Pilgrimage

A piece on pilgrimage on Albion Awakening.

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/pilgrimage.html

Are All Saved?

At the end of a previous post I pondered on what might happen to souls who reject the truth of God, and speculated that they might be given another opportunity to embrace reality elsewhere, though it would probably involve a tougher journey for them since they had proved recalcitrant this time around. I thought it might be interesting to explore the idea of spiritual refusal further because there is clearly such a thing and it has consequences, serious ones, which we should try to understand.

It has become almost 'unspiritual' to believe in hell because we think that a God of love could not possibly have made such an environment. The only problem is that the place where we learn most about a God of love, which is the Gospels, is the same place where there is the most emphasis on hell. Jesus, the incarnation of love, speaks many times, and in no uncertain terms, about the reality of hell and how those who reject his message may end up there. How can we resolve this apparent contradiction?

Perhaps we can start by saying that God did not create hell. Hell was created by the rejection of God, firstly by fallen angels and then by those humans who joined them in that rejection. A reasonable definition of hell is a place or state where God is not so how can we blame God for it? We can perhaps blame God for the possibility of it but only because he gave creatures free will to accept or reject him but we cannot blame him for the fact of it. It exists because it has been created by the created not by the Creator.

If it does exist then what is it? What form does it take? Biblical descriptions were probably intended to convey symbolically something of its nature to people at the time, but they may also be external manifestations of internal states since the idea is that in the afterlife outer and inner become one so our environment is, to a degree, a reflection of what is in our mind. However I think the key element of hell is separation. Hell is the state of egotism carried to its ultimate degree where the person is so centred on himself that he is separated from everything else. It is a state where the 'I' has become all there is in the sense that nothing else has any intrinsic reality or value of its own. Everything other than the 'I' is perceived only in terms of its usefulness to that 'I'. And this tells us that not only did God not create hell he does not send us there either. We send ourselves there by our rejection of him and our refusal to let go of our own separate egos. It may even be that we go there in full knowledge of what we are doing.

But do we stay there? The answer must be that it depends on what we mean by hell. I would say that there are places in the non-physical worlds where souls closed to God go who are not past redemption and for whom there is a way back if they chose to take it. It may be that the great majority of erring souls follow this path. But there is also the possibility of spiritual destruction for if free will means anything it must mean that a definitive choice can be made from which there is no turning back. It is this spiritual destruction that is the true hell. The lesser or more relative hells are not eternal in that even here a soul can repent and turn its face to the light. Whether it will or not is entirely down to it but the possibility is there.

The thoughts on this post were prompted by a question I was asked elsewhere about how heaven could be heaven if those we love are not there. That is to say, in hell. This is a very profound question and I am certainly not qualified to answer it fully but I do have some thoughts on the matter.

First of all, it is axiomatic that nothing impure can get into heaven. So sinners by definition cannot do so whether they are those we love or not. But then nor can any of us without God's grace. So there is always hope even for the most obdurate of souls. Secondly, we have to ask what is hell? Heaven is surely supreme reality and that implies that hell is actually unreal. How can it be real if it is outside God who is reality itself? So maybe it is only the unreal part of us that goes there. Inside every human being there is something of God and it is that which gives us our reality. This cannot go to hell so maybe this part of us is always salvaged and somehow made new while the dross is burnt away.

Does this mean that somehow everyone will be saved? That would seem to go against justice and free will. But maybe in the next world opportunities exist for every soul to turn round, though the way back will be longer and harder. If these opportunities are still ignored then maybe the seeds that have not blossomed as they should, or the spiritual essence of these seeds, are gathered up and resown and that might happen until everyone is indeed saved. So the crop that's not grown properly is burnt (in hell) but the essence of it, the essence of the person, is preserved and given another chance to grow correctly, and so on until the spiritual essence of the soul is indeed saved though the form it takes will not be the same as it originally appeared. This idea seems to reconcile the demands of free will, of justice and of love. We, as individuals, must take the consequences of our actions and if we choose not to be saved that is our right. But that part of us which is God himself cannot be destroyed. So this could come back in a new form until eventually it finds its true being in heaven.

This means Hitler as Hitler may have gone to spiritual destruction but the spiritual essence of Hitler, which cannot be destroyed because it is of God himself, will have a new chance somewhere further down the line. It is a fresh start and a new outer person but it is the same divine reality behind that outer person. You might say that this is no longer Hitler because he is gone and you would be correct, but the inner truth that anyone who may ever have loved in him is still there and would be known albeit in a quite different form.

