be achieved by The Father - he could only subordinate wills, passively, by obedience to his laws. It could only be achieved by the Son.

This was possible because the real-divine self is universal - and thus selves are 'overlapping', but the incarnated body is capable of genuine agency. In this way, a choice of the real-divine self has universal consequences.

So, while thinking from false, or superficial selves is merely a personal and private fantasy; thinking from the real-divine self is a potentially-universal, shared reality. The 'mechanism' of salvation is consciousness - and by theosis - meaning that it is by becoming divine in our thinking that we attain to permanent salvation, in which state all wills are naturally aligned, because all are thinking from reality.

(Reality being the creation of God.)

In this sense, the mechanism of salvation by the incarnate Jesus, was that Jesus was thinking from his real-divine self, and whatever he achieved in his body was therefore universal.

But this becoming-divine (divination) of consciousness can only be chosen; it cannot be imposed. Thus Jesus need to be incarnated as a Man, to make this free choice.

In contrast, those who take a path of not-thinking, or of obedience merely to the father - and also those who choose a path of amplifying their purely-personal imaginings - cannot move to the level of universal reality that is Heaven. 

It is love that enables the move; love that makes people want reality; hence the two great 'commandments' to love God and 'neighbour'. These commandments are not orders to be 'obeyed'; they are an objective description of the choices that are required.

Unless you love God and his creation and also your neighbours - who will dwell with you in Heaven - then you Will Not join it.

We join as individuals; but we then live in-creation with all others who live in-creation.

If you do Not want to live with these others in chosen harmony, because you love them; then you will Not inhabit creation. You will therefore live out-of-creation, in chaos; either consciously alone in your own imagination, or else unconsciously (unaware) alone in chaos (Nirvanah). 

Choice is a necessary aspect of free will, which is a fact of existence; the creative harmony of Heaven cannot be imposed but most be chosen - and for Heaven to be harmony it must be chosen for love.

When it comes to magic, what is real and what is the provenance of the real, one can only work forwards on the basis of whatever primary thinking intuitions emerge. This is what has emerged, so far:

I assume that real and Good magic was an 'everyday' possibility for people in the remote past, but seems not to be at present. Examples of real Good magic would include Ancient Egyptian priest-magicians who accomplished supernaturally-enabled feats of building and making, the British builders of megalithic monuments, and most recently some reports of some tribal shamans or medicine men.

But magic was not really 'used' in the past, not used to attain human will; rather, men were immersed-in the divine; and insofar as a man conformed to divine purposes, he was able unconsciously to be a conduit or coencentartion of divine powers. This was therefore a kind of channelling, and not of human will manipulation nature (the human mind serving as a channel for divine powers and purposes). I presume that magical rituals were mostly about the mental preparation that made this channelling possible. 

As human consciousness, the autonomous, agent self, became stronger through human history; so this magic became impossible. Men were no longer immersed-in the spiritual but stood apart. The spirit world was invisible, imperceptible - only exceptionally and by more and more extreme measures (and finally not at all - many modern people never-and-cannot perceive the spirit aspects of reality).


From about 1500 onwards in The West, Men stood apart from the divine; and from that time attempts at magic were attempts of the self, of 'the ego' to coerce nature, to compel results - they were driven by human desire and will.

And Renaissance magic was ineffective, in terms of its stated goals. Its effects are explained by changing of human minds (the mind of the magician, and the mind of any human subjects) - in a kind of self/ other brainwashing, and also by evil magic done by subordinating the self to serve demonic forces.

Good magic became impossible because Men were (due to the evolutionary-development of human consciousness, in-line with divine destiny) no longer immersed-in God's creation. Men increasingly stood apart from creation, the personal self became differentiated-from the divine; and therefore Men's powers were derived only from Men.


That is the current situation (although it was meant to be a brief and temporary phase - we are stuck-in-it due to wrong human choices; we are stuck in spiritual adolescence - refusing to move on to spiritual maturity. We are stuck because maturity requires each person's explicit choice and wish).

Here and Now, most claims at magic are bogus - in the sense that they are done by convincing the self or other people that magic has-been-done: modern manipulative magic is psychological (and any benefits are a kind of psychotherapy).

Attempts to control reality, to make reality to conform to explicit human wishes, by magical systems such as spells and rituals, are not effective; they do not do what they set out to do by the mechanisms they posit. And what they do do, is not what was intended, nor are the means correctly known.

Rare instances of real Good magic are either done unintentionally, by accident, due to an unpredictable, unplanned, unconscious and momentary alignment of a person's purposes with divine purposes.

Real and evil magic can be done, in a way; but they are not done in conformity with the magician's will; the magician is not controlling supernatural reality, but is being-controlled-by it. When a magician really summons a demon, and some magical consequences ensue; the magician is being manipulated by the demon, not vice versa.

And evil magic can do only what demons can do, what immaterial spirits can do - which seems to be done by acting on minds; tempting, persuading, convincing, via sins. Demons cannot create, cannot affect divine creative activity: creation is solely divine.


The magic of the future will happen insofaras an individual person attains primary thinking, or Final Participation; when someone consciously and voluntarily aligns their thinking with the universal reality of God's thinking - which is creation-in-action.

We may then, as individuals, participate-in the ongoing work of creation. And that is our proper goal now (i.e. theosis) - but especially in post-mortal resurrected life.

When we think In Reality, we must be aligned with divine purposes. We are (or may be) doing real magic in this world, and doing it consciously and purposively; those purposes coming from that which is divine in us (what we inherit as children of God) - but these purposes are not 'devised', the purposes are emergent-from that divine mind in us. That which makes this possible is Love - specifcially love of God (which, for us, is Jesus Christ) and of our divine family, consisting of God's loving children.

Thus any idea of a person 'using' magic to attain human purposes is nonsense. We may participate-in the Good magic that is ongoing divine creation (either unconsciously and immersed-in, or consciously and voluntarily in primary thinking); or we may be used-by the demonic powers in their work of sabotaging and inverting divine creation. Ultimately these are the only two options.  

The answers to such questions vary extremely widely; from those who say that being a Christian is strongly associated with greater happiness, more hope, love and courage; through those who say it has no necessary effect either way; to those who emphasise that to be a Christian has often been to invite isolation, persecution, suffering, and a miserable existence.

