A Heroic Age

 I recall reading once that the Emperor Akbar, the great Mughal ruler of India who should figure on any top ten list of monarchs, said that saints cannot be kings nor kings saints. You can see what he meant. The demands of the job are quite different as are the skill sets required. Donald Trump is clearly no saint and his opponents attack him on that account regularly, but it seems that even when their arrows hit the target they just fall off. He remains unscathed. Still, he is no saint but then a real saint would not be able to do the job he appears to have been selected to do, and would not want to either. Their concerns would lie elsewhere.

In Hesiod's poem Works and Days there are five Ages of Man which go from Gold to Silver to Bronze to Iron with each age signifying a descent in human happiness, goodness and nobility. The men of the Golden Age are wise, pious and benevolent while the Silver Age population start off reasonably well but are eventually destroyed for their impiety before the gods. There follow the men of the Bronze Age but they descend into violence, and their end comes in a great flood. Finally we arrive at the Iron Age when life is just hard grind. There is no honour among men who lie and feel no shame. It's a sad and sorry time for everyone. The Roman poet Ovid has a similar view of life. He says that the Golden Age was a time of justice, peace and innocence. Humanity was naturally good but it knew little of the arts and sciences. These came about in the Silver Age as a gift from Jupiter who took over from Saturn as the principal deity. Once again the Bronze Age is a time of war though Ovid says men still respected the gods. However, religious feeling is quite lost in the Iron Age which becomes the most materialistic of times as men dig mines deep into the earth in their search for prosperity, that being all they care about. Truth and decency are distinguished only by their absence.

You will note I said Hesiod has five ages but I only mentioned four. Ovid only has the conventional four, but between the Bronze and Iron Ages Hesiod inserts another which is the Heroic Age. The Bronze Age ends in war and destruction and the Iron Age is a time of universal decline, but the Heroic Age represents a kind of restoration of past glory. It doesn't last but it is there all the same. A time of heroes who are certainly flawed but still are heroes and they bring about an age when the downward trajectory is held back for a period.

The theory of cycles allows for the recapitulation of the major cycle within each section of a minor cycle. There are even further recapitulations of the pattern within the minor cycles themselves. We are undoubtedly in the Iron Age and have been for a while. But perhaps the cycle repeats itself on many levels and perhaps, if Hesiod is right, we are due another Heroic Age or mini version thereof. It won't last but that doesn't matter because these ages only relate to the material world and our true home and destiny are elsewhere. But, in terms of the material world, perhaps we are going to experience a small restoration.

End Times Introduction

 This is part of the introduction to what I am currently calling, following a suggestion by JM Smith, Surviving the End Times.

Ever since the beginning of Christianity a large group of believers have thought they were living in the end times and prepared accordingly. Basing this belief on the words of Jesus himself and the book of Revelation, they saw the world around them as lapsing into spiritual decay and human beings as falling away from God into self-concern and atheism. For them this prefigured the return of Christ in glory and the salvation of all those who believed in him.

It never happened. Despite Jesus’ words that "this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled", the end times never came. But this didn’t stop many subsequent generations from believing that they too were living at a time of universal decline. Now we in the 21^st century are faced with a similar dilemma. You could think, here we go again. Those believers never learn from their mistakes. How they must love their pessimism and the sense of self-righteousness it gives them.

 

But something is different today. The signs of spiritual decay are more obvious than ever before with not just atheism and materialism dominating the minds of most people but even spirituality, where it exists, being often just a form of therapy aimed at comforting the lower self rather than enabling one to go beyond it. And then Christianity has spread all over the world, as predicted must happen before the end times, but its power has greatly waned, especially in its former heartlands, and Christians themselves are increasingly persecuted, on the one hand, while, on the other, their churches have fallen into a sort of secular humanism, voided of the supernatural element and more concerned with this world than the next. Meanwhile even many non-religious people, especially since the turn of the millennium, feel that history has run its course and no longer look with optimism towards a brighter future, but see instead one of growing poverty and cultural loss.

 

This book takes for granted that we are indeed living in the end times though whether these extend for several more years or decades or even longer is a different question. If even Jesus said that only the Father knows when these things will happen, it makes little sense to speculate. Nor is there any real speculation here as to how the end times may conclude or what comes after. Christians expect the advent of the Antichrist followed by the return of Christ himself, and a more universal tradition sees the conclusion of the current Iron Age in large-scale destruction followed by a new Golden Age. Given that spiritual ideas are often expressed symbolically, these could be pointing towards the same thing which is not to say that Christ is just one more avatar among many, but that pre-Christian and pagan ideas were visions of what became reality with Christ.