These reflections lead me to think that our notions of hell may refer to two different things. The first is a place (or state) of darkened consciousness where those go who have not accepted God in this lifetime, or those things that God stands for, but who still have a chance of redemption if they will but receive it. They have created this hell for themselves but there is a way out. (Note that this is different to the idea of purgatory because that is for souls who acknowledge the light but are not yet sufficiently pure enough to be worthy of it). But the second hell is spiritual destruction of the individual and that is eternal in that it is final. However it may be that, saved from that destruction, is the divine essence of that soul and this does have a new chance of salvation.

But, as I say, all this is speculation. It is certainly no reason not to seek salvation here and now.

Christianity and the New Age

The topic of this post was prompted by a comment on the previous one asking whether people in the New Age might eventually move on to Christianity as a more substantial form of spirituality. I wrote in response that an interest in New Age teachings could certainly develop into a renewed engagement with Christianity if the seeker was fundamentally serious and sincere, two essentials for any kind of genuine spirituality.  But I added what I think is a very important point, namely that their Christianity might well be a deeper form than if they had not been exposed to a New Age influence in the first place because there are aspects of spirituality in New Age teachings which are neglected or not properly developed in modern Christianity, certainly not Christianity of the mainstream going to church on a Sunday variety.

Foremost among these are mysticism and the idea of immanence. For though I wrote in the previous post that God Immanent should always stand in the light of God Transcendent that does not mean that the immanence of God should not also be acknowledged and, not only acknowledged,  but actively sought. Christianity has become an exterior sort of religion, seemingly concerned with belief, doing good, being a good neighbour and so on. Doing just enough to be saved but otherwise leading a fairly normal life; indistinguishable, in fact, from a nonbeliever in many respects. This is not what Jesus taught nor is it, in my opinion, what we are put on this earth to achieve. We are here to learn to become godlike ourselves as in the well known saying that God became Man so that Man might become God.

So I would not recommend a conventional Christianity as the way forward to anyone. What we need nowadays is a mystical Christianity that sees Christ as a forerunner and exemplar of what we ourselves should be. This is not disrespectful or hubristic because it can only happen when we give ourselves entirely to God. And it is not a question of divinisation of the earthly man (which is a New Agey sort of concept) but of a new man being born, one in whom the seed of Christ has blossomed and flowered. It is a matter of getting to the state where we can say with St Paul that  "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." What the New Age can take from Christianity is the need for crucifixion of the self. What Christianity can take from the New Age is the idea that we and Christ are truly one and that our purpose in life is to realise that. But we can only realise it when we empty ourselves of self and do what we do for God's sake not our own. For if we would become godlike it must be on God's terms and conditions not ours.

Christianity has been led astray, I believe, by a focus on salvation as its end. Salvation, as in turning to God and away from self, is crucial, of course. It requires repentance and redirection but it is only the beginning of the true spiritual path. It is stepping onto the path but it is not treading it to its conclusion which is found in the attainment of oneness with God or what is called theosis in the Orthodox tradition. This idea is clearly implied in Christianity but has been rather neglected because, I would say, it is so hard. But the goal of real Christianity has always been to make saints and we should not be satisfied with less.

Question on the Spiritual and the Liberal

This question came in response to the earlier post on The Left. Since my reply is quite long I've made of it a new post instead of tacking it on there.

Q. Following on from your post on the Left I have a question. I used to be involved with various New Age groups but found that every single one of them assumed the truth of liberalism, and if you expressed any other opinion they looked almost shocked. Your opinion was branded as 'Piscean' meaning old-fashioned, prejudiced and ignorant rather than 'Aquarian' or liberal and enlightened in social and cultural matters, and the strong implication was you couldn't possibly be spiritual. What do you think is going on here?

A. I've mentioned this before, specifically here, and it's true. Practically all non-traditional forms of spirituality are politically and culturally liberal. It's just an assumption that that's what a good person is. I actually believe this is one of the tests of the present time. Are you able to think for yourself as to what goodness and truth really are or do you just follow the fashionable crowd of perceived goodness and truth?

Probably that has come about for several reasons. First of all, most of the intelligentsia is like this. Liberalism is seen as the default intelligent person's position now, but it has largely come from non-spiritual if not anti-spiritual sources so should be treated with suspicion on that account alone. It is not a response to any traditional spiritual teaching but a manifestation of the democratic spirit and therefore a political thing. But because most people today are educated in liberalism before they encounter serious spirituality they bring their preconceived notions with them, and their spirituality has to fit in to their already existing liberal world view.

