Today is Good Friday but Easter is Coming

 I hope it's not sacrilegious to say that sometimes it feels as though the disciples of the world are going through a kind of Gethsemane experience at the moment. Most people will not feel this but those who are responsive to the spiritual level will be aware of the gathering darkness. The bad news is that Gethsemane precedes Good Friday. The good news is that Good Friday precedes Easter Sunday. There is undoubtedly more darkness to come but if we allow it this can be a cleansing, purifying darkness for our souls that prepares them for the light.

Many of the incidents in Jesus's life can be seen as experiences that come to the soul as it progresses on the spiritual path, and the most significant are those that come at the end of his life. Abandoned by friends and, seemingly, even God the soul is thrown back entirely on itself. Its spiritual gifts, if it had them, are withdrawn, its earthly renown, if it had it, is lost. It is no one and nothing with only faith and the intuitive sense of truth to support it. This is the final purification that strips the soul of any worldliness and self-regard that may still be clinging to it so that it becomes light enough to enter the spiritual world. For these are like heavy weights that hold the soul down and will prevent it rising until they are cast off.

This is on the individual level. But patterns repeat themselves at all stages of the path and in all spheres, both on the individual and the group level, and the whole world is experiencing something similar. There is a sorting out of that part of humanity that has the potential to rise and that part which may be held over for future development. We are being presented with a choice which in the simplest terms amounts to God or this world. But note that many people might think they are opting for God when in fact they are in the worldly camp. One of the tests of the present time is that it is no longer sufficient merely to give your allegiance to an earthly institution. All are corrupted and you have to see the reality behind the institution as far more important than the thing itself. Which, of course, means you have to be able to perceive something of this reality.

There is no getting around the fact that the spiritual life can only be known by those who undergo worldly death and this death must be undergone willingly. Before the soul can become united with God it must die to the world and be stripped of itself. Look at the times to come as part of that process for we all, however spiritual or religious we may consider ourselves to be, are sinners and what that means is our centre is our self. We may have relatively good selves or relatively bad selves but until we know, really know, that "we are as nothing and all we are comes from the Creator" the tendency to sin, which means act from the centre of self, remains. The whole of the spiritual life is about replacing self with God at the centre of our being. Good Friday is the start of that process and Easter Sunday the glorious conclusion.

Eclipses

I have been interested in the astrological effects of eclipses since 1999 when I witnessed the solar eclipse in August of that year and a few days later a friend of mine, whose natal Jupiter was practically bang on the degree of the eclipse, had a heart attack. A few days after that he died. It seemed too significant to ignore. Now there are two more eclipses to consider, a lunar one that took place today (March 25th) and a solar one coming up on 8th April. These two eclipses both connect with the horoscope of someone else I know. The lunar eclipse was directly on the degree of her ascendant at 5° Libra and the solar eclipse, which will be on 19° Aries, makes a very close contact with her natal Sun, North Node and, slightly more distantly, Saturn, these three being conjunct in her chart. I don't know what this might indicate though my suspicion is nothing good, especially with regard to the solar eclipse. 

At any rate, the close contacts warrant study and I shall observe their outcome with interest tinged with a little concern on her behalf. For it seems to me that if the traditional view of the effects of eclipses is correct then this person might be in for some turbulent times. As always, how the symbolism works out in real life terms depends on how much the subject is able to process and integrate the psychic energies brought into play, how conscious she is of herself. Someone who is aware of her personality strengths and weaknesses and who does not deny, suppress or ignore her shortcomings might be able to deal with the forces at play on a psychological level and even channel the energy creatively. Someone in denial might find that the forces manifest externally in life events. But then again there are certain times when the universe will have its way with us regardless for though we have freedom there are what you might call cosmic currents and tides which will take us with them however well we can swim.

