Bruce Charlton's Notions

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Since I encountered the idea in 1987, I have found it very difficult to grasp what Charles Williams meant by the Way of Affirmation, or Via Positiva.

This is not surprising in itself for two obvious reasons. The first is that I was far from being a Christian at that time (much further away than I imagined); the second is that it is always hard to understand Charles Williams on any subject! 

What I gathered was that he was putting forward a life of poetry and engagement with life - with the world and especially romantic love - as an alternative spiritual path, in contrast to the more obvious (and more obviously effective) negative path of withdrawal from the world, discipline of the mind and body and in general asceticism.

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Also related to this is the idea that there may be a way to God via Joy and embrace of mystical union as well as the more familiar path of awareness of sin and repentance.

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(Of course these paths are emphases rather than absolutes, there is always some mixture. Even an ascetic Saint requires some minimal conditions for the sustenance of their life.)

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The dangers of this line of thought are obvious. In general, young men don't need much encouragement to pursue a life of pleasure and call it joy, of sexuality and call it romance, of self indulgent hedonism and call it union with the divine!

Yet to state the hazards does not invalidate the idea, since the hazards are great along the other path: especially spiritual pride or prelest.

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Yet the idea of the positive way still seems vague, its success unsure and its relationship to the tried and tested and effective negative way unclear.

My current thoughts are as follows:

The negative way is essential to a Christian life. It is essential that each Christian begins with an awareness of the sinfulness - that is to say the worldliness, selfishness and gratification-seeking - of human life as such. It is essential that this be repented, and that the Christian ask God (via Christ) for forgiveness. It is essential, also, that some degree of control over worldly motivations be attained - some degree of asceticism - else the Christian will be merely a leaf in the wind of chance and circumstance.

So the negative way must come first.

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Beyond that perhaps requires a recognition of individuality.

I am unsure whether the positive path of affirmation reaches as high as the negative ascetic path: I know that the negative path leads to Sainthood, to an earthly life lived in heaven. I don't know whether the positive path can attain that. I don't know whether there were affirmative Saints.

Yet for an individual it may be possible that the way of affirmation may take them higher than asceticism.

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What does the via positiva aim to do?

I think it relates to the method used for orientating towards God.

The positive way tries to move towards communion with God via the activities of life: via Love and Work, especially.

This is sometimes expressed as consecration of these activities to God.

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Crudely, this might be done by (in effect) interrupting these activities by periods of reflection and prayer - but this is in fact to 'stop doing' the activity of loving or working for the duration of reflection and prayer, so is clearly unideal.

Attention can be only one place at a time, so this suggests that the consecration of love and work to God should not be a matter of self-awareness but be implicit.

And, given that spiritual striving should be continuous, it further suggests that the way of affirmation would need to establish a context of prayer for the activities of life. Not so much a background, as a permeating environment of prayer.

And this seems to point back to something like the formation of a habit of continuous use of the Jesus Prayer or other short prayers used with multiple repetitions  (although other methods are imaginable).


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Such matters are explained and described in Unseen Warfare as translated into English from the Russian version by Starets Theophan the Recluse:

The method was invented of saying short prayers, which would keep the thought of straying, nor of going outside. St. Cassian speaks of this, saying that in his time this practice was general in Egypt (Dicourses x.10). From the teachings of other fathers we see that it was used on Mount Sinai, in Palestine, In Syria, and in all other places throughout the Christian world.

What other meaning have the invocation: ‘Lord have mercy!’ and other short prayers, which fill our divine services and our psalmody? Thus, here is my advice: choose for yourself a short prayer or several such prayers, and by repeating by themselves on your tongue, and keep your thought focused on one point only-remembrance of God.

Everyone is free to choose his own short prayers. Read the Psalms. There you can find in every Psalm inspiring appeals to your state and most appeal to you.

Learn them by heart and repeat now one, now another, now a third. Intersperse your recital of prayers with these, and let them be on your tongue at all times, whatever you may be doing, from one set time of prayer to another. You may also formulate your own prayers, should they better express your need, on the model of the 24 short prayers of St. Chrysostom, which you have in your prayer book.

But do not have too many, lest you overburden your memory and lest your attention runs from one to the other, which will be totally contrary to the purpose for which they were designed- to keep attention collected. The 24 prayers of St. Chrysostom is the maximum; one can use less.

To have more than one is good for variety and to enliven spiritual taste; but in using them one should not pass from one to another too quickly. Taking one which corresponds best to your spiritual need, appeal to God with it until your taste for it becomes blunted.

You can replace all your psalmody, or part of it, by these short prayers; make it a rule to repeat them several times- ten, fifty and a hundred times, with lesser bows. But always keep one thing in mind- to hold your attention constantly directed towards God.

We will call this practice short prayerful sighings to God, continued at all moments of the day and of the night, when we are not sleeping.

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I first came across the idea of a Positive (as well as a Negative) Christian theology in the writings of Charles Williams - he also called it Romantic Theology and the Via Affirmativa or the path of affirmation of images. The general idea was that Christian theology had typically been a path of negation, denial, asceticism, celibacy - but that there was also a (neglected) path focused on romantic love, art and poetry, richness of imagery etc. Williams regarded these as equal alternatives.

But it is hard to see how they could be equal, since they are so different - alternatives, yes, but in real life one or other of such vastly different paths is surely to be preferred; one or another must become the focus of societal aspiration and organization - one cannot aim both at being a celibate, solitary ascetic hermit or monk; and also at being a husband and father engaged with 'the world'.

Charles Williams knew (so far as I can find) nothing about Mormonism - and he would likely have found it to be boring or unpleasant if he had known anything - but Mormonism has for a long time been advocating and practicing something pretty close to Positive Theology: a Christian 'way' focused on marriage, family and engagement; and with no tradition of monasticism or the eremitic (reclusive) life.


Fundamentally I believe there are very different aspects of human psychology at work behind the positive and negative paths. The negative path aims at the relief of suffering, and the positive path at making life more fulfilling.

To feel the desire for the Christian negative path seems to me a desire to escape the sufferings of this world and live, instead, in a state of static bliss - absorbed in a permanent communion with God (who is, in essence, an abstract entity about which nothing positive may be asserted): doing nothing, simply being.

In the negative path, Love is seen as a sameness, a fusion of wills, the loss of barriers and all strangeness.

And there is no sex - indeed there are no sexes: maleness and femaleness are lost.


To desire the positive path is to wish that the best things in life be amplified and sustained - it also stems from the concern that static bliss would (sooner or later) become boring; and the conviction that the only thing which is not, ultimately, boring is actual, real, other-persons.

The dyadic goal of Mormon salvation can be seen in this light - the ultimate bliss is not the state of an individual soul in permanent communion with God, it is a man and woman in a permanent and divine Loving relationship at the centre of a network of loving relationships including God the Father and Jesus Christ (who are solid persons).

