A post on Francis Berger's excellent blog discussed how many people have been distressed by the apparent lack of divine support in these dark times. Why are the faithful not given spiritual aid when the world is so much with us and people feel attacked by it more than ever? I completely agree with Francis's response to this question and would advise anyone who hasn't read it to do so in order to gain a better understanding of the current spiritual situation.
I commented on his post as follows:
"It is just as you say. God is communicating with us and doing so all the time but he is doing so on a spiritual level, through impression and intuition. It is up to us to raise our minds up to spiritual levels and not expect to be spoon-fed like spiritual babies. We are not just required to believe nowadays but to know and this knowledge can only be acquired if we work for it by preparing our minds to respond to the Word of God spiritually which means from the soul. God wants us to come up to him and will no longer come down to us except in extreme circumstances and maybe for many of us not even then.
This may sound cruel but is actually a great compliment for he wouldn't do it unless he knew we were capable of it. At least we have to make a start."
Here I'd like to elaborate a bit on my comment. First of all, I'd like to offer something from my own experience. Those who have read my book Meeting the Masters will know that I was spoken to by spiritual beings who described themselves as messengers from God over a period of 21 years, regularly at first but increasingly rarely as the years went by and it was assumed I had enough to be working on. Or, if I didn't, I should have. This was essentially spiritual instruction, tailored to my particular needs. But I was also told that I was additionally instructed through what was called impression and this was the preferred method because it put the ball in my court. I didn't just have to obey, relatively easy and passive, but to take the initiative and be responsible for myself. I had to attune myself to true spiritual levels and develop response to those levels to hear this impression. In this way, I could develop what one might think of as spiritual muscles.
Imagine the human being as a multi-levelled creature. The levels we are most familiar with are the physical, emotional and mental but there are instinctive and spiritual levels too, one often below the threshold of consciousness, the other usually above it. The spiritual level is the soul which is the source of our individuality and free will. There is no free will on a purely material level but we all know free will exists. Even those who deny it do not live as though it were not a real thing. Free will does exist but is exists at the spiritual level of the soul.
Now, those people who are yearning for a sign or a communication from God are expecting it at a material level. A voice or a sign that can be perceived by the senses. Something like I experienced years ago. But this is the desire of a spiritual adolescent. Someone who may be growing in the spirit but is still interpreting it in terms of the material self. God wants us to advance into the spiritual self, the soul which exists above the strictly phenomenal level. And he knows we are now capable of this. We have developed intellectually and are ready, or some of us are, to move on to the next stage. Thus his communication to us takes place nowadays largely at the level of the soul and is not in the form of words or even visions (both sensory) but impressions which we have to first pick up on and then translate into a mental form to understand clearly. This is where our own spiritual development comes in. We have to have enough sensibility to respond to the soul and also a mind capable of interpreting it correctly. Both are important.
This is not to say that God never sends us more direct experiences or communications but often we find that is at the beginning of an individual's spiritual journey. It is to get him started, to show that the spiritual world does indeed exist. But it is a mistake to demand these things continuously or to expect them as a regular favour. It will keep us trapped at a low level of spiritual understanding if we do that. It might even stimulate egotistical desire which is the very thing we are aiming to grow out of. (Not desire per se which is good since without it we would have nothing to call us to God, but egotistical desire).
We have moved into a new world but this new world is simply a development of the old one. Nonetheless, our spiritual approach must be different to that of the past. It must be more creative, more co-active meaning we work with God. We don't just sit there passively and expect him to move us. We move ourselves but always in his direction. God will communicate with us but through the medium of our own soul. If you want to hear him, you must work hard to become aware of that soul.
Monday, 27 April 2020
Friday, 24 April 2020
A Spiritual Virus
Yes, there is such a thing and most people these days are infected by it. It attacks the mind and the heart and renders those afflicted by it impervious to spiritual truth. It is a sickness that doesn't kill the body but harms the soul which, according to Jesus, is a much more serious thing. If untreated, it might damage the soul irreparably. And the reason it has made such inroads is because the human immune system has been ruthlessly compromised by the materialism of the last 2-3 centuries.