There are several reasons why the answers vary - the first is that there may be a big difference between what happens-to a person and how they feel inside. There is no necessary correlation, positive or negative, between the external conditions of a person's life and their inner state. Some of the happiest of people have been among the poorest and weakest and most despised; and many of the most prosperous, comfortable, powerful and high status people are utterly miserable.

Another reason is that there is a kind of here-and-now surface pleasure or misery; but there is also a deep, tidal happiness or despair. To put it differently, life can be seen as bounded by birth and death; or it may be known as extending across infinite time - and the infinite perspective recontextualises the ripplings of immediate positive and negative emotions.

But there is a deep reason for the variation in effect that becoming a Christian, or being a Christian, has on people - and this relates to the variation in 'the self' they inhabit.

Most people in the modern Western world identify with a false self in themselves (a superficial, fake, socially-inculcated, often labile 'personality') - and this also applies to most Christians. But some Christians live (some or much of the time) from their real self. The real self is the divine within us - God-within-us, by which we are children of God. The false self is false, but the real self is true.

Probably nobody lives all the time from their real self; and this state is usually something intermittent and partial. But when a Christian is living from their real (and divine) self; he will be happy - even when he is also suffering.

Because to live from the real self in knowledge of the truth of Jesus is to be happy.

I think many Christians miss this fact and necessity; because they neglect the extent to which the modern world alienates us from our real self - that is what such phenomena as the mass media, bureaucracy, totalitarian monitoring and control are all about. And an alienated Christian - a Christian living from a false self - is probably unhappy even though he is a Christian.

In conclusion, Christianity IS therapeutic, and DOES make a person happier WHEN that person is living from his REAL self - but not necessarily when they are not.

We should not complain about being excluded from the high levels of modern mainstream discourse - we should want an end to it, not to become complicit.

If someone does get-into a position of high status, power, fame; and remains there for more than a short time - it can easily be seen what happens to them: sooner rather than later they change (you can see it for yourself); they change from being one of the dead-eyed masses to one of the snake-eyed elite manipulators.

(Zombie to reptile...) 

To be elite is to be an active servant of evil, necessarily: because The System is evil.

(The System is a godless materialist bureaucracy, which means totalitarian, which means intrinsically and necessarily destructive of Good - of even the possibility of Good).


To make a wall in the mind between types of thinking is first to suppress and then to imprison the real (divine) self: this is to become a dead-eyed one.  

The light goes-out as the soul leaves the eyes.

The dead-eyed masses are, mentally, a loose collection of superficial selves - merely cognitive-processes: artificial, externally-driven, passive, unfree. The real self is gone, inaccessible - God-within-us has been imprisoned.

When the real self has-been walled-off, the eyes go dead. People are tools, not selves.


The snake-eyed ones are what our ancestors would have called 'demonically posessed' - that is, their real-divine self has not only been imprisoned, but replaced with demonic will.

Their eyes are not dead, but demonically-alive - snake-eyes: manipulative, lacking empathy; coldly enjoying only domination, deception, the destruction of beauty; the infliction of all types of suffering and (especially) of fear.

Sometimes a dead-eyed one will become 'useful enough' to become snake-eyed - the once dead eyes begin to glitter with calculating malice. This is promotion! This is to join the elites! The demon sits within, looking-out, gleeful at the situation.


To be dead-eyed is the norm among adults - although they can more-often be observed among teens, and even some younger children. It is the common response to the evil of the world - to ignore, cut-off, imprison the real self and develop a 'shell'. To do what 'works' instead of what we ought.


Only belief, faith, trust in the Holy Ghost is a defence - otherwise everybody succumbs, sooner or later.  Just look around...

But the soul may rekindle - this can only be done consciously, by choice, deliberately. And it can only be done with external help.

The opportunity of repentance and belief is always there, but we our-selves must grasp it; and to do so we must know it to be real and Good.

The soul may re-kindle, the real-self may break-free and activate; and the eyes may come-alive, may light-up with a glowing warmth!

There is a school of though that says our fundamental assumptions cannot consciously be chosen - or, more accurately, that if they are thus chosen then they will be feeble. The idea is that only those fundamental beliefs which we have without choice are genuinely motivating. 

Robert Frost indignantly denounced college teaching that 'frisks Freshmen of their principles'. At Bread Loaf in 1925 he declared that a boy with all his beliefs drawn out of him is in no condition to learn. Or even to live. Everybody needs some beliefs as unquestionable as the axioms of geometry*. No postulates deliberately adopted could ever have the force. We had to have unarguable, undemonstrable, unmistakeable axioms, just three or four. And if we didn't abuse our minds we should surely have them. One such is genuineness is better than pretense. Another is that meanness is intolerable in oneself. And another is that death is better than being untrustworthy. 

From A Swinger of Birches: a portrait of Robert Frost, by Sidney Cox (1957)  

There is something valid in this argument, that requires response, because our fundamental assumptions are not arbitrary. 

We surely cannot just stick a pin in a list and choose anything that comes-up as our baseline beliefs, and then expect to be motivated strongly enough to resist being derailed by the many temptations of life and infirmities of our own nature. 

On the other hand, it seems obvious that - on the one hand - peoples fundamental assumptions are being inculcated-into-them by deliberate and socio-political propaganda, in ways that harm the people. So, if we just accept our assumptions as something 'given', we are in fact merely blinding ourselves to our own exploitative psychological enslavement.  

Furthermore; modern motivations are actually very feeble, by comparison with the past; as can be seen by the collapse of personal courage and individuality of character - which has been very obvious and evident over recent decades. The docility, homogeneity, and automatic-obedience of Western Man is now astonishing to behold; when compared with the middle twentieth century. 

So, it seems that there is no valuable alternative but to become aware of our own deepest values, assumptions, metaphysical beliefs; and to evaluate them; and then to choose between possibilities. 

It is this choosing upon which all depends: because what we choose must not only be something we regard as right, true, correct; but it must also be something that provides us with a strong motivation - such that we can avoid being deflected off-course by the first problem, the first contrary expediency, we encounter... 

So that we may have the courage of our convictions... Because - without courage, convictions are worthless.  

People often talk as if 'will power', determination is the answer; but the strength of will-power itself derives from fundamental convictions. It is our assumptions that provide the power of will. So our will cannot overcome feeble and false assumptions. Again we are returned to the need to choose assumptions; but to choose the right assumptions. 

Choosing our assumptions is (and should be) more like a quest, or a path of discovery; than it is like an arbitrary coin-flip. 