The difference between this version of the positive ideal and the negative ideal is profound - because in a permanent and eternal dyadic and sexual relationship between husband and wife, there would not be a desire for fusion and sameness but rather a delight in fundamental and complementary difference.


Sexual difference, and sexuality, both entail difference - a you and a me: not communion nor fusion nor loss of self nor consciousness. Instead a perpetual delight that 'we' are not the same, but 'fit together'. There needs to be the perpetual possibility of being delight-fully surprised; which means that there can never be full communion. Indeed if communion is full, it renders void the separateness and necessity of the dyad.

If a husband and wife become one, they stop being husband and wife.

There is indeed a desire for surprise, for open-ended possibilities. Once static bliss is put aside as a goal; it becomes essential that eternal life be interesting, rewarding, creative and (in some sense) progressive or evolutionary - changing, growing, developing without end-point or end. Otherwise - if life were static, or merely cyclical - it would become predictable and boring, and we would prefer a state of blissful loss of self.


It seems to me that Heaven must either be mostly like either the Negative or Positive ideal and that God would have a preference between these goals for Man - but I do not see why Heaven would have to be exclusively the one or the other.

So I see the Positive Way as primary, and God's first wish for us, and the basis upon which eternal life and Heaven are organized. But I see the Negative Way as an option available (on Earth and in Heaven) to those who - more than anything - wish to escape from suffering and hope to lose-them-selves in blissful communion with the divine.


Note added: Charles Williams descriptions of Positive Theology are at least difficult to understand, and probably fundamentally incoherent - this is because Positive Theology is metaphysically Pluralist - or at least implies this; while Charles Williams was very much a Monist who sought always to reduce apparent dichotomies (e.g. Good and evil) to unity.

If relationship is an ultimate goal and possibility, then there must be at least two irreducible entities to have the relationship - because if Man and Woman can be reduced to one, and Man with God can be reduced to one, then reality is One; and Positive Theology merely an indirect and off-route means to the same end as that which Negative Theology aims-at directly: viz oneness.

So Mormons - as pluralists - are the true Romantic theologians; and Charles Williams is fundamentally and ineradicably confused!

Over the past few years, since I spent a year or so multiply re-reading the Fourth Gospel ("of John") in isolation; I have often emphasized the covertly-deceptive way in which double-negative formulations have colonized and distorted our minds and motivations - both in Christianity and in mainstream modern secular 'leftism'.  

Christians do themselves, as well their cause, long-term harm by their habitual (addictive?) use of double-negative theology. Indeed there is a very influential branch of theology and Christian practice that has elaborated this into a vast systematic edifice (the negative path, or via negativa) - plus, this is the basis of much 'eastern' religious philosophy in Buddhism, Hinduism (and Sufism).  

I think we can see the collapse of double-negative thinking in the 21st century; because its lack of simplicity and clarity render it incapable of dealing with the protean and pervasive challenges to faith of this era, as emanating from globalist totalitarianism with its linked-bureaucracies of governance and mass media. 

Negative motivations are counter-productive, because when all is illusion then individuals are (in practice) rendered passively obedient to that which is dominant. And, anyway, the number and strength - and fluidity - of deceptions are now too great to be individually discerned, diagnosed and rejected. 

In a world where (for many or most people) it is a case of me-against-the-world: - my Christianity against a world of demonic- materialist ideology - it seems we must be clear in our own minds; if we are not to be confused and bamboozled, and simply worn-down to impotent exhaustion by the relentless and increasing weight of error and evil.

For us, it is a case of motivation, motivation, motivation! 

Thus, we cannot anymore be motivated by such double-negatives as the avoidance of sin - most Christians who imagine this is possible are simply denying their own vast scale of sinning in domains such as dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Avoidance of sin is now effective (hence valid) only when there is a primary positive impulse towards Good. 

But most people's idea of The Good is some notion of altruism/ unselfishness/ helping-others - which is another negative value. In a world based on utilitarian hedonism, where 'other people' live materialistically - 'altruism' reduces to me trying to 'make' people happy, which is impossible; so it ends-up with the negative goal of diminishing suffering. 

(In practice, altruism at the political level entails a small class of super-powerful/ super-privileged/ super-rich individuals pretending to administer the world on behalf of the 'oppressed' by monopolizing and confiscating all resources - supposedly because this globalist-establishment are the 'agents' of 'social justice.)   

We cannot (if ever Men could) be motivated by a desire for 'freedom' - because freedom is a negative value that only gains motivating-power for Good, when there is some existing positive motivation towards Good that is being thwarted. 

We cannot, if we intend to accomplish Good, be motivated primarily by obedience to any external authority or institution; because all such are so corrupted that in practice Goodness can only be discerned and practiced by the independent thinking of individual persons, and their autonomy of thinking. 

And that returns us to the primary of personal motivation. 

In other words; it is now imperative for Christian Good both that individuals are motivated to think for themselves and do-so, and that they operate from baseline assumptions that are positively-motivating - which means simple and clear enough to be effective. 

In practice; each must discover these for himself. They are not available off-the-peg and will not be the values that get-inculcated-into the passively obedient or non-conscious, routine-thinker. 

Since the problem is insufficient motivation, we need to begin from whatever positive and good motivations we already have; and follow these motivations through, with honesty and diligence to... wherever they will lead. 

The Big Problem is that so few people seem to have the motivation even to recognize a problem with The World Now. 

This could - in theory - be because the world is now so pervasively and persuasively evil that Modern men are helpless against its temptations... But that would be to assume God has failed to give Men a reasonable chance of salvation...

Alternatively, it may be that Modern men are of innately poorer quality than Men of the past; that a mass of Men (especially in The West) are innately more dominated by evil, more prone to evil - and feebler in their strength of Good motivations than before. 

I regard this 'worse Men' as the most probable explanation for a world full of Men who do not even want to be Good; but who instead legislate and enforce inverted-true values, such that great evil is now called great good - and praised, rewarded and accorded the highest status. 

In other words: I assume that God is as Good as ever, as powerful a creator as ever; but the 'quality' of pre-mortal souls available for incarnation into this mortal life is lower than in the past. A lot of incarnated souls nowadays are less naturally-good/ more heavily disposed-towards evil, compared with the past. 

And therefore (here-and-now) all the major (large/ powerful/ wealthy/ high-status) human institutions of The Hegemonic West (including churches) are net-corrupted; are overall affiliated to the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world. 

Quite likely - you and I are similarly misaligned and enfeebled compared with Men of the past - although I would not be writing, you would not be reading, this - unless there we had at least some motivation to be motivated for Good... 

However... What worked for our ancestors may not work for us: since we are worse, and so is The World. 

We need things to be simpler, clearer and easier than They did; if we are to be able to develop and strengthen our embryonic Good-motivations into something positive by-which we can navigate our path against the current of a hostile evil-world of apparently overwhelming strength and scope. 