Then there's love. Everyone knows you should love and liberalism is perceived as being more in line with that doctrine because it tends to treat everybody the same. It is more 'loving'.  But love is not indiscriminate nor does it deny truth for, if we are told to be as innocent as doves, we are also told to be as wise as serpents. Love should not be used as an excuse to deny spiritual reality, which is hierarchical when it is in its expressed form, nor should it be limited to man as he is in this world. What appears to be love to the outer man might not be at all when considered in the light of the whole man. Obviously love is good but real love can only be understood in the context of the whole picture and liberalism denies most of the picture as it is totally a 'this world' focused doctrine.

Then there's sex. Traditional spirituality understood that this incredibly powerful force must be contained or it will cause havoc. Unless it is contained (in marriage), and if it is seen as an end in itself, it will lead an individual or a society away from any true spiritual development or self-transcendence to a concern with self-fulfilment; that is, a fulfilment of the lower earthly self rather than the soul or spiritual self. An over-concern with physical sex keeps you in the earthbound mind and body like nothing else precisely because it is a form of spiritual unity translated to the physical plane. So if you give free rein to this energy in a physical sense you are unable to express it spiritually. But for liberals everyone should have the freedom to do as they want if they don't harm another, and sexual freedom has become one of their most important freedoms. What they don't see is that, in the context of spiritual truth, you are harming someone, namely yourself, when you pursue certain apparent freedoms. Controlling sex is often seen as a vice or a weakness rather than a virtue by the liberal mind but that is because many people don't want to control it and look for an excuse not to do so.

Then there is freedom itself. For the liberal, freedom, like love, is seen as a universal good but in actual fact, like love, it must be seen in the context of, and be subordinate to, the reality of God. Taken out of its proper context, as it is in liberalism, it becomes a means to extend the domination of the ego or unrepentant and unreconstructed autonomous self. The restraint of sex and freedom, so important in traditional monastic disciplines that were founded on chastity and obedience, has been rejected by liberal spirituality but why have these been rejected? If you look beneath the excuses you see it is because the ego wants to have its cake and eat it too.

Following on from all these things we can see that modern, non-traditional spirituality is human centred. That means that implicitly, if not explicitly, personal growth or 'healing' rather than salvation or sanctification is the order of the day. For most New Age type spirituality humanity is not regarded as fallen and in need of repentance but full of spiritual potential which just needs to come out if you use the right techniques. No doubt we do have great potential, Jesus told us we did, but this will only come out after there is true repentance which is an admission that you of yourself are nothing and all you are comes from God.

And here we come to the heart of the matter. God is not an important figure in modern spirituality. He is either surplus to requirements or an embarrassment or something to be gone beyond or so transformed by having to adapt to human interests that he is not God at all any longer. But God the Father, God the Creator of Heaven and Earth is not important. If he were then everything else would have to fit into that, as it should, but when he is dismissed or downgraded or changed into something else then spirituality is not about man making himself right with God but about man, in effect, becoming God himself. And here I think we come to the real reason that New Age spirituality is liberal. It is because the true motive of the New Age is to supplant God with Man.

Some liberal and spiritual people would say they do believe in God but actually what they often seem to believe in is a sort of idealised mother figure who loves all her children as they are now and doesn't require them to change or grow in any serious way. Someone who comes down to them where they are now rather than someone who requires them to go up to where he is. This is not the real God as taught by all serious religions, especially Christianity, who is love and truth together not just unconditional, undiscriminating love. Nor, may I say, was it how the Masters who spoke to me were. They had greater love than any human being I have ever come across but they expressed this in the context of the knowledge that we on this Earth are out of kilter with truth and need to put ourselves right. We need to straighten up and straighten out. Of course, God loves us but he loves the real us created by him in his image not the false self we have created for ourselves in our own image down here. 

Looking at this another way, you could say that those who think of themselves as spiritual and liberal focus largely on God immanent to the exclusion of God transcendent but the former must always be seen in the light of the latter.

As for the Piscean and Aquarian jibe, don't worry about that. Outer things may change but inner realities don't nor does the path to God. Yes, it may grow and develop and take in more of truth but, just as Jesus did not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them, so any higher understanding of truth must build on the old not replace it with something quite new and different. This is how things work in the spiritual world and it is how they work in Nature too.