 

Entropy exists in the spiritual sense as well as the physical. At the start of a new cycle spiritual energy is released into the world from above and it forms a new culture which subsequently runs through the normal stages of growth, maturity, decline and death. The initial energy can be renewed at various points in the cycle, rather like saints can revivify religion, but there comes a time when even this possibility has passed. Now, we live at a time when spiritual energy has dissipated to such an extent that the power of matter has asserted itself over everything. The physical and natural environments have actually hardened and coarsened while, on the mental plane, everyone is cut off from the presence of spirit. This affects even believers which is why saints and miracles are so thin on the ground these days. I do not say that there are no evolved souls around. There may, paradoxically enough, be many but they too will suffer from the world conditions which are universal.

 

In this book we will examine the end times from a variety of perspectives. We will look at its manifestations, some of which are often regarded as positive by those still in thrall to the psychological consequences of the end times inversion of spirit and matter, and consider its significance from the spiritual perspective. We will look at ways in which the soul may separate itself from the downwards pull of end times energy and also examine how greater familiarity with the ideas of tradition might rescue modern people brought up and educated, brainwashed one might say, in modern ways which are ways that derive from the afore-mentioned inverted ideology of end times energy in which quantity and matter take precedence over quality and spirit. The subject has endless ramifications and we will only look at a selection of them, but if one bears in mind the basic theme of the end times, that being the dominance of matter over spirit, it becomes easy to recognise it and therefore resist it in almost every walk of life here and now in the 21^stcentury. That way lies freedom because if you submit to the end times energy, notwithstanding the fact that no one can fully escape it, you are a spiritual slave. These days it is necessary to swim against the current but, in so doing, we develop our spiritual muscles more than we might do in a more convivial age.

 

A Manual for the End Times

Undaunted by the reluctance of my previous books to enter the bestseller lists, I am currently working on a new one. The subject will be the end times which most readers of this blog will agree is the period we find ourselves in now. The provisional title is A Manual for the End Times though that may change as it is slightly dull, even if it does have the merit of describing the contents.

The book will consist of various essays looking into what the end times is, how it manifests, or is manifesting because it surely is, and how we should react to it/them. There are at the moment, though this may change, four sections which are End Times, Spiritual Tradition, Spiritual Practice and God and the Soul. The basic theme is that the end times represents that period at the end of a cycle when the spiritual energy that was initially injected into the world, in one sense at the Incarnation though the actual start of the cycle dates from farther back, begins to run out which means that matter reasserts itself over spirit with all the consequences you might expect. We have been seeing some of these consequences over the last couple of centuries, but today the situation is becoming worse as the process, which is essentially the working out of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics on the spiritual plane or as it relates to the spiritual in the material, has reached the stage in which the balance has definitely tipped. This tipping of the balance will result in a speeding up of the process though it also means there will be a concomitant reaction to the increase of inverted energy, as one might think of it. For even in the darkest times when spirit is apparently almost completely absent, we all still have an inner connection to reality. That cannot be destroyed and might even become stronger as the external world descends into outright denial of truth.

The end times might seem disastrous when you are caught up in them but they are a natural process and inevitable in a material world. Matter is intrinsically unstable. Only spirit is permanent. And they also present opportunity if we react to them correctly though that does mean standing against the flow.

I may be posting here slightly less often while working on the book but will continue to maintain the blog and perhaps will sometimes include sections from the book here.

Christians and the Esoteric

 It is often said that there is nothing esoteric in Christianity. Everything is public and out in the open, and there are no hidden secrets divulged only to higher level initiates. It is true that Christ did exteriorise the mysteries, enacting literally what had taken place symbolically in those ancient rites and so potentially making rebirth into spirit available to everyone who believed in him, though what belief in Christ really means in this context is something to ponder. But time moves on and what was applicable at one moment in history may be less so later on.

Spirituality means escaping the iron grip of matter. Not because matter is evil but because it is matter, i.e. not spirit or, at least, not spirit in its pristine, undisguised form. As one escapes matter one moves up through the levels of manifested reality which, in human terms, means through the levels of the physical nature, the emotions, thought and personal identity. Each one of these levels must be conquered but all are incorporated into the whole. We descend from the pure consciousness of the spiritual world into matter to learn the lessons of matter and acquire its virtues which are the qualities associated with action and doing, relating and feeling, and knowing and understanding, qualities one can only acquire through experience in a dualistic world of subject and object. In the process of our immersion in matter we can forget who we are and identify with the 'bodies' or modes of being through which we temporarily operate in order to gain the ability to become gods, free agents with creative power motivated by love. It is this false identification that is the problem so the fault does not lie with matter, which is merely the medium through which spirit expresses and comes to know itself, but our identification with it.

What does this have to do with the esoteric? Simply this. At an earlier phase of development the majority of human beings were focused in the physical and emotional worlds. Few people had developed mentally to a high level, but that is no longer the case. Many people have now reached a relatively high degree of intellectual development and these people need to understand. They cannot just proceed on faith. Their ability to believe must be coupled with understanding for them to flourish and grow spiritually, and for their belief actually to be rooted in the whole of their being. The esoteric is really just about knowledge. It is not spiritual in the spiritual sense but intellectual. And yet for modern man to be spiritual in the spiritual sense he needs intellectual support.