It is a matter of finding our most fundamental values. We each need to find-out what things we most value, deep down, through time. 

These profound values may be very different from, may indeed oppose or contradict, the values we have expressed, or implemented in previous living. Our fundamental values may be a kind of secret knowing: and, at first, secret even from our conscious-selves.

It may also be the case that these fundamental values turn out to be inconsistent among themselves, that they clash - and therefore tend to cancel-out: this may be another cause of feeble motivation and cowardice of conviction.   

So the choosing of deep assumptions is also, potentially, a choosing-between. 

What is the it that does the exploring, questing, discovering, choosing? That's another matter - I am talking about the real self or true self - which is also the divine self. 

Only when it is the divine self who is doing the choosing can we expect a Good outcome. 

If, instead, the above process was merely done by our 'personality self', that 'self' constructed by societal inculcation, a mere selfish-self, and pleasure-seeking self, or any other kind of evil-motivated self... Then clearly the end result is going to be bad (i.e. bad in a Christian sense). 

It would then merely be a choice made by that which is propagandized, passive, controlled... Thus no real 'choice' at all... 

Therefore, as always, there are (at least) two changes that must be made, two processes that must simultaneously be implemented. 

...This is nearly always true. When only one obstacle is before us, when only one kind of change is needed for our betterment; it will usually be overcome sooner or later, spontaneously, without need for profound change.

What separates us from awakening, from betterment, from initiation of a positive transformative process; is the requirement for (at least) two simultaneous efforts: in this case 1. the need to find and work-with our real/ divine self, in 2. the project searching-for and choosing our fundamental assumptions.  

In conclusion: Yes! fundamental assumptions really can be known, evaluated, and chosen; but for this to be valuable and effective entails that we discover something about our deepest values, and also that this 'discovery' is accomplished by that which is divine within us. 

 

*Note. The fact that there is more-than-one axiomatic system of geometry, more than one set of postulates - and that the best choice between axioms depends on the function to which the geometry is being-put - undercuts Frosts analogy in an ultimate sense; although it still retains rhetorical validity. 

Isn't just a matter of not being alert; because the most alert people include those who are most asleep.

In a spiritual sense, sleep refers to a blindness, rather than a level of consciousness. The sleep of a modern adolescent plugged into social media is certainly very active, very alert; but it is a sleeping-through Life. Such an one is passive, absorptive, reactive. Thoughts go-through the mind; and do not originate-from the mind.

To become awake is consciously to become aware of Living, as it is happening, here-and-now. That is one step. But further it requires a wider appreciation of what is happening in living.  

But if living is conceptualised in the mainstream terms of modern public discourse; then it is indistinguishable from the processing activities of a computer. A person might regard himself as awake when 'switched 'on' and asleep when on standby, energy-saving... Such a person is asleep; always and inevitably.

If living is doing, then what is doing? If doing means altering stuff in the world; then we are constrained by the world. If the world stops us from altering stuff, the world has put us to sleep...

But if doing is thinking - thinking in some deep primary and active way - then thinking is something of tremendous scope on the one hand; yet on the other hand, it might never happen.

The thinking that comes from our divine selves emerges from a 'black-box', the workings of which are inaccessible - utterly inaccessible. That is the nature of freedom - it cannot be known, only its outcome can be known. We can observe the thoughts as they come-out-of the black-box that is our divine self - so, this means there is our real-self and there is an observing ego.

The observing ego is that which has choice - it can choose its attitude to the emerging thoughts of the divine self - for instance, does it regard them as illusory imaginings; does it regard them as necessarily true and real?

Mainstream life regards these thoughts emerging from the divine self as purely subjective and a species of wish-fulfilment. But the Romantic tradition of Christianity regards these same thoughts as real and true, because divine; because a part of ultimate reality - these thoughst from the divine self are direct reality - as constrained by time, experience and capacity (so we can know more, and more, of reality).  

So, in talking to you - it is my ego talking with your ego; and recommending a change of your ego's-attitude to the thinking that is emerging from your divine self.

If we use the nomenclature of 'self' to express our true, innermost and embryonically-divine nature, and 'persona' to describe the public, interactive aspect - the 'personality' which is a consequence of experience; then we can see that while they need to be distinguished, the two are bound together as a polarity.

We start-out as the self, interacting with nature (the environment, everything that is not-the-self) and participating in it. At this stage life is real and involving because our selves are interacting with it and we know, therefore, moment to moment; that everything 'out-there' is known only by the interaction with the self 'in here'.

But at this stage, 'nature' overwhelms us and drives us, because pretty much all of the self is used in this interaction. We do not feel separate from the environment (or hardly so) but the cost is that we are unfree - because we cannot separate our self, the self is swept-along by the environment.

(The environment is experienced as real, alive, conscious - but the self is unnoticed and has no distinctive role: life is lived, the self does not live life.)

So, the self develops the persona - the public mask - which serves the useful purpose of interacting with the environment using automatic algorithms. The persona is like a protective robot which does the routine work of dealing with nature (including other people) - and the robot leans from experience how to do this.

(In each life, a human moves - to some extent - from the naked self dealing with the environment in the un-self-consciousness of early childhood, absorbed in the mother and family, home and community; to the later childhood and adolescent experience of becoming self-conscious - when the self is experienced as distinct from, potentially set-against, the environment (both social and physical).

The self benefits from the persona (at least initially, potentially) by having the persona do much of the routine work, and thus the self becomes increasingly aware of itself, and aware that it is separate from the environment - because now the persona is interposed. The self has autonomy, time and energies to devote to contemplating its self, its condition and situation, and to considering strategy beyond the moment to moment interactions with nature. Philosophy becomes possible.


As the environment becomes more complex and demanding (for example with increasing complexity of society) so the self diminishes in significance, and the persona increases in importance; until the persona is doing almost everything, using the 'automatic' (robotic) processes it has evolved. The self begins to lose contact with reality, because it no longer deals with nature; the self - that was master - becomes a helpless prisoner of its slave, the persona  - the robot takes-over and imprisons the divine self.

(Initially the self was like an ideal manager who deals with strategy; while the persona was like the front-like workforce who mostly implement standard protocols to deal with the outside world. The manager knows about the outside world via the workforce and has a strong sense of the identity of the whole organization. But later the front-line workers imprison the manager and there is then no strategy at all, nobody has any knowledge of the overall situation of the organization in term of its own goals or the organizations situation in the environment: there is just the workforce, who are unconscious of everything except the immediate business of implementing predetermined protocols.)