Basically what I am saying here is that those who are liberal and spiritual don't understand the spiritual because they see it in the context of this world rather than the other way round which is the correct way.

Conclusion: if you are spiritual and liberal (culturally speaking and in the modern sense) it is because you have things back to front.

Education and Truth

Why is it that so many people of recent generations have been so easily won over to the project of the inversion of the good and subversion of truth? After all, most of these people are no different to those who came before them, a mixture of good and bad like us all, and presumably would favour the good in most circumstances. Well, perhaps they would favour it if they knew it but they don't and have been misled as to what it might be. There are various reasons for this and they range from the decline of religion to the rise of materialistic science. There is also the fact that the demonic powers are mounting their most sustained assault on humanity yet, part of which involves substituting the materialistic egalitarian humanistic doctrine, or secular liberalism, for proper spiritual teachings which, by their very nature, are more subtle and less easily tailored to universal global application than the simplistic belief system that's been foisted on us today. The idea of spirituality has been corrupted to mean what gives happiness and reduces suffering in this world, and goodness has been diminished to the recognition of equality with evil the corresponding rejection of it. 

But why has this belief in equality become so pervasive in the world today when, despite its superficial and theoretical truth, it is so clearly mistaken when one looks beneath the surface? (As the Masters said men are by no means equal on the earth plane). Partly, no doubt, as a reaction to the excessive inequality of the past but chiefly, I would say, because everyone seems to want to think that they are as good as anyone else. No one is better than me. So my diagnosis is that, outside the ivory towers of intellectuals who don't really believe what they teach anyway, the modern belief in equality is actually founded on and sustained by egotism.

However there are two other factors which have helped in the dissemination of the project of subverting truth, and both of them are almost always regarded as good in the topsy turvy world of today. One of them is feminism. One of the reasons this has been encouraged (and, let's be honest, the soil was fertile because of the pronounced inequalities of the past) is that women are more likely than men to go along with the status quo and consequently much less likely to fight against it unless they have a very strong reason to do so, probably relating to their children for whom, rightfully, they will fight tooth and nail. But generally women are more likely to want to be seen as, and actually to want to be, nice. This quality is easily exploited for if nobody's feelings are to be hurt then all kinds of untruths will be allowed to flourish. As indeed they are now when nice has replaced true.

The second, and more profound, factor in this is education. It is a cliché but one founded in reality that frequently the more educated a person is the less he is guided by common sense. The more he can be made to live in a world of ideas and thought, the less he is in touch with basic reality. Mass education to university level has only really kicked in over the last fifty years which is precisely the time that more and more people have succumbed to the ethos of secular liberalism. That is basically an abstract idea with no grounding in any kind of spiritual truth. In fact, as man needs some kind of religious belief, it has replaced that for those who have lost their religion, and the universities have become the seminaries.

So education and the life of thought are largely to blame for the success of the project of dismantling spiritual truth. Does that mean we restrict education? First of all, that's impossible and secondly, it is undesirable.  But we should strive to create a form of education in which spiritual truths are front and centre. This might mean it was not so intellectually focused. The cultivation and development and training of intellect would still be highly important, of course, but it would be guided by intuition with each faculty used to check and balance the other. Now we have a situation in which the intellect is presumed to be the arbiter of truth and the highest faculty we possess for interpreting reality.  This has led to the illusions of the present day. Education will always be essential, that goes without saying, but we need to radically overhaul our concept of what it means and the end to which it is directed.

The unseen powers behind secular liberalism are going to force all people who are truly faithful to the values of religion into what will appear an extremist position.  Let us remember that, according to Tertullian, when Nero martyred the early Christians, it was on the grounds of hatred for humanity. We must be careful not to let the denial of real truth that is liberal leftism (resulting from using one aspect of truth as an excuse to deny the rest) drive us into a corresponding state of anger and hatred in reaction. That's just what the devil wants as it will (seemingly) justify his position and his purpose which is to make good appear as evil and evil as good.

The Test of Today

I believe that now is a time of great testing of human beings; a sorting out of the sheep from the goats. That's the only explanation for the state of the world today and why so much falsehood is presented as truth in the public forum and then allowed such a free rein. We are being weighed in the balance, subjected to tests of heart and mind and will to find if we are worthy of entering into a state of spiritual truth. In order to achieve this we often have to go against the flow of apparent right thinking instead of with it as might have been the case in earlier times. That is because only if we do this can it really be known that we are heeding the truth from inside ourselves, hence properly responding to God and not just following the path as it might have been imposed on us from outside. We now have to follow the line of most resistance. So we have to show both faith and courage, insight and the strength of mind to bear witness to it.

