An English Virtue

This is an extract from Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination by Peter Ackroyd. It tells a tale recounted by the Venerable Bede in his History of the English Church and People.

"A monk named Drylhelm, from the country of the Northumbrians, was escorted by an angel to a “very broad and deep valley of infinite length” where the condemned souls of the departed were tossed in fire “dreadful with burning flames.”  It is unlikely that John Bunyan read this account, but his own image of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” with “the flame and the smoke,” envisioned a thousand years later in The Pilgrim’s Progress , is part of a continuous tradition. Drylhelm was taken back to the living world, where he spoke only to a few devout contemporaries about his experience. When bathing in a freezing river, with the blocks of ice floating around him, he was engaged in conversation.

“It’s wonderful how you can manage to bear such bitter cold.”

“I have known it colder.”

When urged to alleviate his own watchful self-discipline, he similarly replied: “I have seen greater suffering.”  

Ackroyd goes on to remark that it has often been suggested that understatement is a national characteristic.

 I've put a piece on this 'national characteristic' on Albion Awakening.

Remembrance Sunday

We are at the time of year in Britain when a sense of sanctimoniousness becomes rather noticeable. The public display of virtue, particularly in the media, is very prominent. I am speaking of Remembrance Sunday to which the lead up, just like Christmas, seems to become longer every year. I may be wrong but I think that people only wore poppies on Remembrance Sunday itself at one time but they are now worn days, if not weeks, in advance as we all show how much we are against war and how much we support the brave soldiers who fought and died.

Do you detect a note of cynicism in my words?  Well, there is. It can't be helped. Now that we have chased the goodness of God from our lives we are left with a void that must be filled with something and we effectively fill it with ourselves. I mean that we congratulate ourselves on the nearest thing to spirituality we have left which is our supposed concern for others and our abhorrence of violence. That is all well and good but do we have to make such a display about it? The big public exhibition of virtue we make at this time of year is a pretty tawdry thing. Especially when in most other ways we celebrate the shallow and the hedonistic, and push aside the one thing that really takes humanity beyond war, that being a genuine spiritual awareness. I'm sure churches all over the country will echo with pious platitudes on Sunday but what do they really mean? How many people are really prepared to put aside their egotism and selfishness which are the principal causes of war? 

Of course, it is right to remember those who have died in a just cause but let us also remember that Christ did not approve of big displays of spirituality, and that is because he knew they were largely insincere. As he said:

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy

closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray

to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father

which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

It is all very well to be against war but war takes more than one form, and at the moment we are deep in a spiritual war and this one must be fought. It cannot be sidetracked and there is no chance of a truce. It is not fought with guns and bombs but it has its own weapons which are the spiritual qualities including love of truth. It needs courage just like ordinary war and there will be casualties too though, in this case, it is not physical death we need fear. So perhaps what we should really be remembering at this time is the first war, the War in Heaven, which is actually still going on and which, there is reason to believe, may currently be approaching some kind of climax. Let us make sure we are on the right side

Homeless Inside Yourself

Here's a link to an article on Albion Awakening based on some remarks by the Dalai Lama on Westerners and Buddhism.

https://albionawakening.blogspot.com/2018/11/homeless-inside-yourself.html

The End Times - Reincarnation and Judgment

Can anyone doubt that these are the End Times as spoken of in the Christian tradition? Almost everywhere materialism and atheism have triumphed, and where spirituality does exist it is often a weak, impoverished thing that takes more of its ideology from contemporary political thought than religious teaching. Most people in the West reject Christianity and, of those that do embrace it, many see it in the light of the secular humanism that has developed since the 18th century. Christianity, it is thought, must be revised to reflect that rather than that being seen as wholly secondary to the Christian vision. I believe that traditional Christianity does need to be looked at afresh from the perspective of a developing consciousness which sees humanity as growing into godhood, but this should be done by deepening it not by making it spiritually shallow which is what is actually happening. The heart of Christianity is neglected, and teachings that only really apply to those who have renounced the sins of the world are opened up to all regardless of repentance. That, at least, is becoming the popular conception of the real meaning of the Christian message. God loves everybody equally, disrespective of what they are. Perhaps he does but he loves truth too, and if you love him, you keep his commandments. Only then can his love be expressed without the other side to it which is his anger, considering anger as a metaphysical aspect of justice. For justice and mercy must always go together.

I've gone slightly off the point I wish to address in this post. What I have just written is not without relevance to my subject but I am jumping ahead of myself. I want here to try to reconcile a belief in reincarnation with the idea of judgment. That's because both form part of my beliefs about the spiritual world and, at first sight, they seem contradictory. Reincarnation is normally assumed to mean you have a more or less endless number of lifetimes to get it right. You live a life and learn or don't learn and in your next life you carry on from where you have left off in a new incarnation, the circumstances of which will be a result of the previous one or the previous ones. The consequences of mistakes will be experienced in a future life and you evolve, you develop, gradually growing into higher consciousness. That's the theory which is appealing to many because it has a certain logic to it.