Western civilisation which was built on spiritual principles has been subverted by those who hate and fear Christianity. These people have used legitimate advances in understanding to destroy the foundations on which that civilisation stood. They have taken scientific knowledge and turned it against real understanding by cutting it off from its roots as the attempt to know something of God by studying his creation. They have taken the idea of freedom, a great gift through the correct exercise of which we may consciously know and love God, and perverted that to stand for freedom of the fallen self to do as it likes including, or even chiefly, to deny God. God becomes an oppressive limitation on human freedom. They have corrupted the imagination, which was intended to guide us into creative vision, and made of it a means to stimulate desire in its lower aspects. We were intended to expand our horizons but we have only expanded them outwardly not upwardly, and as we have expanded horizontally, we have contracted vertically.
Christianity and other religions, though Christianity most of all, are protections against spiritual disease. There are in the unseen universe the spiritual equivalents of viruses and bacteria. These will attack us and gain entrance to our minds unless there is some sort of defence that can repel them. This defence is religion without which we fall into sin which is spiritual disease. From sin comes alienation and from alienation comes despair.
Look at what has happened to the world over the last couple of months. We are so far removed from any understanding of the higher aspects of life, or let's just say life, that we have scurried into dark corners to hide away from a threat we are told is deadly but which even readily available statistics show to be mild in (currently) 97% of cases. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. And even the great majority of fatalities are elderly people who are well past their 3 score years and 10. It is not that anyone wishes a person to die before their time, and every precaution should be taken to safeguard the vulnerable at a time like this, but we are sacrificing the long term prospects of the majority for the short term prospects of a few. And we are doing this because governments have allowed themselves to be panicked by the media and the public which, in turn, has happened because we have no faith. The physical virus has affected us mentally as well as physically and it has done so because we have already succumbed to the spiritual virus.
What's the cure? Extending the metaphor, perhaps a bit more than it can take, you could say it's vaccination. Ultimately, it is vaccination by the Holy Spirit but more immediately it is vaccination by faith in Christ, real faith not belief which is a lesser thing often confused with faith. (If you want to know the difference, think of heart and mind.) This will immunise us against fear because it helps us see that the body may fail, one way or another it will fail, but the soul, the spiritual self, when turned towards the flame of eternal life which is Christ will rise up to glory.
Life in this world without belief in something beyond this world always ends in emptiness. This is why so many old people cling to life in any form rather than accept their time to depart. We should not wilfully seek to go before our time. That is rebelling against the will of God which is why suicide is forbidden by the Church. It is also right and proper to try to prolong life through medical help. This is a world out of kilter with spiritual truth and that means there will be sickness for which cures should be sought. But we should know that physical life has its own natural cycle and to try to extend that cycle beyond a certain point is refusing to grow. Worse, it is turning life into death. And that is what the spiritual virus does.
Western civilisation which was built on spiritual principles has been subverted by those who hate and fear Christianity. These people have used legitimate advances in understanding to destroy the foundations on which that civilisation stood. They have taken scientific knowledge and turned it against real understanding by cutting it off from its roots as the attempt to know something of God by studying his creation. They have taken the idea of freedom, a great gift through the correct exercise of which we may consciously know and love God, and perverted that to stand for freedom of the fallen self to do as it likes including, or even chiefly, to deny God. God becomes an oppressive limitation on human freedom. They have corrupted the imagination, which was intended to guide us into creative vision, and made of it a means to stimulate desire in its lower aspects. We were intended to expand our horizons but we have only expanded them outwardly not upwardly, and as we have expanded horizontally, we have contracted vertically.
Christianity and other religions, though Christianity most of all, are protections against spiritual disease. There are in the unseen universe the spiritual equivalents of viruses and bacteria. These will attack us and gain entrance to our minds unless there is some sort of defence that can repel them. This defence is religion without which we fall into sin which is spiritual disease. From sin comes alienation and from alienation comes despair.