So the persona is now doing pretty-much all the work and the self is no longer aware of 'nature' nor is the self directing the persona strategically; but is living in enforced idleness and impotence, having no direct contact with outer reality. Since we as individuals live ultimately in the self as the default to which we revert when not actively engaged with the outer world; insofar as we are aware at all, we experience our state (i.e. the state of the self) as alienation, impotence, meaninglessness, frustration - and indeed begin to doubt first our significance and then our reality.

Thus nihilism; when our self begins to doubt first its own reality (materialism, positivism), then - by a natural inference - doubt the reality of everything else (solipsism).

However, the relationship between self and persona is one of polarity; they cannot really be divided. The self can be overwhelmingly dominant, or the persona can be - as in modern culture; but they are both part of the same phenomenon (there must be an inner core and there must also be a periphery where this inner core interacts with what surrounds it - although the relative size of core and periphery may vary widely) and the reality is that the persona is generated continually by the self, and vice versa.


There are three possible futures:

1. We might stay as we are (and have been for more than two centuries in The West): We have a self that is unaware not just of the outer world but of its own reality - and therefore utterly unaware of the work of the persona: a self that simply takes for granted the persona, and since it lacks contact with environment it is unconscious of that too. So there is just a demoralized and self-despizing isolated self, for whom 'reality' is the product of the persona - and the self is alternately overwhelmed by this reality and doubting of its own reality; or doubts outer-reality and supposes that everything is a product of the self: the state of solipsism.

2. We might go back to the earlier stage of the self interacting directly with the outer world (unprotected by the persona), and unconscious of itself - the persona shrinking back to its earlier minimal state. This could probably only happen if the environment was greatly reduced in complexity (including size). This move to extinguish self-consciousness also amounts to a kind of death wish by which consciousness wills its own extinction.


3. We might go forward to a state of greater consciousness. The Self becomes aware of the persona, aware of the reality of the persona (and therefore of the outer environment with which the persona deals), and aware of the work-methods of the persona - aware that is, of the standard protocols of the persona in dealing with nature.

 This is metaphysics as an active process; it is awareness of our fundamental assumptions. Stage 3 is, indeed, primarily about increased awareness - new awareness of that which we previous took for granted hence were constrained by. It is therefore awareness that makes us ultimately free.

(It is as if we are currently sleepwalking, and have indeed been sleepwalking through all history - either unconsciously dominated by or unknowingly cut-off-from the outer environment. The evolution of consciousness is about increasing that of which we are aware, of bringing it to consciousness: a matter of waking-up!)

The self again becomes real - remains free and autonomous, because it retains the benefits of being protected by the persona. But the persona is no longer taken for granted nor assumed to be giving a complete and unbiased picture of the outer environment - rather, the persona is brought to awareness in its reality and qualities.

We will know that the outer environment is real, and we will also know that we are inextricably and necessarily involved in that outer environment - because everything we know about it comes from interaction. The division between inner and outer is therefore erased, and replaced by awareness of the distinction (but not division) between the self and the persona.


So, with the polarity of self and persona we reach an ultimate reality - beyond which we cannot go, because it makes no sense to try and do so. The polarity of self and persona is the conscious recognition and awareness that the two are different but make up a single process operating through time - indeed, operating eternally.

It is meditation on, contemplation of, the polarity between self and persona that holds the key to moving onto Stage 3.

**
(Beyond an ultimate reality of the polarity of self and persona, lies the ultimate polarity of God and Man - but that is already dealt with by Christian faith; within which the above schema should be embedded.)

I have belatedly realised (such things always take me a t-herribly long time) that the modern world is being duped - wholesale - by the fake assertion that process is the ultimate source of validity; whereas in fact provenance is the basis of truth...

Allow me to explain... The (modern, fake...) idea is that 'understanding' of something is a matter of being able to describe it in terms of process; and that correct understanding has happened when process leads to predictable outcomes.

So - the modern activity of professional bureaucratic research that calls-itself 'science' claims that valid results are what come-out-of this process of research, and what comes out of this process is intrinsically valid. Science is regarded as The Process.

But, it would be truer to say (although still an abstraction) that science is what comes-out-of scien-tists; that is, out-of individual human creative-beings whose motivation is scientific. Science is what-(real) scientists-do.

Other examples would be my current obsessions of Primary Thinking and Polarity. I have been having difficulties explaining these, including to myself (especially polarity...). And these difficulties are related to my trying to do this explaining in terms of process - which is an abstraction.  I should instead have been trying to understand them in terms of their provenance.

Yet my explicit metaphysical foundation is that ultimate reality is personal, not abstract - my bottom line is that reality is made up of beings (variously alive and conscious beings). Abstractions are therefore merely models - therefore (being models) always simplified and always incomplete and always not-true... no matter how expedient or useful in limited circumstances.

So, trying to explain Primary Thinking in terms of process is always and necessarily wrong - in reality primary thinking is the thinking of that-which-is-primary: i.e. the thinking of our real self, which is a divine self (a son or daughter of God): a self that is in part existent from eternity.

The thinking of this real self is primary thinking - and the validity of the 'products' of divine thinking comes from that provenance: that is from thinking's origin in the real self. Thought that originates-from the real self is valid, and that provenance is what makes thought valid...

And polarity... I have (following Coleridge and Barfield) tried to explain it abstractly, that is as a model... but polarity so-considered is a process; a process consisting of opposed by inextricable centrifugal (feminine) and centripetal (masculine) elements... and so on. And all processes are abstractions, hence wrong.

So, in the end, polarity has not really been understood. And nobody can make a machine or any other model that 'does polarity'... Only beings do it.

Polarity is an abstract model of creativity, and creativity is done by beings.

The ultimate creativity is to create creators - that is, to pro-create, to have offspring. Thus the ultimate reality, of which polarity is merely an abstraction, is the fertile dyad of man and woman; of two complementary beings.

Other types of creativity (literary, scientific artistic etc) are inextricable from the inclusion of beings - a poem without a person to read/ a symphony without someone to hear it... is not a creative product but merely ink marks on paper.

All creativity entails beings. (And beings entail life and consciousness - of some type and degree.)

That is, creativity is also (like polarity, like primary thinking) a matter of provenance, of source and origin...