However, I don't think things are that simple. Today's world is radically different to previous eras for many reasons ranging from a hugely expanded population to great material comfort and technological sophistication to access to all the wisdom of the past for anyone who cares to look for it to the decay of all forms of religion. It is a time of crisis and I believe many people are being born now to experience a world in which a definitive choice has to be made between good and evil, truth and lies, with the latter often being presented as the former which makes it a real test of one's inner compass and true orientation. And also of courage. For it does take a certain amount of courage to hold onto one's faith in the true God when so many false alternatives are being presented, usually with the assumption that they are more intelligent, more compassionate or just that to hold them is the sign of a good person. We will find as time goes on that to stand by real Christian values will be seen as the mark of an ignorant or even bad person. That is because these values put God above Man. Modern ideology cannot countenance that. God, if he exists, must adapt himself to human requirements, and his purpose for us must involve the increase of happiness and concomitant decrease of suffering in this world.

Might it be that the population of the world is currently at an all-time high because so many souls are being assembled for a comprehensive test of their spiritual quality and dedication? Circumstances are being make hard in order to sort out the spiritual sheep from the goats. Now is an important time of decision when humanity will be divided into those who make the spiritual grade and those who don't, with the failures (which may be a hard word but is accurate) being sent elsewhere to learn the lessons they refused here. Where that elsewhere will be and what its nature will consist of, I cannot say but I would guess that it will be a descent into a lower level of consciousness which will require a concerted effort to escape from. There will be increased separation from the source with less of the consoling worldly pleasures one can find here.

This is how I reconcile reincarnation and judgment. During the course of a world age souls incarnate at various times and in various places with the aim of developing spiritual consciousness which requires for its proper growth the full sense of duality and awareness of individuality. Only by becoming a fully aware self can the God-created individualised spark of spirit grow into godhood and become a co-creator in the fullness of life which is God's wish for us. If we stayed in the heavenly realms without incarnation we would remain spiritual babes. Independence is acquired through incarnation. 

But a world age comes to an end and that is what ours is now doing. It's the end of term, the time when all spiritual students must take their exam to see if they can pass on to the next stage. Call it graduation. Those who succeed, on whatever level because some are primary school students while others are at higher stages, ready for full graduation into theosis, ascend to higher levels appropriate to their consciousness. Those that do not pass this spiritual exam descend. The choice is ours and it is never too late to make the decision that will be determining. There are temptations galore at the moment, precisely to test the heart. They range from simple materialism and atheism to numerous false forms of spirituality, united in their focus on the human self and its spiritual potential. But it is up to us to see through all of these and open our hearts and minds up to the true reality of God. Then we must act on the measure of that reality without distorting it by egotism, emotionalism or pride. In this, I believe, we are most guided by dedication to the person of Christ. The truth of his being will direct us to the truth of our own being. Using him as a kind of universal standard time by which we set our own spiritual clocks will serve us well when the moment comes for the judgment of our soul.

Why Do People Not Recognise Jesus?

That is, why do people not recognise Jesus for who he is? If he really is who he claims to be then surely that should be apparent? He should strike an echo in every human heart. But even during his lifetime there were plenty of people who saw and heard him but did not recognise him and so consequently rejected him. And now, though you might think he is plainly revealed in scripture, religion, tradition and art, there are many who do not recognise him.

Continued on Albion Awakening.

Astrology and Spirituality

I have just finished reading a rather dull book which purported to illustrate the link between the cosmos and the human psyche by means of a comparison of the movements of the outer planets (Jupiter to Pluto) and their conjunctions and oppositions with human thought and activity which took place at the same time. The author did not claim that the planets influenced human behaviour but that their positions in the heavens, as viewed from Earth, were a kind of snapshot of a moment in time, and that the two, outer movement and inner behaviour, could be correlated. The idea is that particular periods have particular qualities which are expressed in both human psychology and planetary positions with these latter almost like the hands of a clock. This is not a new idea and actually makes more sense than traditional ideas of cause and effect, though educated astrologers always had a more nuanced sense of how astrology works than that.

The book is dull because with an almost relentless thoroughness the author produces page after page of lists of what was happening at various points in history during certain planetary configurations. For example, he equates the Uranus/Pluto conjunction with revolution (Uranus) that reaches right down to the depths of consciousness and society (Pluto) and sees this as operative in the 1960s which, of course, was a decade of turbulent change. He goes back through history to the French Revolution when the same factors occurred, and then sees how this particular aspect worked out in the lives of prominent individuals. This is all well and good, and I don't dispute that there is a correlation of some kind, but he belabours the point so much it becomes tedious. He also ignores movements that were occurring at the time of these planetary patterns that do not fit his thesis so the whole thing becomes a little selective.

Another problem from my point of view is that for all the matching up of world events and planetary aspects he does, it all only makes sense with the benefit of hindsight. The archetypes represented by the planets (which I would not dispute) have so many levels of interpretation that, while you can't say anything goes, an awful lot does. They can work out in so many different ways, as is to be expected given the varying factors of human consciousness, free will and levels of awareness, that you really cannot say what will occur at a given time except in the very broadest of terms. Apparently just before 9/11 some astrologers were anticipating the possibility of a terrorist attack but not when, where or how so what's the use? Also, terrorist attacks take place all the time in various parts of the world. Are these all signposted too?