A follower of Christ in our day must combine a degree of esoteric understanding with faith. If he neglects this his faith will be shallow even if it is intense. His spiritual development will be limited and his entry into the mind of Christ will be partial. This is in line with the growth of human consciousness. The old ways may suffice for some but for those who would not just follow Christ but actually start to become like him then knowledge must supplement faith even if it remains the case that true knowledge actually arises from real faith. "Credo ut intelligam".

The esoteric is not there to replace faith in Christ. It is not a higher level of spirituality but a means of deepening faith and taking it from something that is exterior to the inner man, in the sense that it is located in thought and feeling, to something that is more like knowing through being. It elevates faith to a higher plane where the boundaries between faith and knowledge start to dissolve. If faith is of the heart, as it should be, then the esoteric is of the head and we need both to be spiritually whole. Indeed, only when we have both do we really have either one of them in the proper sense.

Saving the West

There are many online writings lamenting the destruction of the West and blaming the usual suspects of mass immigration, liberalism, feminism and materialism, and their by-products of sentimentality, self-hatred and so on. Some regret this but accept it as inevitable, others want to fight it and think it can be turned around while a few just shrug their shoulders and cultivate their garden which seems to them to be the only option left in a crumbling cultural wasteland. I sympathise with all these approaches but would like to ask a question here. What is the West for? Because only if we know what it is for can we know if it is worth saving. 

Any civilisation worth that name must be organised around spiritual principles. From ancient Egypt to Greece to India, and even Rome when it began, God or the gods were at the centre of life, formed the culture and gave meaning to the civilisation. For the West that organising principle was Christianity which was the greatest expression of spiritual understanding there has been. In fact, all the other expressions might be said to be from the outside looking in. Only Christianity really comes from the inside. That, of course, is the meaning of revelation. Christianity or, better put, Christ is the greatest revelation of and from the spiritual world. There really is no doubt about this. Christ is the only religious personality utterly without flaw or limitation.

The West existed for the expression of Christianity. That is what gave it its greatness. Not uniquely for there were many tributaries but the main river into which all these tributaries fed was Christianity. Some people think the West is defined by science and has reached its greatest state following that pursuit but even science arose in a Christian context with natural philosophers seeking to understand God's creation. And whether it has reached its apogee pursuing science or sunk to a spiritual nadir is a question worth pondering.

When the West started to abandon Christianity it lost sight of itself. Now, we can go into the reasons for that abandonment and say that some of them were actually based in truth because they were to do with the development of consciousness and an increased mental polarisation and intellectual comprehension of the creation. The outer expression of Christ's teachings followed by the West might be said to have been suitable for an earlier phase of consciousness, less so for the new phase. But the core remained eternally valid for the core is Christ himself. It is not true that a better grasp of the world leads to atheism. A superficial understanding may but not a deeper one. A little knowledge has proved to be a very dangerous thing for the West but it is not only this superficial knowledge that has caused the West to abandon God and Christ. This is fundamentally a moral problem. The creature has got too big for its boots. Its newly acquired powers have gone to its head for it has taken these to itself and decided they are aspects of its own self and belong to that self by right.

I regret the ongoing destruction of the West but it has brought this on itself through its own hubris. When it rejected Christ it signed its own death warrant and we live in the playing out of that process. I suppose that it could theoretically rediscover Christ but that looks very unlikely, so much have we succumbed to our own egotism and proved unable to resist the demonic influences which hasten the process of our downfall. Individually, we can and should turn back to reality which means for the West to Christ, but collectively things do not look promising. So be it. The West is only worth saving if it rededicates itself to Christ. Note I do not say spirituality which can mean a whole host of things, some positive, some just self-indulgent and shallow. Without the rediscovery of Christ we can fight the symptoms and secondary causes of decline as listed above all we like but it will not lead to any kind of true renaissance.

Imperfection

 It is a sad fact that in this world everything good is contaminated while many things that are mostly bad have some good in them. This can be confusing and is disconcerting for those who, like me, Virgo that I am, would prefer good and bad to be clearly delineated. But it means that one must develop discernment and also a measure, not too much, of open-mindedness and tolerance. Truth is multi-faceted and the wise do not become set in their ways or restricted to just one approach to it.

This is not an excuse for believing all manner of nonsense nor does it justify falsehood. Good and bad may often be mixed together but our task is to sift them apart and keep the good while rejecting the bad. At the same time, it does mean we should understand that there may be some good in what may be mostly bad (I am speaking of ideas more than actions), and support that good while rejecting the bad. This keeps us on our spiritual toes especially as we are also required to uphold the good unreservedly and without compromise.