Look at what has happened to the world over the last couple of months. We are so far removed from any understanding of the higher aspects of life, or let's just say life, that we have scurried into dark corners to hide away from a threat we are told is deadly but which even readily available statistics show to be mild in (currently) 97% of cases. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. And even the great majority of fatalities are elderly people who are well past their 3 score years and 10. It is not that anyone wishes a person to die before their time, and every precaution should be taken to safeguard the vulnerable at a time like this, but we are sacrificing the long term prospects of the majority for the short term prospects of a few. And we are doing this because governments have allowed themselves to be panicked by the media and the public which, in turn, has happened because we have no faith. The physical virus has affected us mentally as well as physically and it has done so because we have already succumbed to the spiritual virus.
What's the cure? Extending the metaphor, perhaps a bit more than it can take, you could say it's vaccination. Ultimately, it is vaccination by the Holy Spirit but more immediately it is vaccination by faith in Christ, real faith not belief which is a lesser thing often confused with faith. (If you want to know the difference, think of heart and mind.) This will immunise us against fear because it helps us see that the body may fail, one way or another it will fail, but the soul, the spiritual self, when turned towards the flame of eternal life which is Christ will rise up to glory.
Life in this world without belief in something beyond this world always ends in emptiness. This is why so many old people cling to life in any form rather than accept their time to depart. We should not wilfully seek to go before our time. That is rebelling against the will of God which is why suicide is forbidden by the Church. It is also right and proper to try to prolong life through medical help. This is a world out of kilter with spiritual truth and that means there will be sickness for which cures should be sought. But we should know that physical life has its own natural cycle and to try to extend that cycle beyond a certain point is refusing to grow. Worse, it is turning life into death. And that is what the spiritual virus does.
Wednesday, 22 April 2020
The Present and the Future
From a personal point of view, and setting aside its wider implications, I am actually enjoying this lockdown. Where I am in the south of England the weather has been glorious over the last month. Sunny days, not too hot, blue skies and clean air, possibly due to the fact that traffic is back to the level of the 1950s. There are few people when you go out, much less noise and overall a feeling of peace and calm. I hesitate to say this, but the fear people are feeling actually appears to be making them behave a little better.
I have two comments to make on this. First, it is easier to be aware of the spiritual undercurrent to life when the material world has slowed down to a minimum. It's nothing like a monastery, of course, but there is an element of that. When I go out for my daily walk there is a relative silence and stillness that is conducive to directing one's mind towards God. It makes you realise how in the normal world everything conspires against that. Now, when people are not bustling about and car radios are not blasting their infernal racket into the public space, you notice that you are not constantly having to surround yourself with a sort of psychic armour which is quite exhausting, energy-wise. You can engage with your environment without having to fight it off. I find this a blessed relief and it makes me realise how degraded the atmosphere of the world has become, even in my lifetime.
The second thing is this. Are people becoming, ever so slightly, more prepared to open up to spiritual things? Fear of death is a wonderful prompt for doing this and Covid19 obliges in that respect. The opening up is clearly on a rudimentary level but let us suppose for the sake of argument that the virus and the response to it have been steered and directed by the demons with the eventual aim of control then collapse then despair or something along those lines. What if these things lead to a spiritual reaction as the only alternative to suicide? If there is nowhere else left to go then people might go there. That's not as good as them going there of their own accord because they have outgrown the attractions of worldly materialism but if worldly materialism turns very bad then it might cause them to search elsewhere, and that is a start.
The world has changed over the last few weeks and I don't believe it can ever go back to what it was. Where it will go is anyone's guess. Further down into increased spiritual emptiness and the next phase in the tightening of demonic control? Or might it start some kind of turning around? My best guess is that both things may happen. For a majority, the former looks most likely but a substantial minority may start to have the scales drop from their eyes. If you go by the media, this virus is an excuse to effectively deny the reality of God even more. It is quite remarkable how the media is so drugged by its own importance that it actually seems to want the virus to be really bad, seemingly for the sake of a story. The left, too, appears to want the situation to be bad and will attack anyone who says it's not as bad as all that. I would surmise that's partly because they see it as an opportunity to extend state control but also because the left is consumed with a desire for destruction, that's what it's all about after all, so something like a pandemic is grist to its mill. On the other hand, many on the right, particularly in America, go to the other extreme and dismiss it, and that's misguided too. Believing what you want to believe to suit a political agenda is wrong whatever stance you take.