It is worth remembering though that even if a cosmic event has what in worldly terms is a negative effect on us it is usually all for the spiritual good. The powers that be do not judge as we do. The heart attack suffered by my friend 25 years ago might have been a spiritual blessing in that it paved the way for his release from corporeal imprisonment and took him home. I'm not saying that all suffering is sent by God. That would be both stupid and unfeeling. But in the larger sense much of it does contain lessons for the soul and if we are the one suffering it is always worth looking for these lessons. It is only spiritual children who expect God to hand out sweets and candy all the time. If an eclipse touches our natal chart there is an element of providence about it, a significant spiritual lesson. 

Added note: I should say that the dramatic effect noted in the example from 1999 does not mean that anytime an eclipse touches a sensitive part of the horoscope disaster strikes. What it probably does do is bring out what is already there so in this case an already weak heart may have been triggered though again I am not saying it is a matter of cause and effect. The truth is how astrology works remains a mystery. We can talk about influences or moments in time having the same quality or the interconnectedness of everything in the universe but really no one knows how astrology works. The fact is it just does.

The Illusion of Equality

This is an excerpt from the last chapter of my recent book By No Means Equal (see right). As the whole Western world is in thrall to the foolish lie of equality it's worth pointing out that equality is not a consequence of the spiritual law of love, as many people seem to assume, but a materialistic distortion of it and, as such, it is an obstruction to real love.

"The idea of equality might seem reasonable to someone who has no awareness of spiritual purpose or destiny and who does not appreciate that there is a world of greater reality behind this material world which gives our outer world whatever meaning it may have. But really it is an attempt to substitute a false and artificial good for truth. This may just seem a question of well-meaning people with good intentions making a mistake, but the fact is the equality idea has been used for several decades as a tool to chip away at spiritual truth and reduce the higher to the level of the lower, creating a kind of inverted hierarchy in the process. And the well-meaning people cannot be exonerated either because they are guilty of a lack of orientation to spiritual truth. Some may even wish to supplant that with their own version of reality. 

Equality exists nowhere in nature. Creation itself could only happen when the darkness of non-manifestation was shattered by light resulting in the first and fundamental inequality which then became the ground on which cosmic order was built. Creation depends on separation and difference. An unqualified equality would have kept the universe in darkness.

 

And darkness is what those who promote equality would have us return to for equality can only truly exist at ground level, when everything has been brought down to nothing. If anything is to be it must be something and no one thing is like any other thing. Light has an infinite range of shades. Darkness is just darkness. There is true equality only in darkness.

 

But if nature and the universe are both formed on the principle of inequality could equality still be something that human beings should aspire to and work towards while recognising that it may never be actually possible to achieve? First of all, why would you wish to pattern human evolution on something that does not exist in spiritual or natural terms? Are you not thereby working against the flow of life, setting yourself up against reality? But secondly, there is no need for this. For with the principle of inequality goes that of responsible hierarchy which means that everything has its proper place in what used to be known as the Great Chain of Existence which is the basis of cosmic order. Allowing and enabling all human beings to develop themselves in the context of what they are is absolutely what we should be doing but this has nothing to do with equality which is a chimera, the pursuit of which will only disrupt the order and harmony on which the universe is based. This is not the same as saying everyone should know and keep to their place because another principle of life is growth. But again, this has nothing to do with equality. This idea simply introduces a false perspective. 

 

Look at history and you will see that the notion of equality only appears in civilisations when their creative energies are burning out. That does not in itself make it bad or wrong but it does indicate that it is part of the decadent phase of any particular culture which arises when that culture has lost connection to deeper realities and contents itself with wholly secular concerns. It comes about in a declining phase not a developing one.

 

Western civilisation is dying. At its peak it scaled great heights but it has fallen a long way down since then because of its denial of spirit. Unfortunately, most people think of this as an advance and a liberation from superstition because this denial freed us to explore and exploit the material world to a greater degree, but the initial burst of energy that came from that is rapidly dissipating. Actual progress is starting to slow down and a lot of what we thought of as progress turns out to be not without problems. Even our increased recognition of the horrors of violence and war can be understood as a greater fixation on the physical self and material well-being.