 

It is very striking to me, how negative are people's ideals now; compared with even fifty or a hundred years ago. 

And I mean negative in practice - not just in theory; because there have been negative religious theories for at least a couple of thousand years - yet in practice Christians had strong positive motivations. 

Negative Theology (Via Negativa) was prominent in Christianity (substantially inherited from pagan Romans and Greeks) in the early centuries AD. I mean the ascetic path of opposition to the world, elimination of temptation, and repudiation of "the flesh", which was taken to the greatest extreme by the hermit Desert Fathers. 

The Neo-Platonic theology (e.g. associated with Dionysius the Aeropagite) was one of explicit negation; that asserted we cannot know God except by knowing what God is Not, are dragged down by our instincts and desires. This in general down-rated or rejected marriage, family, creativity as paths to God; due to their excessive risk of temptation by fleshly pleasures - binding us to mortal life, its pleasures and pains. 

These desires were to be overcome by prolonged disciplines of deprivation and chosen suffering; so that we may learn control of them, and ultimately independence from them. 

Yet, in practice, there was at this time also a very powerful yet implicit positive desire for communion with God, to emulate (their idea of) Jesus Christ, and to dwell spiritually in Heaven even while on earth.

Therefore, the true situation was one in which there was strong positive desires that were unconscious and implicit; which were disciplined and shaped by the explicit rituals and practices of a negative nature. 

Through human history, these unconscious and implicit positive instincts have dwindled, until many modern people are hardly aware of them, deny their validity, and often altogether deny their presence. People (especially in The West) are no longer guided by positive implicit instincts towards God, the spirit, higher consciousness... 

Instead we are guided by external human-originated ideals - especially the dominant ideology of 'secular-leftist-materialism' that underpins all of social and political discourse and institutions in The West. 

If an individual rejects the dominant ideology, he must (as a rule) do so by an explicit and consciously chosen act of will. 

Interestingly, even the ideology of left-materialism itself has been subject to the same trends in consciousness. It has gone from containing a considerable largely-unconscious and implicit positive element; to being almost wholly negative in its ideals, and oppositional in its practices. 

When it began to emerge a couple of hundred years ago, leftism often shared in the (mostly unconscious) positive goals of Christianity; so that there were many "Christian socialists" in the UK (from the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England, as well as Nonconformist churches), who (albeit misguidedly) saw socialism as a means to the end of a more Christian society. These were a significant cultural phenomenon into the middle 20th century. 

Even among the explicitly materialist-atheist leftists of the late nineteenth century - such as the revolutionary communist William Morris and the gradualist Fabian George Bernard Shaw - there was strong (albeit un-theorized, un-grounded) positive assumption concerning the goals of leftism. 

Such Men would argue that socialism was a necessary/ the best means to achieve the kind of society that was 'common-sensically' (by appeal to universal evaluations) regarded as a good environment for positive virtues. 

For Morris that was a quasi-Medieval agrarian society in which the arts and crafts thrived, and were universal - a world of craftsmen and artists, for whom labour was an altruistic joy. 

For Shaw it was a modern industrial society where all were allocated an equal income that made accessible all the higher things in life (arts, sciences etc). The purpose of universal and equal prosperity was to enable Men to pursue 'mystical' goals; such as attaining higher consciousness - en route to a somewhat Platonic world of pure intelligences whose gratification was contemplation, and untrammeled creativity.

For the likes of Morris, Shaw and other early socialists; the desirability of such a society was self-evident; but it is no longer self-evident in 2022. Indeed, such utopian schemes are all-but off the map, seldom mentioned; and so weakly believed (if at all) that such ideals are unable significantly sustain a life or even (noticeably) to influence behaviour.  

What I mean is that - diminishing, but evident until about the middle-20th century - the underlying, even if unstated, belief even on the Left was that if the obstacles to a better and higher life could be removed by socialism (or feminism, antiracism, an economy of common ownership etc) - then a better and higher life would spontaneously emerge - because that (it was assumed) was what Men wanted.

And it was that better/ higher life that was the ultimate justification of leftism. 

 

Well, that concept has become meaningless, and since the 1960s, as the New Left has focused on negative aims, without any positive sense of where this is going, or what state of society it is trying to achieve, or what people are supposed to do and live-by in a future society. Contra Morris; the arts and crafts, guilds and professions, small villages and farming as a vocation; have all declined catastrophically. And, contra Shaw; Men are more, not less, focused on materialism, consumption and shallow pleasures and dissipating distractions.  

Underlying such changes in both Christianity and Leftism is this waning of the unconscious and implicit, ultimately spiritual and self-justifying, ideal of The Good Life.  

Now we must consciously choose God, Jesus Christ, and to live by the transcendental values of divine creation. These are not longer spontaneously generated from within ourselves. 

On the one hand; we are free-er than Men used to be; because we are no longer subject to uncontrollable drives from unconscious motivations. 

On the other hand; if we do not choose correctly; then we are prone to purposelessness, meaninglessness and therefore despair - in a way that used to be extremely rare, even among the explicit atheists and nihilists of 100-plus years ago. 

I have often commented on the deep problems with the double-negative theology in mainstream Christianity. 

It is double-negative because it regards the problem of this life as sin, and the work of Jesus Christ as purging us of this sin - of removing this sin from us. 

This mortal life is therefore conceptualized negatively, as dominated by sin; and Jesus's work is the negation of this negative - i.e. removing sin, so that we can be resurrected into Heaven: a double-negative. 

This concept regards Heaven as a perfection, and mortal Men as imperfect due to sin; so we cannot enter Heaven until we are ridded of sin - and that is what Jesus made possible. 

So, by one means or another (and this means differs between Christian denominations), before we get to Heaven we go through a process whereby sin is removed (purged) from us, and what is left-over is wholly-good, and therefore we are allowed to enter Heaven.

To enter Heaven is understood as a willingness to undergo this purgation, this 'amputation' of our sinful elements.   

I find many problems with this set of ideas - which boil down to this concept being an implicit an assertion of the idea that God (the Creator and our loving Father) has put us into a sinful world, ourselves being riddled with sin; and that to reach Heaven we must have this sin stripped out from us - implying that what is allowed into Heaven is an incomplete version of ourselves... 

(Indeed, perhaps, for very sin-full people, there will not be much of ourselves remaining, by the time we are suitable for Heaven.)

The purpose of this mortal life - according to such theology - is to reject sin: a negative purpose.  

I find this kind of behaviour - imputed to God - incompatible with him being a loving Father; who might have created things differently and better.

And I find the idea of this mortal life as a negative motivation (against sin, which sin is against-God) both inadequate and somewhat repugnant. It points at the via negativa - a life of rejection that amounts to life turned-against life.

Whereas I feel in my heart (and from the example of Jesus Christ, who was incarnate, active, positive), that this mortal life is - or ought to have - a positive purpose. We ought to be able to become better through our living (experiencing and learning), rather than merely 'avoiding becoming worse'.   