One thing is certain. We have moved on to the next step. This will be a short phase between the past and a new world with different preoccupations. If the economies of the world shrink severely, as seems inevitable, the situation a year or two from now will be very different to that a year or two ago. The virus will be the least of our problems. People will become more dependent on the state which will not be a healthy position. But none of that will ultimately matter for those individuals who place their faith in God and their hope in a spiritual world far removed from the darkness of this world when it is separated from its spiritual source.
I have two comments to make on this. First, it is easier to be aware of the spiritual undercurrent to life when the material world has slowed down to a minimum. It's nothing like a monastery, of course, but there is an element of that. When I go out for my daily walk there is a relative silence and stillness that is conducive to directing one's mind towards God. It makes you realise how in the normal world everything conspires against that. Now, when people are not bustling about and car radios are not blasting their infernal racket into the public space, you notice that you are not constantly having to surround yourself with a sort of psychic armour which is quite exhausting, energy-wise. You can engage with your environment without having to fight it off. I find this a blessed relief and it makes me realise how degraded the atmosphere of the world has become, even in my lifetime.
The second thing is this. Are people becoming, ever so slightly, more prepared to open up to spiritual things? Fear of death is a wonderful prompt for doing this and Covid19 obliges in that respect. The opening up is clearly on a rudimentary level but let us suppose for the sake of argument that the virus and the response to it have been steered and directed by the demons with the eventual aim of control then collapse then despair or something along those lines. What if these things lead to a spiritual reaction as the only alternative to suicide? If there is nowhere else left to go then people might go there. That's not as good as them going there of their own accord because they have outgrown the attractions of worldly materialism but if worldly materialism turns very bad then it might cause them to search elsewhere, and that is a start.
The world has changed over the last few weeks and I don't believe it can ever go back to what it was. Where it will go is anyone's guess. Further down into increased spiritual emptiness and the next phase in the tightening of demonic control? Or might it start some kind of turning around? My best guess is that both things may happen. For a majority, the former looks most likely but a substantial minority may start to have the scales drop from their eyes. If you go by the media, this virus is an excuse to effectively deny the reality of God even more. It is quite remarkable how the media is so drugged by its own importance that it actually seems to want the virus to be really bad, seemingly for the sake of a story. The left, too, appears to want the situation to be bad and will attack anyone who says it's not as bad as all that. I would surmise that's partly because they see it as an opportunity to extend state control but also because the left is consumed with a desire for destruction, that's what it's all about after all, so something like a pandemic is grist to its mill. On the other hand, many on the right, particularly in America, go to the other extreme and dismiss it, and that's misguided too. Believing what you want to believe to suit a political agenda is wrong whatever stance you take.
One thing is certain. We have moved on to the next step. This will be a short phase between the past and a new world with different preoccupations. If the economies of the world shrink severely, as seems inevitable, the situation a year or two from now will be very different to that a year or two ago. The virus will be the least of our problems. People will become more dependent on the state which will not be a healthy position. But none of that will ultimately matter for those individuals who place their faith in God and their hope in a spiritual world far removed from the darkness of this world when it is separated from its spiritual source.
Sunday, 19 April 2020
A Text For Our Time
There are many ideas put forward as solutions to the crisis of the modern world (not Covid 19, that's just an element, albeit an important one, of something much larger), political, ideological, even spiritual of sundry sorts. But they all lack overall coherence. However, there is something that stands above them all which reconciles any good there might be in them at a higher level without including the dross, illusion and bad qualities they all contain without this thing. It can be summed up in a sentence.
That sentence is Matthew 12:30. "He that is not with me is against me". This pithy injunction means if you are not actively for the truth of Christ, you are against it. Not passively against it, actively so. According to this saying, there is no middle ground. If you are not for Christ, you oppose him. Neutrality is not an option.
This might seem unreasonable. Why, if you don't accept Christ, does that mean you are the enemy of Christ? Why can you not be a good, upstanding, morally decent person without acknowledging Christ?