How can anyone live without acknowledging God? Within each human soul there is the divine stamp that is our life and the core of our being. How can we ignore this? But it seems millions of people do. What is going on inside these people that they have closed themselves off so much from reality and all that makes life worthwhile? There is no doubt that the material world has solidified so that the connection to spirit is much harder to make but still it is there. There is also no doubt that demonic powers have attacked on numerous fronts to make us believe the material world is all there is but we don't have to succumb to their lies. Even if everyone around us prefers darkness to light we do have the light within us and we can respond to that if we are correctly oriented within ourselves to the spiritual true north.

 

Perhaps that is the problem. Most people don't care about God because they care too much about themselves in the here and now. They are too fixated on their worldly hopes and ambitions and personal desires. They are too identified with their bodies or their feelings or their thoughts and so never look more deeply within themselves. Then there are those who are too attached to a particular sin to be willing to acknowledge that it is a sin which they would have to do if they recognised God. Such people are setting themselves up to be the victims of the dark powers to whose influence they will become more and more susceptible. 

 

The subtitle of this book is Reclaiming the Soul. It is the soul, the spiritual component of our being, that is denied when equality is asserted for each soul when created is original and unique, and its experiences bring out its individuality further. If you believe in the soul you cannot also believe in equality. To do so is to apply quantitative principles to a realm of quality.

 

A world of real equality would be a world with no room for improvement. It would be flat, without height or depth and nothing to aspire towards. It would lack the vertical dimension and the sense of beyond. It would be a world in which numbers and measurement really were at the root of being and that would be a controllable world in which there was neither freedom nor mystery.

 

Fortunately for us the world is not like that. It has its numerical, quantitative side but that relates to matter only. There is a spiritual side too and that is primary. Every soul has complete spiritual reality as a person, an authentic unique individual which cannot be reduced to anything else for it is whole in itself. In a universe of individuals there can be no equality but there can be love. Which would you rather have, equality or love? You can’t have both."

 

 

They Shall Deceive the Very Elect

 The full quote from Matthew 24 is "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." 

Jesus is talking about the end times. It seems to some that our times are the end times, and even if they are not they certainly do a good impression of it. It's true that often over the course of history people have thought they were living during the end times but the widespread apostasy of the present day has not occurred before nor has the fact that the gospel of the kingdom has indeed been preached in all the world which Jesus said would be an indication of the approaching end. Be that as it may, the same patterns tend to repeat themselves at similar stages so while we may or may not be living in the actual end times teachings relating to that will still be relevant for no one can deny we are living through some kind of cultural and civilisational breakdown with the spiritual being chased from the world in most places.

Jesus says that even the elect might be deceived by the signs and wonders put out by those serving the dark agenda. Who are the elect? I suggest it is anyone who holds fast to the truth and is not deceived, neither by lies nor by half truths which always involve a subtler attack on the psyche. These people remain true for the following reasons. A love of truth, spiritual integrity and humility. They seek their reward in heaven and are not tempted by earthly riches or reputation. A tall order. We would all like to think we belong among this group but we should do well to remember that we are tested where we are weakest and even the elect can fall. We might think we have resisted one illusion but then we be deceived by something coming from the opposite direction. We may be impervious to some assaults on truth but still succumb to something that plays on our weaknesses. Right motivation is essential on the spiritual path. It will not protect us from everything, we have to have right discernment too, but it will guide us through many difficulties and enable us to resist many temptations.

To be part of the elect is not a glamorous position. Their role is to serve and quite possibly to suffer too for the suffering of the saints is a kind of expiation for the whole of humanity. They will not be thanked or acclaimed or rewarded. They may even be condemned as their Master was but then the mark of the elect is that they seek only to tread the path of light in truth and love, come what may. If we would join them we must have that attitude too.

The Madness of the Present Times

 I have noticed that quite a few writers on the Internet whose main focus is spiritual are getting increasingly drawn into commenting on and analysing current affairs. I understand why people do this especially with each new development revealing an ever greater descent into insanity. But the danger is that too much of one's energy gets focused on irrelevancies. We know, or should do, that the state of a civilisation that denies God becomes more and more detached from reality. We have been in such a state for decades now and it was inevitable we would follow the trajectory we have done. Loss of God leads to lose of the sense of reality because once you reject God you soon start to reject nature as well as there is nothing to anchor you to objective truth. You feel you can make reality what you want and what you want becomes corrupt because it is based on the desires, aspirations and ambitions of your earthly self which is mired in ignorance and egotism. We are some way down that road.