One of the main tests of the contemporary world is to see if we accept a lesser good as absolute and thereby reject the greater one. The lesser good is the well being of humanity considered as separate from God which means separate from truth. This, in part, explains the mass success of all liberal doctrines and how they have become identified with goodness and virtue. These doctrines might have had some validity to them if this world were all that there was but as that is not the case, they are profoundly false. They are predicated on the basis that there is no Creator with a purpose that goes beyond our immediate happiness and fulfilment in this world, and that, insofar as a human being is concerned, what you see is what you get. They rely for their truth on a denial of God (which makes it strange that so many religious people, especially those in roles of authority, adopt them), and they emphasise the second of Christ's commandments (love your neighbour) at the expense of the first (love God). Of course, even love of one's neighbour is only observed theoretically and as a means of signalling that you are on the right side. Incidentally, I find that loving your distant neighbour is now used as an excuse to pay less attention to your near one, demonstrating that love has little to do with it and is just used as an excuse to dismantle traditional structures of truth and rob them of their spiritually protective qualities.

Be that as it may, the fact is that the second commandment can only be truly observed when the first is achieved. That is because all love descends from God. He is the source of love and if you try to love while denying the source you are attempting the impossible. You cannot love in a spiritual sense, which means truly, unless you are at least somewhat aware of the reality of God. There is no love without God. You can be aware of the idea or fact of love because God is within you whether you acknowledge him or not, but this idea can only really come to life when you open your heart and mind up to God or Christ who is his human face and form. If you can't do this then what you call love will be like a copy of something rather than the thing itself. It will never catch fire until it is touched by the flame of God, and this means the true God, known in the heart, and not an idea about him you might have formed.

So modern liberal doctrines might have some truth in them but it is the truth of a counterfeit rather than the genuine article. Indeed liberalism is best seen as precisely that, a counterfeit of Christianity, a Christianity flattened out, secularised and brought down to this world. It was very probably specifically designed to replace the real thing by apparently retaining the good bits but throwing out the superstitions. In fact, it does the very opposite and keeps the shell while discarding the nut. But then those who oppose liberal doctrines must take care that they do not fall into the extreme of denying these have any validity at all, even on a relative level. If you oppose liberalism, as you should, you must not let that push you into the opposite extreme. Remember there are two commandments, love God and love man. The latter must be seen in the light of the former but if you neglect the latter then you become almost as bad as those who neglect or deny God. This too is part of the test of today. Don't let the lies of the enemy lead you into the over-reaction of rejecting the reality of the truth he presents in a deformed and corrupted state.

Many previous generations have felt they were living in the end times as predicted in the New Testament. It would certainly seem we do so today not just because Christianity is less and less followed in lands where it has held sway for centuries, but also because what calls itself Christianity now is less and less the real thing, having increasingly become quite another set of beliefs that have assumed the Christian name and outer form. Wherever the transcendent Creator takes second place to the needs, wishes and requirements of earthly man, and has to fit into those, you can be sure that what you are seeing is not the religion of Christ. But even if these are not the end times, they are still times of testing when those who would win the prize are subjected to examination. But they will also be supported if their hearts are true and their efforts sincere. The tests will be hard but if you humbly pray for help then it will be given. Not necessarily in the form you expect but in a way that supports you as you need to be supported. That is to say, by strengthening you for the fight not taking away the need for it just as was the case for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The increasing polarisation of the last few years has made it seem that we are coming ever closer to a fork in the road where a real choice has to be made in that two alternatives will be available to us and we can no longer hedge our bets. We will have to decide whether to serve God or Man, though naturally the choice will not be presented in so unsubtle a form as that. In fact, some people might think they are serving God when they are not at all. This is something we must all watch out for. Jesus' words in Matthew 7:21 might apply to any one of us if we are not careful.
 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."

So now is the time of spiritual testing but my feeling is that, because God is merciful, the majority of those who fall short are not lost but will be consigned to other spheres where their spiritual education will continue, albeit in a more prosaic and therefore much longer way. But why waste time and go the long way round? Let us make the right decision now.

Imagination is Vision

This is my response to Bruce Charlton’s recent excellent post  on Albion Awakening about why fantasy or myth can seem more real than reality.

http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/imagination-is-vision.html