So, to return to Primary Thinking - we cannot explain it as a process, indeed that is its nature to be inexplicable as a process - else it would not be primary (and instead 'the process' would be primary).

We know primary thinking by knowing that we do it - more exactly, that we have been-doing it: that our real self has-been-thinking. We cannot look-within the process of primary thinking - because primary thinking is what eventuates-from our real self. We know primary thinking by recognising that it has-eventuated - we recognise primary thinking as a product-of our real self, thinking...

Therefore, the deepest understanding is not of (inevitably incomplete and biased) abstract models of processes; but knowledge of the nature of the beings that constitute reality.


Aside: All this is why and how Christians can correctly regard love as primary in God's creation - which would not make sense if ultimate understanding of creation was of the nature of physics or mathematics. Love is primary because beings are primary - thus ultimate reality is alive, conscious, purposive.  

It is an error, a self-deception, to harp-on about Time: to use concepts of Time as an-always-present, simultaneous, reversible, meaningless... Or that Time is No Time, All Time, Arbitrary Time...

I have read a great deal of Christian and New Age writing that uses some non-common-sense version of Time as the core explanatory concept. These are 'explaining' phenomena and spiritual ideas in terms that Time is Not (as it seems) linear and sequential and irreversible - but instead Time is actually something else... Such as every moment always present, Time is an illusion of mortal life, that the future creates the present, that the past can be changed - and so forth.


I know from my own case; that such Time talk may produce a bewildered and disorientated frisson of 'enlightenment', 'insight', spiruality'...  It temporality provides an aura of mystery and magic. But I also know that it goes nowhere. Time talk paralyses life if taken seriously - and if not taken seriously it dissipates and diverts proper effort.

People have been harping about Time in the mainstream for more than a century, and if one examines the results - they are not impressive. The very mode by which people describe their Time ideas tends towards extreme abstraction, the mathematical, bureaucratic; it is dull, life-less.

It Doesn't Work.


Okay - we may agree on what does Not work, and we can stop doing Those Things. Yet that knowledge is of little value unless we know what to do instead: as always it's a case of: If Not - Then What?

Well, we should accept that we live in Time, amd that time is linear, sequential, irreversible - albeit it may run at different speeds for different persons and in different places. And this is especially the case for Christians; because Christianity is about a Saviour born at a particular point in Time, who changes reality from that Time; and whose gift is a resurrection to Heaven that may happen to either or both of us in the future, but has not happened yet.

We need, I suggest, to avoid Time as an abstraction; and also abstraction and sytematisation in general: no schemes, no models, no lists, no bullet points...

For Christians we start with Love; and that means from actually-existing Love. Start from where we are, as particular persons - Not starting from what we 'ought' to love, but from what we do love. And we shouldn't expect, strive for, hope-for permanence in the things of this mortal life; we should not aim at progress in the transient things of our life on this earth.



Mortal life is about Learning, but this is Not the learning of 'psychology', nor the learning sustained by memories - which are transient, brain-dependent, mortal things...

Real learning could be defined as experienced-experience! Learning happens when we really live and notice our experience.

Real learning is when our real-self (which is divine) has an experience.

Our real-self is eternal, and does not depend on our body: this real-self is what lived as spirit before this mortal life, and what gets resurrected after death - if we accept the gift of Jesus Christ. Therefore, anything learned by the real-self is learned forever.


No amount of shallow experience by our false, transient, 'personality' selves amounts to the learning we need...

Backpacking across the Sahara or up Everest is completely worthless unless the real-self experiences something; as should be obvious from the shallow dullness of nearly-all the breed of travellers and explorers; and the spiritual trivialisation that has increased with the range and scope of journeying in the modern world.

The real self never experiences the desert or the mountain - only the transient personalities are affected by it. "I took my fake-self through X and Y extreme and exotic experiences". In the end - who cares? It has no more profound or lasting a significance than watching tonight's 'news' on TV.

One who actually experiences, with his real-self, the act of sitting on a chair and gazing out of the window - has learned something in his life; which very probably cannot be said of another individual who walked on the moon.

Obviously!


But really-experiencing experience is (for most people) difficult, intermittent, brief. There is no obvious way that we can make such things happen: certainly methods and training have proved themselves ineffectual.

Is spiritual 'progress' then even a possibility? And what would such progress mean, in terms of the real-self? - how could we know?

Well, yes progress is possible whenever the real self has experience; and significant progress actually-happens when that experience is one that we personally need.


We are all incarnated into this mortal life with different needs from our earthly lives; and when our real-self has experiences that address those needs, then we have made spiritual progress.

Often, these needed experiences are to-do-with Love; and that is why we should look for such experiences in relation to those we Love. That is our only 'method' the only 'technique'...

In other words; if we want to make spiritual progress - we would be best advised to starts from whatever person or other entities that we now-and-already Love; and Not to start from any kind of external-generic description, prescription, formula, flow-chart... 

And when we die, our real-selves will be that-much-better from those experiences.


This can be understood as our destiny. Our destiny is those experiences that we need from this temporary incarnation, and would benefit-from. And it is a task of our life to experience those experiences in particular... Not just to have the experiences in an external and behaviouristic sense, but for the real-self to experience them. 

Can we know that this has actually happened? Well here I cannot speak for others; but it seems to me that I do know the broad nature of my spiritual progress through life by the Golden Thread of enduring and special memories.

I'm not sure what each of these experiences on the thread means; but I am sure that these experiences happened when real-learning happened.

Like all memories, these are presumably dependent on the temporarily incarnate body; but they seem to have a special quality by which they were marked-out; and which reassure me that 'progress has been made', and that my life has not been in vain.  

It was not always thus; but since around the millennium is has become evident that Men become what they think; and Men can choose what they think...

But we cannot think whatever we choose!

It superficially seems that we could think... whatever we wanted! - but this is not the case. In order to think most of the things that Mass men now think; each Man must choose to switch-off awareness of his own real-divine Self and plug-into external thought-control.  

This is why the masses are willingly addicted to the media - because it is the mass media that externally controls each Man's thinking, in the way that he has chosen to allow his thinking to be controlled. 

Consequently, Man has mostly become... whatever the dominant world power currently want him to become...

One who denies his own nature as a Man, his own divine destiny - and who instead chooses to regard himself (a bottom line) as a soul-less animal without free agency; an accidental collection of chemicals doomed at death to eternal and absolute annihilation. 