I'm not saying we should ignore what is going on in the world but nor should we allow ourselves to get caught up in it or react to it. To do that will inevitably drag us down to worldly concerns. If you really believe in God you see that life in this world is all about the preparation for heaven. And when you understand how entropy works in terms of human consciousness you see there are going to be times when the world can be coordinated to the heavenly pattern, to a greater or lesser extent, never completely, and times when it goes against that pattern. You have to have the discernment to know what sort of time you are living in. Surely anyone can see that we are now living in a time of spiritual decay and nothing will improve that situation. That doesn't mean you let evil have its way unopposed. You should always resist evil in your heart and stand against it, but you need to know that the trend is irreversible so don't hope for a bright new dawn. Not before there's been a clean sweep anyway. 

This clean sweep may be what is starting to happen now. At the end of an age all the muck of that age has to rise to the surface so it can be brought out and dealt with. Imagine a pond. On the surface the water looks reasonably clear but stir everything up and all the filth that lies at the bottom will be brought to the top. Only then can you clear it away. This is what is taking place in the world today. It is a kind of purification in that our sins are all coming out. It's not pleasant but stand back from what is going on and observe the process from a spiritual vantage point, from above and with a much more extended temporal point of view. Our task is to focus on the spiritual. It doesn't mean we accept the worldly on its own terms but the insanity of the present times has its own logic. That doesn't make it in any way right but fighting it with the idea that you might overcome it externally is a fruitless task. Speak out against so as to support others who might be struggling to make sense of a crazy world but know that the only resolution is spiritual.  

I have written about this before but the madness will only grow which means that the reaction to it will become more extreme, more vehement. That reaction is based on healthy human instinct and common sense (see, for example, this article), but the trap is it can be lured into intemperate response. The proponents of the madness can truly be said to be possessed by the devil in the sense that they have succumbed to malevolently seeded mind viruses because of unacknowledged sins such as envy, resentment, pride and the like. We must be careful not to let their capitulation to sin bring out our own innate tendencies to it which is what Jesus meant when he said resist not evil, something I have also mentioned in previous posts.

The article I link to makes complete sense on the level of everyday normality but it shows no real insight into why the lamented changes are happening. Unless you understand the demonic impulse behind all this you will not grasp that the only resolution to it is to transfer your attention to the spiritual world. Then you will eventually find that everything you think you have lost, and you have lost in a worldly sense, actually exists in a purer and more real form in the higher worlds. That is the reality, this is only the shadow. It is right to lament the destruction even of the shadow of goodness but know that the true goodness can never be harmed by evil. It remains inviolate.

Added note:

Some people might think this is defeatist talk. It is not. We should all fight the madness in whatever way we may be called to do so but we should also know that victory will not be in this world, not at this time. At other historical periods that may have possible but not now. In fact, one of the reasons the madness is allowed is so that we may remove our focus from this world to the higher one. Christians are being called to the Kingdom of Heaven. When the earthly kingdom becomes very obviously the province of the adversary that shift in focus becomes easier to make.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

The story of creation and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as told in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis is one of the most interesting spiritual texts that has come down to us. For here, told in the simplest of terms, is the story of how we were created and why we are as we are now. The story has different elements to it and can be taken on different levels but the aspect I want to look at here concerns the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Here's the relevant passage. 

'And the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall die."'

The first thing to note is that this is all in Paradise and so this tree forms part of Paradise. Everything in Paradise has been created by God and everything there is good so the tree in itself is good. What is the tree and what its fruit? Clearly, the tree is the self-conscious mind and the fruit is that which awakens mind, thought. The tree is knowledge of good and evil or just knowledge. Adam and Eve did not have an awakened mind before eating the fruit. Thereafter, their eyes were opened which means their mind, their capacity for self-reflection and thought, awoke.