But, more than any of this, I would take issue with the idea that there is something going on here that could be called spiritual. The point of the book was that astrology could act as a corrective to the 'disenchantment' of the universe that came about following the abandonment of the geocentric model of the world and the rise of materialistic science. I absolutely agree that there is an urgent need to come back to the idea of the universe as a creation and one in which the Creator is still ceaselessly active and present but astrology by itself really doesn't do this. It can put a spoke in the wheels of materialism but, unless completely subordinated to a genuinely spiritual view in which God is front and centre, it remains a psychological tool only. There was no mention of God in this book though the usual vague spirituality without religion was there. But this form of spirituality has been around since at least the 1960s and it has completely failed to change anything or anybody unless it has been used as a stepping stone to something more serious and less concerned with human potential or self-fulfilment. It is also powerless in the face of the increasing leftist secularisation of the world, being all too easily absorbed into that.

The author of this book gives example after example of historical events that seem to correspond to contemporary astrological conditions but ends up admitting that all these must be interpreted in terms of archetypes which can be expressed in countless different ways. I think he is right but this doesn't really get us anywhere other than to say that something may be going on but we have no idea what it is. And this is the problem with astrology. It can be fascinating to study, and if you do seriously study it you will see that the basic principles behind it must be correct, but it's actually fairly useless. Yes, you can get a certain amount of insight about yourself and others but no more than you could get by getting to know yourself or others properly anyway with the added risk that you might then try to fit everything about a person into the astrological bottle and thereby actually limit your understanding. If a person must correspond to their horoscope, you are reducing that person to a formula. I know astrologers will say that all horoscopes must be interpreted in context but the point remains. The context aspect mitigates it slightly but it does not remove it.

I have been interested in astrology and written about it a little bit but I don't think it has anything to do with proper spirituality and can actually be a distraction. The reason is that it belongs to the phenomenal world. There are schools that have tried to introduce a spiritual form of astrology and link it to reincarnation but, setting aside the speculative nature of that, there's no real value in it. It's still all to do with the unreconstructed, fallen self. I believe in reincarnation but I don't think knowledge of our previous lives would help us much in this one, interesting as it might be. Spirituality is about coordinating your soul with God and the rest is peripheral. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven etc.

Despite all I have just written I note that the planet Neptune (the green trident at about 1 o'clock in the chart below) will shortly cross my midheaven (marked MC). The midheaven which is the point at the top of the chart, where the sun would be if you were born at midday, represents your direction in life, your goals and purpose. Neptune is the planet associated with the soul, imagination, mysticism but also, on the negative side, drugs and illusion. It represents ego transcendence on the one hand but also the loss of the sense of self that might occur in psychological breakdown. When a planet touches an important point on the birth horoscope it sets off a reaction (speaking in causative terminology) so I shall be interested to see what happens in the next couple of years. But my point is that knowing that something might happen doesn't matter to me one way or the other, particularly if I don't know what it is or how it might work out. The spiritual attitude is not to be bothered about the future but simply seek to walk in the light of God now. When all is said and done, it seems to me that astrology is mostly of interest to the ego and its concerns.

Love of Humanity

I find it telling that Jesus told us to love our neighbour and to love our enemies but he did not tell us to love humanity. This must be because love cannot be directed to everyone without ceasing to be love. Not for human beings anyway. For God, of course, it can. But for us love must involve a personal relationship of some kind and so Jesus told us to direct it towards those with whom we actually had some kind of real contact. 

Nowadays it often seems that the idea of spiritual love is understood (or, I should say, misunderstood) as an abstract thing, something that should be directed towards all men and women equally. I may be mistaken but I don't think this is what Jesus taught. He was not a theoretician like many people today. He was completely involved in the real, the true and the practical, and so he spoke of love as an active, living thing that opens up the heart in a genuine way. Who can love humanity? Can you love this abstract concept in any real way? No, you can only love real men and real women. Love of humanity is just a theory for those who don't understand love and confuse it for a bland benevolence or, worse, see it as a badge to prove their worthiness. You cannot love humanity. You can only act as if you love humanity but then that is just acting. You can love your neighbour and you can love your enemy (or try to) but you cannot love humanity, and if you attempt that you may well end up a self-conscious fake as many spiritual people seem to do.

The fact that you cannot love humanity does not mean you should have no regard for people on the other side of the world with whom you will never have any kind of relationship. You should, of course, always recognise their common humanity and do to them as you would have them do to you. But that's a different thing. Charity begins at home, both in the modern sense of giving help to those in need and the Christian sense of spiritual love. When you can love those near to you, whether neighbour or enemy, then you can extend that circle but don't think abstract, impersonal love can be used as an excuse not to love the annoying, foolish, selfish people (as they may appear) who God actually puts in your way. He sends us what we need and, if these are the people we encounter, they are probably the ones through whom we can learn some kind of lesson.