Or a frenzied and resentful partisan for one or another of the abstract, demonic, leftist projects that drive -forward the agenda of evil.  

The only compensation of Mass Man is from feelings; and feelings are also (and increasingly) controlled by the same external powers - who induce fear and despair or optimism and pleasure; social isolation or purposive-belonging; idealism or pragmatism... according to Their external goals.    

But God desires that we each be actively and consciously responsible for our own thinking. 

If you decide to do this; you will find it hard to break the habit of allowing external control, and to become aware of your Real Self thinking. 

And (far from being able to think whatever we want, and make ourselves whatever we thus think) we become aware that this Real Self is divine, and aligned with God's creative nature and plans. 

Thus we can only think that which is Good - yet that Good must still be chosen if we want Good to eventuate from our thinking.  

(Nothing Good happens automatically or passively; God works his creation by consent and choice.) 

If this inner-awareness of the Real Self Thinking can be attained (albeit briefly and infrequently) you will sooner or later (if alert for it) also become somewhat aware of another external source of guidance - The Holy Ghost. 

This is not something we can control: for instance, it is seldom we can get an answer from the Holy Ghost to any old question we try to put to Him. This is because most questions are meaningless or wrongly-motivated. 

But when a real and well-motivated question is formed - it is answered instantly and effortlessly. We will get the guidance we need, the knowledge we need - and nothing else!

To ask properly is to be answered. It is the asking of a proper question that is so difficult. 

I know of nothing more encouraging and energizing than the sense of range and positive creative value that is intrinsic to thinking from the real self (primary thinking, as I have termed it).  

It is that solid assurance which sustains faith. It is a knowing that dispels doubt. It underpins assurance purpose and meaning in this mortal life. It is of boundless scope, and positively-transformative value. 

Real Thinking, and that understanding which Thinking enables, is the most important thing we can do; and the most necessary - for our-selves and The World. 

Note added: The above discourse sounds as if each individual Man was isolated and alienated - but not so! Primary thinking is also what enables us to 'connect' directly with other Beings in this created universe - consisting-of Beings. Thus we can (to some extent - albeit only as frequently and only for as long as both Beings maintain alignment with God's creative will) experience direct-knowing of other Beings; including (but not restricted to) men and women (as well as the Holy Ghost). 

The Transhumanist agenda (like most things) has two sides to it - depending on motivation.

For well-motivated transhumanists, for therapeutic transhumanists (as we might call them - a category including most of the people who openly call themselves by that name of transhumanism); it is the project to alleviate all pain and distress, maximise gratification and fulfillment, abolish ageing and sustain human life indefinitely. In other words, it is a kind of extrapolation of medicine from treatment into enhancement.


At a mild and quantitative level, this soft-transhumanism has nearly always been a part of human life - the idea to use human knowledge and technology to enhance human life. But taken as an imperative, when regarded as a kind of religion-substitute; even well-motivated transhumanism is deadly - because by its focus on trans-cending human limitations, it implies trans-forming humans into something else...

So that if the human condition entails suffering, then humans ought to be abolished; if humans cannot be prevented from ageing, then we should devise some alternative 'life' that is immune to ageing; if humans persist in dying, then humans should be replaced by something that doesn't die...

If the abolition of suffering is the primary goal, it implies the abolition of life - which would be the only way of ensuring that nobody and nothing suffered. Bottom line transhumanism is therefore only one step away from advocating death as prophylaxis.

Transhumanism also provides no reason for having children - and many reasons to avoid having children - since children usually suffer, and are typically a cause of suffering in their parents. The safe option is to avoid them.

Or, short of death, abolishing human consciousness, which greatly intensifies the possibilities of suffering. This suggests that a lobotomised life, a tranquillised life, a sedated life, a false-virtual life, a drugged-euphoric life are all preferable to a conscious and free life insofar as they entail less suffering or more pleasure. Even if such a life led to rapid death, it would be preferable on a purely hedonic calculus. 


But there is another side to transhumanism; which is the transhumanism that denies itself and operates by deception and dishonesty.

This is the transhumanism of mainstream, modern, almost-ubiquitous totalitarianism - a  transhumanism that aims at omni-surveillance and micro-control of the population.

This transhumanism sells itself as hedonic - as enhancing - but is motivated by the agenda of control. It is the strategic push for intercommunicating 'smart' technology, for omnipresent cameras and microphones, a society in which everyone carries a tracking device (smart phone) that monitors their activity to a fine level of discrimination - and seeks always to extend this (artificial 'intelligence', self-driving cars, the skies filled with drones...) - and to make it mandatory (microchip implants etc.).

This transhumanism has infiltrated medicine, with a massive and expanding use of prescribed psychotropic drugs - mostly SSRI-type 'antidepressants' and 'antipsychotics' marketed as 'mood stabilisers'...

These types of drugs (especially when given to young children and teens and essentially normal adults, as at present)  have a pronounced overall tendency to blunt emotions and induce a state of indifference - to partially-zombify people, to put it crudely. They all tend to increase suicide rates. Certainly they do more harm than good, overall - yet usage continues to expand - driven by serious problems of drug dependence and withdrawal symptoms, which are denied and hidden.

Much the same applies to the top-down mass campaigns of propaganda, funding and coercion to induce 'gender' uncertainty and same-sex attraction in children; and to 'treat' such situations with permanently harmful hormones and mutilating surgery. This is a crystal clear case of totalitarian transhumanism pushing forward under the guise of therapeutic transhumanism.


This totalitarian transhumanism is, I believe, an existential approach to social engineering, a core aspect of spiritual warfare; driven by the demonic powers of evil, and with the ultimate aim of compelling humans actually to want and to choose damnation.


So far, this totalitarian transhumanism has been spectacularly successful in persuading people that this is what they want. In this post-religious, anti-religious world it seems that most people are not just prepared to trade off freedom and privacy for amusement and convenience - they are positively queueing-up, and shelling-out large sums of money, to do so...

This totalitarian transhumanist agenda aims to implement a comprehensive system of surveillance and control so complete and dominant that it will be able to shape human emotions, motivations and knowledge as required.

My point here is to ascertain whether they are correct - supposing the totalitarian transhumanist agenda does, as seems to be happening, go-through to a very high level of completion. Suppose the world becomes one of omni-surveillance and micro-monitoring and control of behaviour...

Suppose the world is a single gigantic and interlinked System which affects the entirety of perception and extends into our bodies (via brain and hormone influencing microchips, or whatever might replace them).