Instead, I see 'sin' as essentially meaning 'death' (which is clear from the Fourth Gospel) - and also the other forms of anti-creative innate corruption and decay that lead up to death (and which modern physics terms entropy). 

Sin in this sense, is the severing of our souls from our bodies at death - and it is this 'death' which Jesus overcame himself, and made possible for those who followed his path. 

Sin, more broadly, is a turning-away from what God desires from us. And a turning-away is not dealt with by purgation but by turning us in the right direction - permanently!

In other words, the main thing that Jesus did is to bring the possibility of eternal life; and this life as a resurrection of our real selves, and with a body - destined for a Heaven where all beings are turned in a direction in harmony with divine creation. 

All beings in Heaven have made an eternal commitment to God's creative goals. 

Rather than a purgation of all that is worst in our-selves; I see the work of Jesus in terms of an amplification of our-selves at their best. 

In this mortal life we find ourselves, intermittently and infrequently - turned in a Heavenly direction. So we know from experience what it is like to live in harmony with divine creation - to work with (rather than against) God.

(We also know what it is like to be turned-away from God and creation - what this feels like, where it leads; and we may learn something of how to overcome this turned-away state in ourselves) 

To prepare us for life in Heaven is therefore something like making it possible for us to stay permanently turned in the direction of Heaven and Creation, in permanent harmony with God's creative will. 

For this to happen, we each must choose whether to allow it to happen. 

Do we want the best in ourselves to become our whole self - or not? 

(This naturally entails leaving-behind those things that can only be achieved by going against God and creation - but the positive reason is that we desire wholly to be our best selves; and because we want to dwell eternally in a situation where we can whole-heartedly and actively work for such goals.)

It is a matter of what we want, and what we want most. 

By analogy; if this mortal life is a walk; then it is a walk when we spin around: sometimes walking with God, sometimes off on a tangent, sometimes pushing against the direction of God. 

Those who choose to follow Jesus Christ, are those who value most - indeed, at root, deeply-value only - those times when they are walking with God (times when they are motivated by love, and participating in the work of divine creation). 

Those who choose Heaven are those who want to do this walking-in harmony with God and sharing God's goals all the time - because they value love and creativity above all else; and indeed these are ultimately the only things of mortal life that they truly, everlastingly value. 

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If alienation (and not sin) is the main self-perceived malaise of modern man - and alienation is life as purposeless, meaningless and the human self as isolated from relationships with the world - then the cure for alienation is mysticism.

If modern Christianity lacks a significant mysticism, then it will fail to attract the alienated souls - who will either dull their pain with distractions and intoxicants, or look to non-Christian spirituality and mysticism.

Yet mysticism was, and is, an aspect of Christianity, part of the fullness of Christianity.

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Christian mysticism is directed at attaining communion with God. An example is the Orthodox Hesychast tradition which may involve ascetic disciplines and prolonged prayer (The Jesus Prayer, and similar short repeated prayers).

However, this solitary striving is pursued under monastic discipline, accompanied by frequent daily participation in numerous formal religious rituals and liturgies.

From a Christian perspective, detached mysticism, solo mysticism - indeed any seeking of advanced and unusual religious experiences outwith Christianity - is hazardous, indeed may be spiritually fatal (that is, fatal to salvation) - because its motivations are flawed: sensation-seeking, power-seeking and pride.

For Christians, pride is the worst of sins, because it sets the self above God, and mystical striving has a strong tendency to induce spiritual pride - which may be very resistant to correction. 

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There is also a non-Christian 'aesthetic' mysticism which may be well-motivated, implicitly motivated towards communion with God - albeit incompletely so, absent the necessary mediation of Christ.

This high motivation will - however - tend to become corrupted by sensation-seeking, power-seeking and pride; since these are powerful and the fallen human has - if unaided by Grace - no ability to resist (or even identify) that which is intrinsic to his nature.

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So - the main mystical tradition in Christianity is in Eastern Orthodoxy - and that is the path of asceticism under monastic discipline - the Via Negativa (Negative Way), the path of rejecting the world and worldly distractions, aiming at a direct approach to God, by Love of Christ.

But Charles Williams emphasized the other mystical path, the Via Positiva or Positive Way, the indirect aim - the aim at becoming more Holy via love of God's creatures (i.e. God's created things and beings).

This is the Christianity of Man engaged with the world - engaged with art, music, philosophy, mathematics, crafts, farming, care of a family...

And especially it is the path of Mysticism of Love - what C.W. called Romantic Theology.

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Thus the path of the Positive Way, the Love of created things, is often through the mysticism of marriage and family.

A recognition that marriage is sacred, a sacrament.

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Interestingly, the greatest, most focused modern Christian exponents of the Via Positiva are Mormons - whose distinctively concrete theology places the married couple and their children at the centre of God's plan of salvation - such that the highest salvation is available only to the married, and mystically sealed marriages and families are continued into the afterlife. Perhaps as a part of the same emphasis, Mormons reject the Via Negativa in its purest form - there are no Mormon monasteries (at least, not yet).

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Modern Christianity needs, as a matter of extreme urgency and importance, to restore its mysticism. It needs to restore the use of sublime language, music and architecture; to encourage a revival of monasticism; and also it needs to restore the mysticism of Love, Marriage and Family.

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The Western powers standard procedure for doing evil dirty-work is via proxies. 

In international politics, this means via bribing/ blackmailing national leaders - or 'opposition' leaders, bribing/ blackmailing 'terrorist' and 'protest' groups... 

Bribing/ blackmailing other-people to do whatever evil we want done. 

In within-nation politics it means buying/ blackmailing proxies such as Corporations, Trades Unions, NGOs, charities, think tanks, 'opposition' parties, mass media controllers - and indeed the leadership of any and every significant institution - from lawyers and doctors, teachers and researchers, priests and pastors, police and military. 

Such indirect action via proxies is slower, less reliable, uncertain in outcome - but highly effective when the work is primarily destructive - and the most 'advanced' form of evil (what I term 'Sorathic' evil) is, indeed, very 'purely' destructive in its motivation.  

As Sorathic evil increasingly takes-over dominance from the previously hegemonic Ahrimanic evil (i.e. an evil aiming primarily at control, rather than directly at destruction; the evil of bureaucratic totalitarianism); we can see more and more acts of purposive destruction; performed by increasingly numerous, remote and distanced proxies.

The effects are unpredictable - but that does not matter to the Sorathic spirit, since increasing destruction is easy to accomplish, and can be attained by many routes and methods.  

Whoever is behind the evil acts, whoever was motivated to do them and made the decision - is, in practice, nearly always separated from the 'implementation' by several removes.  

More often than not - this person or group is unknown, and unknowable - they 'get away with it'; and the official blame (if any) always lands elsewhere: usually on the proxy minion/ hit man who did the dirty-work; sometimes on the proxy boss who was bribed/ blackmailed to arrange the 'hit'. 