You can't because Christ is the embodiment of truth and if you don't recognise that then you don't recognise truth in which case you will be on the outside of truth, working against it whether that be in a greater or lesser sense. Christ is like magnetic north. If the lodestone of your being does not point to him then it is broken. You are broken. Your soul is sick.
These may sound harsh words but what they amount to is this. You want to be good. You may think you are good according to the standards of the world. But those standards are false standards because they do not recognise the reality of what this world is; that it is not justified in and for itself and human beings do not exist for the fulfilment of what they appear to be in the light of this world. You want to be good but you don't acknowledge what good is for it is summed up in Christ and his teachings.
And here's the strange thing, something that goes right to the metaphysical roots of life. You might think you can be good without Christ, and perhaps you could be if the fundamental reality of life were abstract principle, something like pure being. But it is not. God is love. Life is ultimately personal. Truth is a person not a thing and that person is revealed for us in Christ.
So these are not harsh words. They are simply true words because they point to the reality of what life is. If you do not recognise Christ, you are rejecting real truth and goodness and replacing the genuine source of these things with some kind of idol. A person who thinks he can be a good person on his own without Christ is an idol worshipper and whether that idol be his own self or some kind of philosophical ideal makes little difference in the end. He is still substituting a false reality for the truth and he is doing that because of a spiritual falseness within himself. Christ is the truth and if you don't know that you don't accept truth, and if you don't accept truth, well then, you reject it.
The only exception to this rule I can think of applies to people who have not been made properly aware of Christ but who follow his closest approximation in another religion. I believe that after the Incarnation the spirit of Christ was spread across the globe and did influence other religions through forms in them that could accommodate that spirit such as the Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism. That is a secondary thing to knowing Christ in himself but in this case if the spirit of any religion has absorbed something of the Christ influence, the Universal Christ you might call it, then people of true heart can follow the pattern of Christ as it is manifested in their own religion. This does not apply to modern secular substitutes, however, which are based on the rejection of the transcendent reality of Christ. Christ can manifest through a religion other than Christianity if the spirit of that religion is open to him but not through something that denies not only his form but his very spirit.
The converse to this is those professed Christians who nevertheless do not follow the spiritual reality of Christ, who perhaps are external Christians only, people for whom the trappings of religion, the lamp, is more important than its inner reality, the light. These are the people spoken of by Christ when he said in another text from Matthew, this time 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven". For Christ has an outer aspect and an inner aspect and only those who dedicate themselves to the truth of the inner aspect are really with him. To be for Christ means to put the reality of Christ, the spiritual reality, above everything else, at all times and in all circumstances. If you are not for him, you are against him.
The Good is spiritual. If your conception of the good is material only, supporting people as they are in this world with no understanding of the needs and destined purpose of the soul, then you are effectively standing against the true good which means you are doing spiritual harm whether that is your intention or not. Christ taught that his kingdom was not of this world but that does not mean that the world should not fall into line with the truth of Christ. It means that the truth of Christ can never fall into line with this world. If there is anything in this world that for you comes before Christ then you are not with him.
That sentence is Matthew 12:30. "He that is not with me is against me". This pithy injunction means if you are not actively for the truth of Christ, you are against it. Not passively against it, actively so. According to this saying, there is no middle ground. If you are not for Christ, you oppose him. Neutrality is not an option.
This might seem unreasonable. Why, if you don't accept Christ, does that mean you are the enemy of Christ? Why can you not be a good, upstanding, morally decent person without acknowledging Christ?
You can't because Christ is the embodiment of truth and if you don't recognise that then you don't recognise truth in which case you will be on the outside of truth, working against it whether that be in a greater or lesser sense. Christ is like magnetic north. If the lodestone of your being does not point to him then it is broken. You are broken. Your soul is sick.
These may sound harsh words but what they amount to is this. You want to be good. You may think you are good according to the standards of the world. But those standards are false standards because they do not recognise the reality of what this world is; that it is not justified in and for itself and human beings do not exist for the fulfilment of what they appear to be in the light of this world. You want to be good but you don't acknowledge what good is for it is summed up in Christ and his teachings.
And here's the strange thing, something that goes right to the metaphysical roots of life. You might think you can be good without Christ, and perhaps you could be if the fundamental reality of life were abstract principle, something like pure being. But it is not. God is love. Life is ultimately personal. Truth is a person not a thing and that person is revealed for us in Christ.