Suppose that the demonic evil powers are in control of this total-system - so that they decide what we perceive - and are substantially able to entrain our emotions, and our reasoning processes.

Is this lethal to human agency or freedom of will; or not? Is a wholly controlled human brain-and-body also a wholly controlled person?

The answer is metaphysical - not evidential. If we believe that there is in Man that which is eternal and divine - the Real Self then that will always be free, agent, able to choose... If we believe that Real Self stands-outside of 'material' reality - and controlling the brain and body does not control  the Real Self...

In other words, if the arena of freedom is thought, and if the thinking of the real self is immaterial - then this cannot be touched by the most successful totalitarian agenda; and the demonic plan is destined to fail.


So, are the demons making a mistake? Are they wrongly supposing that they can control thought  by controlling the brain?

No - it is Not a mistake - because the demons already have in-place a metaphysical system which negates the Real Self.


For a long time, materialism (positivism, scientism, reductionism) has been the inbuilt assumption of official, media and all public discourse. This discourse intrinsically assumes that the Real Self cannot exist, because nothing immaterial (nothing spiritual) can exist. So the mind is wholly the brain, and the brain is the mind - and everything else is an illusion, a deception, a mistake...


In practice, this means that although the Real Self cannot be controlled, and cannot be destroyed; the situation has long since been created and sustained that the Real Self can be ignored - indeed ought-to-be ignored, since it is irrelevant, imaginary, an epiphenomenon. Insofar as the thinking of the Real Self reaches awareness, it will therefore be ignored or rejected.

As I have said, this has been going on for a long time by now. For example; a century ago Freud replaced Conscience - which concept carried a quasi divine imperative; with the Superego - which was implanted by parents and teachers as a mechanism of social control. At a stroke, the promptings of conscience changed from potentially divine nudgings, to an instrument of oppression that should be suppressed or ignored.

In a future totalitarian transhumanist society, the same would apply. Our Real Selves would still be present, and free agents; but we would - by our metaphysical assumptions - regard the Real Self as false, unreal, deceptive... and we would suppress or ignore it.

Thus the Real Self is utterly negated by inbuilt (often unconscious) metaphysical assumptions; and the merely-brain processing is a wholly-controlled unit of The System. Humanity has been captured - and can be directed to any goal desired...


I think this is a very important matter for us to get clear - since at present it looks very much as if the strategy of totalitarian transhumanism will succeed. There is little insight about the intentions and implications of current trends in surveillance and control. There is a general metaphysical denial of the immaterial and the divine.

Everything is in place - and the only delay is caused by the process of rolling-out the technology everywhere and to affect everyone...

Is there hope it will fail? Of course there is hope - each and any person can reject the agenda. I'm just saying that it does not look like this is happening.


The other hope - which is more realistic - is that the modern System will collapse before it can be fully implemented. I find this quite likely to happen - since there is a genetic decline in human capability (from the chosen sterility of the most intelligent and able population, and from the accumulation of deleterious mutations due to relaxed natural selection).

Geniuses have all-but disappeared from The West, we have already almost-ceased to make significant 'breakthroughs' in science and technology; and the failure would be expected to spread to R&D incremental development, then to repair and maintenance, then to the ability to manufacture and distribute...

And all this is exacerbated and accelerated by the deliberate dysfunctionality of 'affirmative action' preferences for women, specific races and classes, non-Christians, and those who identify with the goals of the Sexual Revolution. So we are not even trying to have the best people doing the most important jobs. 


So, it is not unlikely that the totalitarian transhumanist agenda - which requires mass advanced technology and a reasonably-competent workforce - will be intercepted and prevented through our faults and blindness and wicked intent; rather than because of our understanding, foresight or virtue.

Prevented, therefore, by a wholesale collapse of modern civilisation; of agriculture, manufacture, medicine, trade and transport - with rapid and colossal mortality (measured in billions) from starvation, disease and violence.

Yet even that scenario (entailing the greatest quantity of acute suffering the world has yet seen) would almost certainly be better than the alternative of a permanent, comprehensive, global system of damnation...


Note added: I forgot to mention that in talking of transhumanism I speak as something of an ex-insider of the 'therapeutic' style of the thing. I was writing from this perspective in my psychiatric and psychopharmacology writings from about 1998 up to the middle/ late 2000s - and my writings from this era were and are hosted on David Pearce's hedweb.com server (Dave being one of the co-founders of the World Transhumanist Association, now renamed Humanity+). There is a video on YouTube from the summer of 2008, of a lecture I gave in which I set out the possible futures as Transhumanist or Religious. It was shortly after making this clear to myself that I became a Christian.

It was seemingly difficult for Owen Barfield to express clearly what he meant by Final Participation of human consciousness - indeed I think he exhibited a reluctance to be explicit on this point.

I now feel I have sufficiently understood Final Participation to re-explain it in my own words; but in doing so I take a step further than Barfield was willing to go in most public fora; and I think I can understand why.

To make Final Participation clear involves acknowledging its basis in Christianity - which has a tendency to alienate non-Christians; while at the same time claiming to move-forward-from, and in that sense 'supercede' Historical Christianity - which would tend to alienate most Christians: thereby leaving Barfield with only a very small audience!

Anyway, whether or not the above understanding is a correct guess: here is my understanding of the assumed historical sequence of Original Participation - going through various phases to our current almost wholly-alienated Modern Western Consciousness Soul - to Final Participation.

The key concept is theosis, which is the process of becoming divine. The consciousness of theosis therefore clearly depends on the concept of the divine: in becoming like-god it depends what we understand by god.

Original Participation was the situation of the first Men - who lived in hunter gatherer societies. They understood the divine to be something like energies in a process of circulation and transformation. Theosis was therefore the living daily experience of participating in these energies and transformations. The system was closed, all is as it was and ever will be. Man is part of the divine, but not a separate self.

This was the childhood of Man.

Then came the start of an increasing degree of self-consciousness, of Man as aware of Himself as an Agent with 'free will'; which brought with it an increasing sense of separation from the divine. At first the separation was only temporary and could be overcome by the activities of priest, performing rituals, in temples - and the ultimate aim was to restore each man into the divine. Mundane life was an exile - the aim was reabsorption of the individual self-consciousness back into the divine consciousness. Man conceived himself as as 'a worm', with the merest glimmer or vestige of autonomy - and that autonomy essentially wicked.