Thus those with greatest power are distanced from the action, and from the consequences of their decisions; and are always able publicly to deny and avoid responsibility for them - and even to deny that they have any significant power. 

Such is the way that the world operates. It is totalitarian, but a very different totalitarianism from that of a century ago; where the Dictators were famous/ notorious - known to all; and operated via a personal cult. 

Dictators often made a point of claiming power and responsibility even beyond that they really possessed. 

Such a leader presented himself as embodying the nation and its spirit - and this justified his (claimed) absolute power. 

Matters are very different now: Evil has evolved - is now impersonal, indeed anonymous; covert and diffuse, and works by contrived confusion and self-contradiction (PSYOPS).

Modern evil is proxy evil - and proxy evil is even-worse than direct evil; in the sense that proxy evil is always deliberated, contrived, planned... whereas direct evil may be impulsive and due to a temporary failure to resist strong temptation. 

In sum: the motivation of proxy evil is always actively-evil and evidence of a strategic commitment to evil-purpose; whereas the motivation of direct evil may be negative, passive; due to weakness rather than a person confirmed in evil purpose. 

By analogy; a murderer (or saboteur...) is often less culpable than someone who arranges an assassination or a 'hit' (or act of destruction, intended to cause suffering and death...) via several proxies - even, or especially, because the instigator of a cleverly-contrived proxy killing (or act of sabotage...) may escape scot free, unnoticed, and unpunished by Law. 

Evil has evolved... And yet the essence of matters are still the same! 

The purpose of evil in this world remains as it always was: to oppose God and divine creation, to seek the damnation of Men. 

We do not need to know the specific human sources of evil in order to recognize and oppose evil - which is just as well, because we almost-never shall. 

The key is that we personally, as individuals, need to be able and willing to recognize and oppose evil for ourselves - not, therefore, relying-upon any external source (purporting to provide us with knowledge and evaluation) in order to identify and interpret the reality or source of evil. 

We should not be striving to out-source our moral discernment - not even to the (increasingly corrupt and evil-allied) Christian churches; just as we cannot out-source our personal salvation. 

We should also refrain from futile attempts to pin-down 'responsibility' for evil acts in a world which has been elaborately structured to conceal responsibility. 

What can be observed now is the Sorathic spirit of pure destructive evil using the (already existing) vast and elaborate Ahrimanic System of bureaucratic-totalitarian surveillance and control... simply to destroy! 

Simply to smash, kill, maim, immiserate - on the biggest scale possible! 

By war, famine, plague, poison, sabotage; and any other means that presents itself. 

And spiritually - which is most important - Sorathic evil seeks to generate ever more fear, resentment, and despair. 

It is probably impossible to prevent massive physical destruction - with the world structured as it is, and when most Men have rejected God. 

But we personally can work to prevent spiritual destruction - in ourselves; and can seek universal and eternal spiritual creation by our own attainment of Primary Thinking (no matter how partially or briefly this is attained). 

And this, of itself, opposes Sorathic evil, because it breaks the link between imposed physical destruction and the outcome of spiritual damnation. 

Insofar as we can overcome in ourselves the intended fear, resentment or despair - by the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Love: then we have (at that moment) won the spiritual battle of this world in our-selves, and to an extent among those whom we love. 

And such victories are permanent in their consequences.  

When I began this blog on a frequent basis, in the middle of 2010, there was (supposedly) a new, vigorous, and intellectually-rigorous movement of the secular "Right" - variously termed Alternative/Alt Right, Neoreaction, and similar 

(The 'rump' of this movement is sometimes nowadays termed "based" - and can be sampled via this branch of Synlogos.) 

One of my earliest themes was that this movement was not actually "Right" but was just part of the Left; because they wanted essentially the same thing as the Left (i.e. optimal happiness and minimum suffering in this mortal life - the 'hedonic' calculus); and the secular "Right" therefore only differed in terms of their priority groups (eg. white native men) and the methods employed (e.g. new kinds of monarchy). 

Same ends, different means. But is the end that is definitive. 

I then argued that the only genuine alternative and opposition to The Left was religion. 

So, the truth was that the Left-Right axis was all-Left; and the only true axis of opposition was Left-Religion. 

For those who opposed The Left, I said; their only valid choice was: which religion? 

This has proved to be correct over the following decade, as evidenced by the fact that the self-identified secular Right are still merely negatively responding to what the mainstream Left are advocating or doing; much as 'fascism' did in the 1920s and 30s; . 

Since the Left is actually a negative and oppositional ideology; this means that the secular Right are a double-negative ideology. 

And since the Left's policies are already double-negative - e.g. anti-racism anti-men (feminism)  - the secular Rights policies are triple-negative anti-antiracism, anti-feminism...

Something like this explains the astonishing obsessions of the secular Right; who remain utterly focused-on everyday mainstream politics such as elections and the Twitter takeover by Musk (what!); but in this extra-negative way of opposing the destroyers instead of proposing positive creation; which the secular Right cannot do because they are secular.

The amount of internet-ink spilled over the Musk-Twitter business is especially gratuitous. Twitter is a Bad Thing, Musk is a Bad Thing - why discuss the business as if some Good would come out of it? 

The answer is: one regards this as a major issue, only when one is operating on the basis of mainstream assumptions of Good.

Just as the election-obsessives implicitly, by revealed-preference, believe (whatever they say) that we can vote our way out of trouble; so the Musk-Twitter obsessive believe we can Tweet our way to a Better World.      

So that Better means, for them, just more of the same stuff - but directed at groups they like. 

And they believe this because they have nothing better to offer. 

But what of the proper opposition to the Left: I mean The Religious? 

Well... In 2020 the major churches of the world - of (apparently) all religions and denominations - overwhelmingly made clear their convergence with the this-worldly and hedonic values of the Global Left: they made this clear by massive closures and cessations of their core activities. 

(It may be that the Government and Orthodox Church of the Fire Nation has since reversed that convergence with global Leftism: where that may lead has yet to be seen; but anyway, such a direction is not a possibility, nor desirable, for The West.) 

So the churches, of all religions, were revealed as just another part of The Left.  

So the situation is that even the Left versus Religion axis, which seemed a possibility back in 2010; is not a possibility. 

My hoped-for (albeit slender, pessimistic) possibility of a church-rooted religious revival to become culturally dominant; has since been revealed as a false hope. False, not merely because of the political weakness of the churches, but mainly because the churches do not even desire it, but instead seek assimilation to the Left (and as fast as the church leaders can persuade the laity).

Therefore; these times are far more desperate than the "secular Right" imagine; and far more desperate than church-orientated Christians acknowledge. Because (at least in The West - albeit the Fire Nation in the East may have chosen a different path of destiny) there is nowhere to turn in the world of powerful, high status, influential public discourse. 