Does this mean the serpent was correct and Adam and Eve were right to listen to him? After all, they moved out of naive innocence into a world of experience in which they could grow. In the prelapsarian Garden of Eden nothing could change or so it might seem. This is a theory certain esoteric schools would subscribe to and they would see the serpent/Lucifer as the Light Bearer his name implies, being either a liberator of humanity in a Promethean sense, freeing us from a tyrannical Gnostic-type Archon god, or else simply working in line with the needs of evolutionary development by helping to awaken mind in infant humanity who were little more than animal men at that stage.

In my view this, to some, appealing scenario is not correct. We know that God is love and God is good. As in goodness is God - there is no goodness apart from God. God is also truth so what he says about not eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is also truth. And yet it awoke mind in man so how do we reconcile these two facts? The fruit is knowledge and knowledge is good but there are two sorts of knowledge. The knowledge that comes from God and the knowledge that comes from self. Eating the fruit from the tree after having been told not to do this gave knowledge apart from God. It was the act of a being that wished to become God, or a god, it makes no difference, without reference to the true God. One can speculate that the fruit was not in itself evil but eating it before being ready to do so made it the source of sin and death.

Knowledge is good. As potential co-creators with God we are called to knowledge but that knowledge should be centred in an awareness of the full reality of God. Knowledge without that awareness becomes evil or there is the strong likelihood it will become so. The serpent tempted Eve to disobey God therefore to deny God and assert the separate self. This was the cause of evil and why Lucifer is no heroic freedom fighter but a rebel against goodness and truth, something that continues to this day.

Who is Sophia? What is She?

 Modernity was largely born out of the Reformation. This was the manifestation in the religious domain, which up to that point had always been the primary domain, of the new consciousness, one with a greater focus on self, the rational mind and the merely human. It was a step forward because it increased our powers of agency and self-determination. It moved us from a largely passive to an increasingly active mode of participation in the world. This brought many advantages but also many problems because human beings, first in the vanguard and then more or less everyone, were no longer directed by an external authority rooted in the real (cf. the instinctive nature of the animal kingdom) but by their own selves, and those selves were, and still are, limited by and to the phenomenal world of sensory experience, though for some journeys into the realm of abstract thought were possible. But even these were largely restricted by the nature of thought centred on itself. Greater freedom and creativity became open to us but the price was the loss of connection to everything that is summed up in the word 'God'. Our horizons became extended but our vision contracted. You might say we saw further along the East/West axis but as a consequence the North/South axis collapsed. And yet this was absolutely necessary if we were to advance from the state of a being embedded in creation to one able to move out of that and manipulate creation ourselves. This was once again eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and it meant we could become gods, if we did this with full recognition of the will of God and in line with his natural and spiritual order, or, failing that and acting according to our own will and its own ends and glorification, devils.

With the Reformation and its rejection of authority the seeds were sown for every man to become his own pope. Eventually every man should be his own pope but the pope is subject to God and if every man becomes not his own pope but his own god then you have crossed the line from saint to demon. That line can be thin sometimes and unfortunately it does seem that humanity as a whole has not succeeded in avoiding it at the present time. We are called to be individual but not individualistic. We are called to be gods in creation, able in the fullness of time to create worlds ourselves, but never to be our own gods. A god must serve the will of God or he becomes a devil.

The Protestant Reformation created the modern world which is why the main drivers of modernity, until its corruption, were those countries in which that ethos was most fully embedded. The spirit of the times was everywhere and that spirit created outcomes in most places but still the Protestant countries were at the centre of it all. One of the defining characteristics of Protestantism was its rejection, either overtly or in effect, of the supernatural. While this meant it could focus its energies more fully on the material plane as was intended by the powers that be, in the short term anyway, it also meant it became spiritually dry and unfulfilling. Religion without the supernatural becomes legalistic and limited to morality. It has no real life or colour or flavour or joy or mystery or power to uplift and inspire. It's an arranged marriage rather than one founded on love. Protestantism also demoted the Mother of God to just a mother. It lost touch with the Divine Feminine.