So these are not harsh words. They are simply true words because they point to the reality of what life is. If you do not recognise Christ, you are rejecting real truth and goodness and replacing the genuine source of these things with some kind of idol. A person who thinks he can be a good person on his own without Christ is an idol worshipper and whether that idol be his own self or some kind of philosophical ideal makes little difference in the end. He is still substituting a false reality for the truth and he is doing that because of a spiritual falseness within himself. Christ is the truth and if you don't know that you don't accept truth, and if you don't accept truth, well then, you reject it.
The only exception to this rule I can think of applies to people who have not been made properly aware of Christ but who follow his closest approximation in another religion. I believe that after the Incarnation the spirit of Christ was spread across the globe and did influence other religions through forms in them that could accommodate that spirit such as the Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism. That is a secondary thing to knowing Christ in himself but in this case if the spirit of any religion has absorbed something of the Christ influence, the Universal Christ you might call it, then people of true heart can follow the pattern of Christ as it is manifested in their own religion. This does not apply to modern secular substitutes, however, which are based on the rejection of the transcendent reality of Christ. Christ can manifest through a religion other than Christianity if the spirit of that religion is open to him but not through something that denies not only his form but his very spirit.
The converse to this is those professed Christians who nevertheless do not follow the spiritual reality of Christ, who perhaps are external Christians only, people for whom the trappings of religion, the lamp, is more important than its inner reality, the light. These are the people spoken of by Christ when he said in another text from Matthew, this time 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven". For Christ has an outer aspect and an inner aspect and only those who dedicate themselves to the truth of the inner aspect are really with him. To be for Christ means to put the reality of Christ, the spiritual reality, above everything else, at all times and in all circumstances. If you are not for him, you are against him.
The Good is spiritual. If your conception of the good is material only, supporting people as they are in this world with no understanding of the needs and destined purpose of the soul, then you are effectively standing against the true good which means you are doing spiritual harm whether that is your intention or not. Christ taught that his kingdom was not of this world but that does not mean that the world should not fall into line with the truth of Christ. It means that the truth of Christ can never fall into line with this world. If there is anything in this world that for you comes before Christ then you are not with him.
Thursday, 16 April 2020
Prove Your Loyalty
Every Thursday night at 8pm the British public are enjoined to stand outside their front doors and perform an act of submission to the state. What would Jesus have to say on the subject? Something like this, perhaps?
“When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward."
But it's not just a matter of ostentatious virtue-signalling. This is also an act of public self-abasement which seeks to strip people of their right to do as they individually wish and get in line as little cogs in the state machinery. What has happened to the English that they should sacrifice their traditional love of freedom in this way? Of course, most people won't see it like that and say it's just expressing thanks to the nation's health workers at a difficult time for us and them. However, look beneath the surface and it's clearly one more way of crushing the human spirit and turning free sons and daughters of God into spiritual slaves.
But it's not just a matter of ostentatious virtue-signalling. This is also an act of public self-abasement which seeks to strip people of their right to do as they individually wish and get in line as little cogs in the state machinery. What has happened to the English that they should sacrifice their traditional love of freedom in this way? Of course, most people won't see it like that and say it's just expressing thanks to the nation's health workers at a difficult time for us and them. However, look beneath the surface and it's clearly one more way of crushing the human spirit and turning free sons and daughters of God into spiritual slaves.
Over the top? Not when you know how the powers of evil seek to destroy individuality, our most precious gift from God. It's only because we don't recognise them that we don't recognise that.
Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Bodies or Souls?
There is much debate, though not in the mainstream media, about whether the severity of the Covid 19 coronavirus is sufficient to justify the current global lockdown with the disastrous effect that will have on the economy. Are the death rates so bad, or could they potentially be so bad, that we should cripple ourselves for what might be the foreseeable future?