We can neither vote-in a saviour (because none are available to vote-for, and because the bureaucracy-media control everything of social significance), nor can we engineer a way-out by participation in high-impact social media (because the medium is intrinsically evil-promoting; in form as well as its allowed-content).     

What we can do is at the individual level, not in institutions; is spiritual, not material; and is rooted in understanding correctly - which means honestly and with full acknowledgment of its scope - the nature of our situation and responsibility. 

We are all finding it difficult to get to grips with this new post-global totalitarian world administered (ultimately) by demonic powers (and their mindless human hosts, servants and slaves); because it operates on the basis of an inverted value system which is not a natural way for us humans to think. 

The difference is that (unlike Men) demonic powers are motivated by the desire to destroy whatever is Good, whatever is God's creation. 

For example, the birdemic-response, including the mandatory peck program, has led to major sectors of the economy, of national functioning, of essential provisions, being in increased danger of being rendered useless or even destroyed. 

This makes the nations weak, impoverished, increasingly chaotic. This is negative feedback, indicating that what is being done is doing harm - and that we need to stop doing it. 

Normally, negative feedback would lead national rulers to stop doing it. But these times are not normal. 

When the global rulership is under demonic control, such negative consequences are regarded as A Good Thing. Since the demonic powers desire to destroy God's creation and every-thing Good - they are delighted by evidence of increasing national weakness, and by the increased sufferings and death of human beings. 

For demons; what we humans regard as Negatives are, in fact, The Plan.  

The 'climate change' agenda likewise. The in-place, anti-Good global strategy against carbon - the chemical of life, and CO2 - the gas of life - makes perfect sense from the (to us humans, inverted) anti-life perspective of demons whose existence is as unembodied spirits. 

The phrase "go woke, go broke" will be true in the long-term. Wokeness (aka. political correctness, convergence) is anti-functional, destructive of its nature. So, even though explicit corporate wokeness is expedient for those managers who implement it - expedient by a short timescale of weeks or months (which is why convergence happens, everywhere); nonetheless accelerating wokeness always and necessarily leads to destruction of institutions.

So, all institutions are going woke, getting dysfunctional, going broke... And any human being who values that 'broken' function (whether the function be science or sports, profit or pleasure, education or entertainment) will regard this collapse of functionality as a disadvantage. However, such outcomes are 'good' from the destructive perspective of the demonic mind.  

The utterly ineffectual pseudo-attempts to control supposedly-rising global temperature (when global temperature cannot be predicted, cannot be controlled - and should not be controlled) have (like the birdemic) created and sustained global totalitarianism, and are destroying the world economy.

This predictably and inevitably leading to starvation, disease, violence and giga-death (i.e the death of billions of humans - a situation not possible until the colossal population growth of the twentieth century and continuing). 

But what seems like, pretty obviously, negative feedback from our human perspective, i.e. the death of billions; is regarded as positive and desirable from the demonic standpoint. The demonic agenda explicitly includes the ideal aim for billions of Men to die - what they don't say is that they intend that these billions should die in a condition of resentment, fear and despair - die denying the spiritual realm including the reality of their souls, cursing God, and rejecting the eternal life offered by Jesus Christ.

(It is because the billions 'need' to die in a state of spiritual sin that the agenda for evil proceeds incrementally, along with massive and sustained attempts to manipulate and invert public values via the mass media and all other communications systems such as education, Human Resources, and the arts.)  

'Positive feedback' is the situation when deviation from the desired situation causes yet further deviation; e.g. when harm leads to more harm, when destruction leads to more destruction, when evil leads to more evil. 

It seems that the demons - having created a single, inter-dependent world System (administered by an hierarchical and cross-linked bureaucracy and mass-social media) - are now stressing that System with more-and-more inefficiency, more inter-system conflict, more sub-system and functional destruction.

They are ignoring (where possible) the negative feedback (often spinning it as benefit!) - and They intend continuing stressing The System until the point where even the possibility of self-correction becomes unachievable. 

The aim seems to be inducing positive feedback in a single System, when increased dysfunction in one domain of that System leads to dysfunction in several other domains - and then the same again; until these accelerating and spreading dysfunction all add-together to make a 'System' that ever more rapidly and irreversibly destroys itself. 

In other words, when "get woke, go broke' is accelerated by a positive feedback system in the short-term; and when consequently organizations are going "broke" all through The System; then going-broke also becomes a positive feedback process - until The System as a whole is irreparably broke-en. 

None of this makes sense from a long-term human perspective - although it can be (is being) dressed-up as expedient in the immediate short term. 

For example, any deviation from total compliance with The System (e.g. refusal of the peck, refusal to comply with antiracist rituals, refusal to celebrate ever more extreme sexual delusion, sterility and perversity) may be punished; and punished by ever more rapidly increasing sanctions. 

Any refusal to engage in destruction is disallowed and may be inexpedient - but compliance with the work of destruction is allowed and may be rewarded.  

Yet it is certain that any and all of these demanded compliances are only a prelude to further (in the pipeline) demands for greater and more extreme compliances - with greater and more extreme sanctions. Thus destruction accelerates. 

Human rulers might eventually be appalled at the emerging dystopia; might eventually 'have mercy' or at least 'see sense'. But when The System is administered by demons they will laugh at the idea of mercy, delight in human torment; and their idea of what makes 'sense' is the opposite of Mankind's.  

The conclusion is that we need to adjust our expectations to the new realities. We need to stop judging demons by human criteria. We need to stop expecting our current rulers to behave as did rulers of the past. 

Because this time, and for the first time, we are all up-against a world ruled by immortal spirits of evil. 

Something I used to speculate about as a young child, was what it would be like to be on The Wrong Side in a war - and to know that you were on the wrong side. I used to feel thankful that (as I supposed) such a thing could never happen to me; and that 'my' side had been, and always would be, the Right one.

This is, I suppose, an innate and spontaneous tribalism; which is rooted in a kind of 'biological' loyalty that in fact defines 'right' as 'us' - so that 'we' are always in-the-right - whatever happens. 

But, of course, we do not now live in a society structured around mutual loyalties within families and (more broadly) clans - but pretty-much the opposite; and our officially-dominant social ethic is an inversion of biological affiliations. Primacy (for the Western Man) is given to the alien, the other, to what I am Not; to whatever opposes family, reproduction, and indeed basic functionality. 

So, the deep structure of the ruling leftist ideology of The West is that 'we' are innately on The Wrong Side; even as this ideology itself originates and rules specifically in The West.

Thus a contradiction - as usual when we are dealing with evil. Evil is rooted in lies and manipulations, therefore it deals-in contradiction, revels in it!

And anyone in The West, especially if a white man of biologically-functional sexuality - knows with one part of his fractured mind that he is always on The Wrong Side; even as he knows that he is always on the side of 'right' only when he pursues policies predicated on self-hatred, personal and familial suicide, and promotes whatever and whoever is most alien and 'other'. 