When the Romantic movement arose at the end of the 18th century, as a reaction against the rationalistic spirit of the Enlightenment and the reassertion of imagination, poets, artists, writers and philosophers rediscovered the Divine Feminine. This might be identified as the soul of things as God the Father is the spirit. It is associated with beauty, mystery and love as opposed to will, life and being. It is also associated with wisdom and in this aspect the Divine Feminine is identified as Sophia.

Sophia is the Divine Feminine in her most elevated mode of being. According to some she actually incarnated in the Virgin Mary. A debate has long been whether she is created or uncreated with some theorists equating her with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. This might seem logical were it not for the fact that it contradicts scripture which describes her as a created feminine image of God. The very first created being but still a created being. In beautiful language chapter 8 of Proverbs extols her thus: 

"The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works before his deeds of old; 

I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be.

When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water;

before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth,

before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth.

I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,

when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command,
 and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

Then I was constantly at his side.
 I was filled with delight day after day, 
rejoicing always in his presence,

rejoicing in his whole world
 and delighting in mankind."

The apocryphal Book of Wisdom in chapter 7 supports this when it says of Sophia that: "She is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness."

These Old Testament quotes can be taken as authoritative or not. They certainly have a poetic truth. However, part of the modern mindset when applied to the spiritual quest is that nothing can be taken as unquestionable just on say so. We must always use our own intelligence and intuition though making sure it is intuition and not wishful thinking. But associating the Divine Feminine with the third person of the Trinity goes against the fundamental Christian teaching that Mary, who is the embodiment of Sophia and the Divine Feminine, conceived Jesus by power of the Holy Spirit.

One can see why the Protestant suppression of the Divine Feminine might cause her to come back in unbalanced or exaggerated forms, action and reaction etc, but still one should know that there is a feminine dimension to divine reality without going to the extreme of feminising God as making the Holy Spirit feminine does do. Seeing Sophia as the first of the Lord's works gives us a clue as to where the Divine Feminine might arise but she is not just the first created being. She is the actual foundation principle of creation. As substance and even space she is the Universal Mother and World Soul who receives the image of God and who ultimately becomes the Heavenly Bride or Divine Spouse. She must arise before anything can be created because everything is created out of her body.

Going back to her source, she could be said to derive from the receptive nature of God which arises when the positive principle of pure act takes expression as its complementary opposite, creation necessarily being founded on duality since a world of subject alone cannot be known. You cannot say she comes after the male principle since the two must arise together as one suggests the other, but she is a reflection of God (as Wisdom says) once God moves into creative/dualistic mode from his original uncreated form, the Ain Soph or hidden God that is at the back of and beyond everything. This is why she is, as Mary, her incarnation in human form, says, submissive to God. Her will is to do his will not the other way around for although the two arise together in time, they arise out of his pre-temporal being. 

I think this insight would resolve the difficulty with feminism which is right to see the feminine as integral to divine reality, there from the very beginning as in "let us make man in our image" i.e. male and female, but fails to see there is still a hierarchical distinction. Sophia is the very first of everything but she still comes from God, created as his Divine Consort.

From God the Creator comes before anything else Sophia who is the light and glory of God and who comes into being when He expresses Himself in creation. She is the mirror in which He sees himself. She becomes His Bride and could even be said to the primary reason for creation because in herself she sums up and includes the whole of creation as it is in relation to God. At the end of days when all is accomplished, she will sit in glory alongside Him on His heavenly throne, created by God out of Himself but now by His great love made equal to Him.

I have used this image before on this blog because it contains so much. It comes from Robert Fludd's History of the Two Worlds (Macrocosm and Microcosm) and can be interpreted in various ways. In the context of this post it shows Sophia as Queen of Creation. She presides over all the created worlds, outer and inner, shown by the concentric circles but is linked by the chain attached to her right hand to the hand of God who is hidden in the cloud above the circle of angels. The image shows the relationship of God to Sophia and Sophia to the universe. He is the Creator, she the Creation.