I have come to believe that this is irrelevant. The coronavirus is not important. Whether it is just a bad flu or something more serious is really just a secondary issue. What is important is our reaction to it on a spiritual level. The fact is that we, the collective we, have no real spiritual beliefs at all and that applies to us whether we are the typical modern agnostic or the conventional religious believer or the 'spiritual' New Age type (or whatever the current version of that is). We all react to this crisis on a purely materialistic level, thinking only of the safety of our bodies. That is why we are so easily persuaded that protection, of ourselves and our healthcare systems, is paramount and everything else must be subordinated to that. It is why we willingly hand ourselves over to state supervision.
But what about our souls? Where do these come in? When we react in the way we have we are basically saying that the soul, even if it exists, is a side issue. We don't look beneath the surface to see what the spiritual meaning or effect might be of the current situation. In fact, any that do are regarded as bad people who have no concern for their fellow human beings because they are focussing on irrelevancies at a time of unprecedented national crisis. Spirituality is all very well as a harmless indulgence when everything is good, a sort of light entertainment really, but God forbid it actually means something, let alone the main thing.
The coronavirus can be viewed as a kind of stalking horse, intended to test humanity's response to a physical threat and see how much it is willing to give up to be protected from that. It is also a means to drive any real spirituality to the extreme edge of society, making it the concern of mad or even bad people who don't care about the health and well-being of others. Wicked fanatics. It is surely a sign of things to come. Spirituality, true religion, will only be allowed if it doesn't mean anything.
Note: When I say the coronavirus is irrelevant, that is precisely what I mean. I'm not saying it is not a real thing which does real harm but it is principally a front for a deeper purpose which is control of the soul for those who are willing to give that up. It's a test of priorities.
I have come to believe that this is irrelevant. The coronavirus is not important. Whether it is just a bad flu or something more serious is really just a secondary issue. What is important is our reaction to it on a spiritual level. The fact is that we, the collective we, have no real spiritual beliefs at all and that applies to us whether we are the typical modern agnostic or the conventional religious believer or the 'spiritual' New Age type (or whatever the current version of that is). We all react to this crisis on a purely materialistic level, thinking only of the safety of our bodies. That is why we are so easily persuaded that protection, of ourselves and our healthcare systems, is paramount and everything else must be subordinated to that. It is why we willingly hand ourselves over to state supervision.
But what about our souls? Where do these come in? When we react in the way we have we are basically saying that the soul, even if it exists, is a side issue. We don't look beneath the surface to see what the spiritual meaning or effect might be of the current situation. In fact, any that do are regarded as bad people who have no concern for their fellow human beings because they are focussing on irrelevancies at a time of unprecedented national crisis. Spirituality is all very well as a harmless indulgence when everything is good, a sort of light entertainment really, but God forbid it actually means something, let alone the main thing.
The coronavirus can be viewed as a kind of stalking horse, intended to test humanity's response to a physical threat and see how much it is willing to give up to be protected from that. It is also a means to drive any real spirituality to the extreme edge of society, making it the concern of mad or even bad people who don't care about the health and well-being of others. Wicked fanatics. It is surely a sign of things to come. Spirituality, true religion, will only be allowed if it doesn't mean anything.
Note: When I say the coronavirus is irrelevant, that is precisely what I mean. I'm not saying it is not a real thing which does real harm but it is principally a front for a deeper purpose which is control of the soul for those who are willing to give that up. It's a test of priorities.
Sunday, 12 April 2020
Online Services
Today is Easter Sunday and churches are closed everywhere. Supermarkets are open, chemists are open, even garages and off-licences are open. In the town where I live there is a shop selling nothing but sweets that is still open. But churches are closed and the substitute offered is online.
This is what I think. Online services have no spiritual validity whatsoever. They are a mechanical imitation of the real thing which exist on a materialist level only. The words may be the same, the formal ceremony may be very similar but the spiritual force is just not there. How could it be? The spiritual cannot exist in the virtual. It is not a materialistic thing that can be reproduced through algorithms and those who consider this in any way a satisfactory replacement for the true interaction of human beings in the real world have no comprehension of what spirituality is. Where two or three are gathered together, there I am. But they are not gathered together if they all sit in their isolated rooms staring at a computer screen. It's like thinking you can be fed while looking at a menu.