'Doing-good by self-harm' - might be the motto for the likes of us - and certainly the self-harm done on our behalf (by The System) is invariably immediate, primary and definite - while any supposed-good is remote, conjectural, and vague to the point of invisibility. 

Then there is the wrongness of our goals in war; which are nowadays to impose the inverted-values of the Global Totalitarian System (and its financial, economic and legal tools) upon any who resist in any way. 

For instance, a current explicit goal of wars is to ensure that as many as possible of the youngest possible children (everywhere in the world) are sexually corrupted and opened to maximal exploitation; and are poisoned, mutilated and biologically-neutered - and that no society should be able to opt-out of such imperatives.  

So now we all know what it is to be on the Wrong Side, and to know it...

Consider the 'justifications' for recent and current wars compared with the past. In the past wars were to defend the homeland (especially women and children): now it is a matter of covert policy to oppose marriage, families, reproduction and the innocence of children; and of explicit moral principle to send women to be killed on the front lines. 

In the more recent past, other wars were justified on the basis of ethnic, religious or national interest - nowadays, it is asserted that we are going to war for the benefit of 'other people' about whom little or nothing is known (except via the media, government officials, and other known-liars), and about whom (until the war began) nobody in The West had any traditional care or concern. 

Thus, the narrative is that our motives must be pure and the reason must be impartially-just; exactly because 'we' ('we' meaning, in practice, 'you' - i.e. the subject-masses) have nothing to gain and everything to lose from war. 

We are nowadays paying, fighting, and dying for the asserted 'benefit' of others - not ourselves. 

(And when there is such profound ignorance and actual-lack of genuine care of these others 'on behalf of whom' we are supposedly acting; then the fact of war actually causing gross harm, instead of benefit, is easily ignored.) 

Modern war is highly abstract and ideological; therefore something approaching the complete inversion of past war - in terms of its justification and what is supposed to motivate. The modern motivations and justifications are naturally, therefore, a combination of the arbitrarily-manufactured, and the opposites of what used-to motivate war. 

The prime casualty of abstraction and inversion is enfeebled motivation - and indeed this is the most demotivated society, ever. Western motivations are now so shallow and so weak that they can almost-instantly be manipulated and pointed in any arbitrary direction - by crude media-bureaucratic propaganda. 

And these System-imposed-motivations are mutually contradictory hence net-destructive; so that the masses are utterly disempowered by first their demotivation and secondly by the gross and self-destroying incoherence of what feeble motivations the leadership class do posses (which are shorter-and-shorter-termist and careerist in nature; plus the gratification of increasingly-corrupted sexual desires/ fantasies at the highest levels - plus fear). 

Consequently, the West is ruled by negative, oppositional weakness - and that rule is increasingly totalitarian and dominant exactly-because the subject-masses are even-more negative, self-contradicting and demotivated. 

Consequently, the trend is for more chaos, greater weakness, gross untruthfulness - masking deliberately-induced collapse. 

(In brief; I think that many of the plans and schemes have the proximate and materialistic Plan A of increasing the power and wealth of some few, specific members of the ruling humans; but if/when this does not happen Plan B supervenes, which is the spiritual imperative to destroy Good and increase chaos. This is ultimate; because The System is ruled by demons, by supernatural entities, whose ultimate goals are negative-spiritual - not positive-material.) 

We know we are on the side of Wrong... Then what is to be done? - especially considering that a negatively-motivated Global Strategy is easy to accomplish; since it is relatively facile to destroy; while it is difficult to create.  

Clearly, the single most vital response is understanding; to see-though the fake-justifications to the evil motivations beneath. 

Without such understanding, nothing Good can be achieved. 

But when the odds are so heavily stacked in favour of evil, and when evil is anyway far easier to accomplish than good; then even knowing we are on the side of wrong does not translate into large-scale, organized, 'systematic' opposition to that wrong-side. Because when we are engaged in an inverted conflict, then such opposition actually increases motivation and cohesion on the side of evil. 

As usual in these times; the proper consequences of seeing-through lies and discerning evil is first of all the spiritual result of thinking and knowing truly - and to achieve this should not be underestimated, since it is the prime way in which we personally contribute to God's creation. 

But secondly, genuinely Godly-opposition needs to be about 'doing-Good' rather than the 'double-negative' of 'opposing-evil'. 

And Good can (as a strong generalization) now only be done by individuals doing very specific and personal acts of Good with other individuals - aiming for spiritual benefit primarily. 

This is not easy to discern, and the possibility may arise only seldom; but we should aim to be prepared and fortified for when such an occasion presents-itself - as it surely will, sooner or later.   

What are the barriers that tend to prevent us from living in primary thinking and achieving final participation?

The answer is partly interference from modern culture - partly its unprecedented number and pervasiveness of distractions, but mainly its materialist, anti-spiritual, anti-religious metaphysics. This means that any inklings a person may have of the reality of primary thinking, or experiences of final participation, will typically be interpreted in subjective terms - and therefore as an ephemeral, unreal product of wishful thinking.

But another factor is that primary thinking requires consciousness; it is not merely a matter of 'instinct'; therefore we cannot 'relax' into it, but must attain it purposively and actively. The typical spiritual guidance tends to recommend a passive process along the lines of the sixties mantra of 'turn on, tune in, drop out'- or a meditation practice which is negative and aiming at assimilation with the divine, rather than a conscious participation.

On top of these, there is the near-totalitarian dominance of modern culture; especially, in recent decades, via the mass media and social media; on top of the shallowness and mutual exploitativeness of most social interaction in an age where public discourse is actively hedonic or crushingly bureaucratic.

The combination - in the wider context of generalised Christian apostasy - can be interpreted as a triumph of purposive evil; in other words, that demonic powers are largely in control of the world, especially via the most powerful and influential global (especially Western) institutions. And, once this spiritual fact is sensed (and perhaps especially when it is consciously recognised) it may create a variety of counter-productive reactions.

For example the response may be despair in face of such (apparently) overwhelming power. Despair is rightly described as a sin - because it is a denial of the hope (and promise) of Jesus, and a surrender to evil.

Or, a realisation of the scale and nature of evil may alternatively lead to the mistake of 'fighting' evil on its own ground, and with the enemies own weapons (such as mass media propaganda, or political organisation).

Whereas the proper response is to recognise the presence of evil in our own hearts, and to regard our own soul as the proper battle ground; and to 'fight' on the divine grounds of ultimate universal reality - in other words, by primary thinking to participate in God's work of creation.

This is exactly what the vast apparatus of evil is trying to prevent us from doing - for them, almost anything else is preferable to you or I doing this.

Even one single solitary individual person attaining final participation via primary thinking for any length of time; represents a colossal set-back to the agenda of evil. Furthermore is is an ongoing defeat of whose origin they are not aware, and cannot become aware - because it is intrinsically Good and its level of operations is invisible to, far above and beyond the possibility of demonic perception.