Islam and the West

 This is a follow up from a post of a few weeks ago. Obviously, emotions can get very heated in a discussion of this topic but I hope to remain objective. I don't think the current attitude that all religions are equally good or equally bad is a useful one. It may be well-meaning and an attempt to redress past prejudice and ignorance but it can also obscure the good and enable the harmful. Where the spiritual is concerned it is not just a matter of believing but of believing what is true and knowing what is either false or on a lower level of truth, meaning a level which caters more to the unevolved consciousness. For consciousness does evolve which is to say it takes in more of reality, is better able to perceive it and to express it. As this takes place the mind is potentially opened up to greater meaning and creative power and love and understanding, and when that happens its values change. If systems are in place which facilitate that it is in line with human growth and development. Not to mention the will of God. If there are systems that impede, prevent or restrict the evolution of consciousness this must be understood or else we will fall back into lower levels of being. That is all there is to it. Good intentions can be as harmful as bad ones if understanding is lacking just as love without wisdom (or misconceived love for it is not real love in these cases more a sentimentalised version of it) can actually have spiritually negative effects. I meant well is the excuse of the foolish and irresponsible.

Will all this in mind I have to point out that Islam in the modern Western world is a counter-evolutionary force. It is all very well to point to the spiritual decadence of the West, and I would be among the first to do so. That decadence is destroying our civilisation but we have to go forwards in line with the growth in consciousness and Islam is only suitable for a pre-rational stage of consciousness and that is looking at it in its best light. We can say that Islam has not succumbed to the absurdities that modern despiritualised Christianity has but that, in part, is because it has remained primitive and not evolved. The modern West has evolved but lost its spiritual centre in the process. Islam has retained its religious focus but is resistant to evolution. Both are wrong and neither is a remedy for the other.

When Muslims emigrate to the West it is because they seek a better life, materially speaking. But so many of them then seem to want to change the West to accommodate the ways of Islam failing to see that this would just make the West like the countries they left. To understand this religion and see why it is spiritually damaging in the modern age one has to go back to its roots. We might then perceive that it is not an intolerant, violent, oppressive doctrine because of misunderstanding of its core teachings. The core teachings are intolerant, violent and oppressive. Of course, sometimes intolerance is good if what you do not tolerate is evil but what Islam does not tolerate is anything other than Islam. That is a plain fact which we cannot avoid. Obviously, there are many good, decent Muslims but that is because they are human beings and God is in all human beings. But while there may be moderate Muslims there is no moderate Islam. Islam means submission and demands that everything submit to it, and its adherents are under the obligation to enforce that rule. You cannot co-exist with Islam for it will always seek to overcome you when it can, and this is because it is not just a religion but a totalitarian political ideology.

I am writing this because I live in London, a city with a Muslim mayor and a Muslim population that has now grown to 15%. That has been very apparent recently and many voices have been raised warning that we are sleepwalking into a massive problem. Often these voices are dismissed as spreading hate and, even though that is just a cynical attempt to shame critics into silence, one has to be careful to avoid unfounded prejudice and make sure one's real motivation is to awaken people to reality. Modern Westerners know little of their own history and do not understand Islam. I don't dispute that it has many qualities. Remembrance of God or some kind of deity, not a particularly evolved concept because it is limited by the limited spiritual capacity of the religion's originator who was clearly no Buddha or Krishna never mind Jesus. Focus on prayer, pilgrimage and fasting, all of which are valuable spiritual exercises. But you can never get away from the fact that it was founded on violence and spread by conquest. It does not tolerate rivals.

Western civilisation is clearly on the way out. In its present form it doesn't deserve to survive because it has turned its back on God. It has therefore become a blot on the face of the Earth. But a civilisation is made up of individuals and many are caught up in the present cultural devastation with no guidance of a better way. That guidance does exist but now you have to look for it and when you find it you will place yourself outside cultural norms or you will if you then follow it properly. At the same time, there are many false answers to the present problems and Islam is one of them. For the West certainly. It may have had a purpose for a particular place and time but that place is not here and that time is not now. Let those looking for a way forward out of the darkness of the present time know that Christ remains the Light of the World. He is the only thing in this temporal zone that truly speaks of eternity.