I know there will be all sorts of specious explanations as to why this is better than nothing or has been done many times before for the elderly who cannot get to church or is not different to services on the television (also spiritually useless in my opinion), but these are all self-deceiving excuses. The spiritual cannot be reproduced by the material, and computer technology is materialistic to its core.
You see, it all depends on what spirituality actually is. Is it just the outer form and words or is it an inner reality that may be conveyed by the words but goes beyond them? Clearly, it is this latter but that cannot pass through machines or remotely and if you don't understand that, you are a long way from the living truth of God.
By accepting an imitation as valid you lose your connection to the authentic. I personally feel that the churches have long lost that connection anyway and if they hadn't, they would never have contemplated offering this parody of reality as a satisfactory substitute for it. It is a capitulation to the forces of secularism and this closing of the churches at Easter is surely conclusive proof that the churches no longer serve their supposed Master. Don't bother attending an online service. Rather, go out into the open air. Stand in your bare feet on the grass and make your prayers to God there. He is to be found in the wind and the trees, the blue sky and the bright sun. Also, of course, in the human heart that is turned towards him. He is not to be found through a computer screen.
Is Christianity supposed to be about making good men or new men? Surely the teaching of Easter is that it is the latter. Resurrection of the spiritual self from the death of the earthly self. But the modern churches seem to believe that it all about being good and good, what is more, in the secular sense of a generalised humanitarianism according to the philosophical grounding of the French Revolution which was a complete rejection of God. The church, especially the Church of England (as a body, there are plenty of individuals for whom this is not the case), has increasingly incorporated the teachings of its enemy as its core principles.
Note: Lest I be accused of hypocrisy I should add that a post on blog is not like a church service. Computers are good for some things such as conveying information and ideas but cannot serve as a medium between God and Man as, ideally, a church service should.
This is what I think. Online services have no spiritual validity whatsoever. They are a mechanical imitation of the real thing which exist on a materialist level only. The words may be the same, the formal ceremony may be very similar but the spiritual force is just not there. How could it be? The spiritual cannot exist in the virtual. It is not a materialistic thing that can be reproduced through algorithms and those who consider this in any way a satisfactory replacement for the true interaction of human beings in the real world have no comprehension of what spirituality is. Where two or three are gathered together, there I am. But they are not gathered together if they all sit in their isolated rooms staring at a computer screen. It's like thinking you can be fed while looking at a menu.
I know there will be all sorts of specious explanations as to why this is better than nothing or has been done many times before for the elderly who cannot get to church or is not different to services on the television (also spiritually useless in my opinion), but these are all self-deceiving excuses. The spiritual cannot be reproduced by the material, and computer technology is materialistic to its core.
You see, it all depends on what spirituality actually is. Is it just the outer form and words or is it an inner reality that may be conveyed by the words but goes beyond them? Clearly, it is this latter but that cannot pass through machines or remotely and if you don't understand that, you are a long way from the living truth of God.
By accepting an imitation as valid you lose your connection to the authentic. I personally feel that the churches have long lost that connection anyway and if they hadn't, they would never have contemplated offering this parody of reality as a satisfactory substitute for it. It is a capitulation to the forces of secularism and this closing of the churches at Easter is surely conclusive proof that the churches no longer serve their supposed Master. Don't bother attending an online service. Rather, go out into the open air. Stand in your bare feet on the grass and make your prayers to God there. He is to be found in the wind and the trees, the blue sky and the bright sun. Also, of course, in the human heart that is turned towards him. He is not to be found through a computer screen.
Is Christianity supposed to be about making good men or new men? Surely the teaching of Easter is that it is the latter. Resurrection of the spiritual self from the death of the earthly self. But the modern churches seem to believe that it all about being good and good, what is more, in the secular sense of a generalised humanitarianism according to the philosophical grounding of the French Revolution which was a complete rejection of God. The church, especially the Church of England (as a body, there are plenty of individuals for whom this is not the case), has increasingly incorporated the teachings of its enemy as its core principles.
Note: Lest I be accused of hypocrisy I should add that a post on blog is not like a church service. Computers are good for some things such as conveying information and ideas but cannot serve as a medium between God and Man as, ideally, a church service should.
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