By stages, over many centuries, the separation of self-consciousness and awareness of the self as unique increased until it became almost (but never fully) complete; so that now and for many generations Man regards himself no longer as a worm, but as the only god - which either leads to absolute (but brittle) pride at his self-creation of his own reality out of nothing; or (and eventually) to despair at his belief that therefore reality depends on his own continuous creation and is therefore feeble and temporary and doomed to end with death - Man regarding himself as something even-less-than a worm.

At this stage theosis has stopped, is no longer a purpose, life has no meaning outside of the contigent and ephemeral and private subjective consciousness.

This is the adolescence of Man.

Final Participation is the renewal of a new kind of theosis in which God and the Self are both regarded as real (eternally real) - and there are many selves, each on the path towards divinity. So the aim is not immersive participation in divine energies; it is not reabsorption into the divine; but the aim of Final Participation is instead to participate in the process of ever more, and ever more loving and creative, relationships between the many eternal selves of Men on the one hand and God (in divine multiplicity) on the other hand.

Final Participation is Final because the system is no longer closed (as it was in Original Participation) but open-ended and capable of eternal expansion, as we as individuals each and collectively grow towards a divinity of the same kind and level as God - but an unique, and continually added-to divinity; and with many others (being added-to) all around us, in relationships with us, who are doing the same.

To move towards Final Participation we need to consider the nature of our relationship with the divine - and that we are to understand ourselves as immature and very-partial divinities - but that God has a loving and paternal relationship with us; so we need have nothing to fear from him and an attitude of trust and confidence in him as he will always want the best for us and work for that end.

For Final Participation, therefore, we need to see God as a person and a personal friend; and not somebody or some-thing vast and mysterious to be awed by and needing to be appeased, not somebody to be pleaded-with, nor an alien and incomprehensible being to be worshipped - and not an abstract infinite perfection which we seek to 'lose ourselves' into. At least, such attitudes cannot be foremost and regulative of our relation to God - but only background, exceptional and temporary.

Of Course, God condescends greatly to meet us at our level, and for that we should be grateful; but having said that we just need to put aside that fact and get on with the relationship at our own childish or adolescent level (just as a child knows that the adult is condescending to play, but the play cannot be play unless that condescension is 'forgotten' while the play is in progress). Respectful friendliness, trust, confidence - and an 'equality' which (like the child's in play with  parent, as he grows) is not less real for continually being superceded by higher levels of maturing and diminishing magnitudes of difference. 

Barfield - following Coleridge - saw reality in terms of distinguishable, dynamic but not separable polarities. The Polarity of Final Participation may be between God as an eternal and fully-divine person; and each of ourselves as eternal and partially-divine persons. The poles never to be united, but always bound-together in dynamic process, energized by that thing we could call Love - so long as we are clear that Love contains many positive aspects such as creativity, intelligence, power...

In sum - the movement from Original to Final Participation (leaving-out the long transitional state that occupies recorded history, and in which we still seem to be 'stuck') is therefore centred on the work of Christ; understood as enabling the change from theosis as loss of the self and reabsorption back-into the divine - to theosis as a stronger and maturing self-awarness and consciousness; closer and closer towards the adulthood of a full friend-like relationship between the personal loving God and his growing-up child.

It is the lived experience of this theosis which is Final Participation.

*

Note added: Having posted the above I almost immediately came upon an explicit confirmation of my interpretation on page 154 of What Coleridge Thought by Owen Barfield:

...The polarity God [polar-with symbol] Man is the basis of all polarity, in nature and elsewhere.

This leads to my final summary:

Original Participation = Divine Unity
Consciousness Soul = Human Separateness
Final Participation = Divine-Human Polarity

When I think rigorously about what is required for 'true creativity' by a Man, then it seems that a pretty extensive set of pre-requisites must be in place; such that true creativity is only possible to some people, at some times and places in history. 

Human creativity is possible because of divine creativity: we dwell 'in' God's creation; so, for a Man's creativity to be real entails first that it comes from the Man himself - from his unique personal 'self'; and second that it harmonizes with divine creation. 

If creativity does not come from the Man himself, then what we have is just an instance of divine creation. 

Through most of history (in most places) Men did not claim to be creative, because their experience was that creativity came from God (or the gods). This was sometimes called inspiration; reflecting that it was breathed-in from some other source - from the divine, from the muses or whatever. 

So most of creativity in the past was not the product of an individual person - because the individual was merely a conduit for the divine; a tool or instrument of the divine. 

This kind of creativity is therefore real - and it harmonizes with divine creation - but it is not personal, its creative aspect is of-God, not of-Man. 

On the other hand; every-thing (every thought or action) which comes from a person innately, from his Real (hence divine) Self; is not of God, is indeed personal - but it is not creative unless it harmonizes-with and adds-to divine creation. 

Thus, most things we do from our-selves is merely personal, is not from God but instead a product of a Man; and it is Not creative. It is indeed anti-creation. 

In other words; of itself, that which originates from Man will Not, of itself, be creative - because it will be individual and out-of-harmony with divine creation. It will therefore be (to a greater of lesser degree) damaging or subversive to divine creation. 

In order, therefore, for a Man to be genuinely creative; he must be sufficiently an independent agent that he can generate thought/action from-himself (rather than simply being a conduit channeling divine creation); and top be genuinely creative, he must also make the choice to align himself with divine creation by a voluntary act. 

All independent acts of a Man that are aligned with divine creation are therefore instances of true personal creativity - but the magnitude of achievement varies between a world-historical genius; and someone 'minor' or altogether unknown, who has lesser ability and application but who nonetheless does 'make a difference' (and an eternal difference) - but a small difference, yet in a positive direction. 

Thus all acts of true personal creativity add-to divine creation, but the amount by which they add to divine creation varies hugely in accordance with the 'stature' of individuals. 

The business of aligning with divine creation is what happens when a scientist is devoted to 'the Truth' or when an artist is devoted to 'Beauty' - both of these are types of alignment with the Reality of divine creation. 

The long period of attunement, learning, practice and preparation which leads-up to a work of genius is exactly this process of alignment. Once the individual is aligned with divine creation; then his spontaneous creativity will contribute to overall creation. 

This model also explains why recent generations of supposedly creative people have the form of the 'evil genius' - in that these are people of great ability who are Not aligned with the Reality of divine creation; and who therefore inevitable do harm to creation.