This is an imperfect world as it must be since it is the material part of the whole and matter is intrinsically unstable. Nowadays, it is more imperfect than ever as the grip of matter on our minds has tightened. We can never fully free ourselves of that material grip while in the world but nor should we allow it to have a hold on us. The rule is aim for perfection but know you can never reach it in this world. As the Masters said, "Do not be a perfectionist. There is nothing perfect to be found anywhere in your world. Seek the true perfection within but do not expect it outwardly. If you do, all you will find will be disappointment. It is your task to demonstrate the highest you can but not to condemn others who do not live up to your ideals."

Bad People

 What can we do if we get involved with a bad person? I ask the question because this is a common experience for people who seek to become closer to God.

First of all, we have to admit that there are such things as bad people. The sentimentalised modern idea is that everyone is basically good until proved otherwise whereas the traditional Christian belief was we are all basically bad until saved. But that is not what I mean here. I am referring to something over and above the Christian concept of original sin or, as some might just call it, the ego. I am talking about people who are spiritually rotten rather than just undeveloped, unawakened or run of the mill self-centred which is most of us.

Jesus described such people when he called the Pharisees a brood of vipers, specifically associating them with the serpent, Satan. He went on to say, "How can you, who are evil, say anything good?" (Matthew 12:34). Then in John 8:44 he says that their father is the devil and they do their father's desires. These are the fallen beings who come to this world already in league with or corrupted by dark forces. Christianity errs in thinking that souls are newly created when they come into this world. We all have a prior existence in the spiritual world and we have already been through many experiences before coming here which have made us the sort of person we are. Some may have spent previous lives in the physical world, others may have known existence in other dimensions. No human soul in this world is freshly hatched, and what I am calling a fallen being is one who has largely already chosen the path of God rejection and ego before all else.

I believe there are a large number of such souls around at the present time for one of the peculiarities of our age is that it is a summing up of a cycle when all the negativity of the past is released and that includes human negativity. These are hard words but look around. Can you call them unfair? Naturally, all souls can be saved. All are God's children and Jesus came to save sinners not the righteous, but it cannot be denied that it is hard to save a fallen being.

One of the reasons it is hard is because bad people genuinely have no idea they are bad. They even consider themselves to be good and that others who may get in their way are the bad ones. They are the best of self-justifiers. They can consistently behave appallingly to someone but if that person reacts just once then it is he who is at fault and anything the bad person may have done is explained and excused by that one reaction, even if it took place beforehand! I know someone who regularly abuses and insults her husband but if he ever reacts and responds in anger then he is the one at fault, never mind the fact that he puts up with a great deal most of the time. In her mind his one moment of anger justifies her constant aggression and rudeness.

A bad person completely lacks self-knowledge and does not even want it despite claims to the contrary. Most people will strive to understand their shortcomings up to a point but fallen beings are not interested in that. They seek only what bolsters their ego and are oblivious to anything that might show them up as self-concerned monsters. It is a psychological block which they have acquired over time, I am tempted to say over lifetimes, and generally speaking nothing can penetrate it. Perhaps in certain cases, suffering or an extreme experience of some kind, some light may dawn but that is not guaranteed by any means.

These fallen beings are souls that have chosen the wrong path over a long period. They come to this world already spiritually damaged goods, self-damaged, that is. Perhaps some of them are here now as a last opportunity to progress spiritually before being consigned to experiences elsewhere. They are being given another chance to repent. Of course, there is something of this in all of us. We all bear the burden of a corrupt ego as part of the human experience and we all need to repent, but these souls are ones who have consistently failed to do so and, as a result, embedded themselves further in the fallen self.

What, then, can we do if we are in similar position to the husband of the person just mentioned? If, that is, fate has thrown us together with a person of this sort, perhaps someone we might nowadays say suffers from narcissistic personality disorder which is a spiritual as much as a psychological sickness. We might start by accepting that there is a life lesson here. Jesus suffered abuse uncomplainingly. Perhaps we are being given a similar lesson, hard as it might be. Just as God can bring good out of evil, in some cases greater good than there would have been without the evil, so he can use such fallen beings as mediums through which to test us, test our self-control, our ability to remain detached and calm and not react in the face of attack, and our capacity to forgive. The Lord's Prayer asks God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." To be forgiven we must show that we ourselves can forgive, and how can we do that if there is nothing to forgive? Forgiveness purifies the heart. Without a cause to draw forth this forgiveness such purification is much harder.

Bad people exist and those on the spiritual path will frequently be thrown into close proximity with them. The task is to endure without responding in kind. This is the test to which we must be equal if we would follow the example laid down for us by Jesus. At the same time, it is foolishness to pretend that bad people are not bad. The devil loves to be thought misunderstood rather than wicked. He can pursue his ends that much more easily. As always we must balance love with wisdom and wisdom with love.