Reversion to traditional roles cannot happen (without net-harm) because men and women are now - at this stage and phase in the development of our consciousness - meant-to-be (and are) much more unique as beings, than was taken account of in the 'intellectual soul' (i.e. traditional-classical-medieval) ways of thinking. 

*

The old Communist idea of Permanent Revolution is now reality.

We live in a world that is based on the idea that that the true revolutionary – such as the avant garde artist or radical intellectual – is intrinsically subversive; and will always be in revolt against whoever was in power, changing sides as necessary to achieve this.

(This is how the word ‘subversive’ came to have its current positive and approving meaning for modern intellectuals.)

This is the modern type of Leftism: more specifically New Leftism.

*

By New Left I mean that the ideology of the Media is that of the post-1960s evolution and development of communism, socialism, progressivism and (US) Liberalism – the Leftism of Political Correctness.

The Old Left was mostly focused on the economy – Marxism was mostly an economic theory. Thus its analysis was based on an economic category of Class; and its tools were economic things like nationalization and redistribution of wealth. The most favoured group was The Proletariat, which was in practice essentially the native male working class of manual labourers, especially as represented by Trades Unions.

But the New Left is in practice almost indifferent to the economy; and instead focuses on a rainbow of identity politics, 'Human Rights', ‘the environment’, anti-racism, feminism and (most of all) promoting the sexual revolution. Consequently, the New Left has ‘switched sides’, and turned-against the native class of male manual labourers; and now strongly favours women, other ethnicities, the unemployed and economically inactive, and newly arrived immigrants.

*

The qualitative transition from Old to New Left demonstrates that there is no stable, long-term positive ideology to the Left/ Liberals/ Progressives – and even the most fundamental values and principles may at some point be discarded or reversed.

And although relativistic, the New Left ideology is not tolerant. Whatever is being asserted now is absolute, on the one hand and opposition is not considered reasonable.

Yet, despite this totalitarian intolerance of dissent at any given point in time; what has been treated in this absolute manner can very rapidly be dropped and replaced with some other, equally ‘absolute’, priority.

So in practice strong opinions are cycled and re-cycled, promoted then vilified, suppressed then revived, turned upside-down, combined and split into fragments... 

*

In the long-run, anything and all is grist to the Mass Media mill; no topic is sacred or fundamental; everything is up-for challenge, discussion, mockery, analysis, criticism – anything at all may be discarded and replaced with something else, or not replaced at all.

This behaviour is, of course, profoundly negative and subversive – in particular the relativistic ideology of the permanent revolution has been subversive of traditional and orthodox forms of religion (especially Christianity – since this has been dominant in the West); and also subversive of 'tradition' – in all its forms: subversive of traditional socio-political order (traditional hierarchies and specialisms); subversive of traditional concepts of truth, beauty and virtue; and perhaps especially, subversive of traditional sexuality including marriage and the family.

Furthermore, the New Left has been subversive of the Old Left values and institutions – of Trades Unions and Labour Parties, of rational central planning and nationalization, and especially subversive of the tradition Christian and Ethical socialists characterized by modesty, frugality, earnest toil and puritanical sexual ethics.

Despite its fanatically-opinionated campaigns in favour of this, that or the other; relativism is indeed over time a profoundly negative ideology –indeed relativism sooner-or-later undermines any positive agenda which may emerge – even its own ideas such as the dictatorship of the proletariat which at one time seemed so terribly important to such a lot of people in the Mass Media.

*

In sum, we live in a state of Permanent Revolution. 

Permanent revolution means that the dominant ideology has no positive goal or aim – the is no long-term plan to structure society in some permanently sustainable way; indeed whatever is was or is or may in future be achieved exists only to be dismantled and replaced when expedient.

This is, indeed, the primary and essential difference between the Old and New Left – the Old Left intended to make Heaven on Earth – Utopia. And then stop – and maintain utopia (because who would want to change utopia?).

And utopia justified the humanly unprecedented ruthlessness of the Old Left – the End was so wonderful that any Means were justifiable in trying to reach it.

But when utopia showed no signs of arriving, the revolutionary impulse began to feed-off-itself; and revolution succeeded revolution in an iterative cycle aimed at destroying the forces opposed to revolution – but without any genuine or stable long term purpose.

This is precisely how the modern Left works. Over time, it identifies, mocks, subverts, weakens, destroys and finally inverts and reverses any group or person that opposes revolution – but with no goal.

There is no stable, explicit, long-term aimed-for state of affairs which is being implemented. 

(This is is done via the Mass Media ideology I have called Opinionated Relativism: a relativism which at any specific moment and on any specific topic denies its own relativism – but over time keeps on discarding its previous convictions as mere opinions.)

*

Thus the modern Left truly is a negative, destructive, meaningless, purposeless thing. 

Yet the modern world is utterly dominated by this nihilistic zeal: it is, indeed, the most powerful thing in the modern world. 

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is my best guess for how things are currently working. We still pay people just the same or almost as much, but we get less or nothing for that money. Almost the same amount of virtual-money is circulating, but people are getting much less for it*. 

The cost is experienced in the fact of a massively reduced standard of living: people are still 'buying' (whether directly in fees, or through subscriptions, or via taxes) almost as much as they used to; but people simply can't do much. Often they are locked-in, to a greater or lesser degree; but even if they are not (not yet); still almost everything is either closed or very restricted; and everything that is not closed or restricted is much lower in quality.

While people are paying the same, they are getting much less. 

People continue to pay-out; but don't get-back. 

 

The function of the birdemic scam (and the climate change scam) is to reduce expectations, make people feel 'grateful' for any little thing they get-back (more accurately, for anything they are allowed) - and thereby to 'bridge the gap' between same output, but reduced input.

(Fear of being-allowed nothing-at-all, makes people grateful to pay more for... something - anything...)

 

Can it go-on? I don't know. Maybe. Probably - given the cowardly materialism of the masses, and the Satanic affiliations of all our ruling Establishment. 

It's a PSYOPS strategy, essentially; and enforcement success feeds-upon itself. 

When people are compulsorily confined to their rooms and unable to meet other humans (for obviously fake reasons, imposed arbitrarily and without appeal) - there is (or soon will be) no 'Real Life'. 

The virtuality becomes the only available option. 

Then people can be fed the necessary data and interpretations to sustain the New Normal via the (censored and controlled) social and mass media that are their only means of survival.   

*Note: What I find needs explaining is that previous significant economic depressions have been associated either with inflation - money rapidly losing value, unpredictably, with rising prices and wages; or else the opposite of de-flation - with mass unemployment, dropping wages and falling prices. Here we have not very much of either and (de facto) negative interest rates - which have been enforced by the near abolition of cash (so that - for the first time - people are compelled to pay banks for holding their money).