The futility of specific reform of specific social institutions when a society is self-destroying

At my Notions blog today, I discuss the personal roots that have led to the Albion Awakening idea; which has been the repeated failure I experienced (over a span of some 25 'activist' years) to do anything-at-all constructive about the decline and corruption of all professions and organisations with which I have been associated.

Of course this does Not mean that we should give-up on resistance and willingly go along with evil; but it does mean accepting that our resistance will be a personal decision and act - and not a part of some social trend or movement.

It does Not mean we should cease to strive for Good - but it does mean that we should not put-off such striving until after we have persuaded a critical mass of other people to join-with-us.

It does Not mean we should leave all associations and groups (such as churches); but it does mean that we cannot rely on any group to lead us in the direction of Good - we must lead our-selves... or it will not happen.

What is the basis of Astrology?

Astrology is one of those things that I regard as having some overall reality to it, in principle - even as I doubt the validity of any specific statement from Astrology.

For example, in The Last Battle, CS Lewis has a centaur correctly refute the rumour that Aslan has come-again to Narnia to rule in glory; because the Heavens tell him unambiguously that the world is in a terrible state, full of evil portent, worse than for centuries. We are not left in doubt that this form of Astrological divination is valid.

The general idea is that centaurs live a very long time, and sincerely devote their time to discerning and understanding the Heavenly realities. My understanding is that (in the Narnian world) the Heavens do not lie, because the stars and planets are angelic intelligences, situated in the supra-lunar regions beyond reach of evil and bathed in divine reality. So the Heavens will tell at least some of the truth about 'what's going on', in a situation when earthly information is distorted, corrupted and incomplete.

The usual - medievally-derived - view of Astrology is that each Heavenly-body has a distinct character, and exerts an influence on earthly things by some kind of 'beaming down' of rays/ fields/ forces/ emanations (or physical influences of some kind); to affect the composition, growth and behaviour of earthly things and beings.

But it comes to me that the reality is that the Heavenly Beings which we perceive as planets, moon and stars; are indeed Beings, and that they actually participate in the work of ongoing creation here on earth; and that that (and Not by ray, fields, forces or emanations) is how they exert their influence on earthly affairs.

So, we may (in principle, I suppose) come to know something of their work; in the same way we might learn of any thing; which is by a kind of empathic identification, by minds thinking the same thoughts. The different nature between the Heavenly objects is literally a difference of the character of these personified, conscious Beings; and their influence is built-into things in and by creation, rather than 'shining upon' already-created stuff.

I imagine that the Narnian centaurs, or some potential human equivalent, might come to know something of this work of creation, something of the knowledge of these Beings, in a simple and clear form; by direct and wordless intuition in answer to a sincere and formulated question, held steadily in consciousness, by a focused mind.

Were the Romans in Britain a Good or Bad thing?

I've never been able to decide! I spent some time yesterday in and around the Roman archaeology and museum in Vindolanda . It was the site from which one of the nation's greatest treasures was retrieved - many small slips of thin wood, with writing on them of many kinds... by far the earliest (known, understood) writing from Britain.

I find something both inspiring and appalling about the Romans. The imprint on the Northumbrian countryside is indicative - the Roman remains are rectangular grids, stamped-on the landscape; and stereotyped across the Empire. Compared with the more ancient Celtic and neolithic hillforts, temples, barrows - which are generally distinctive, emerge-from the landscape, and typically composed of curves and circles.

A comparison of the Romans with the Normans brings-out the similarity of engineering genius (the Norman castles were the main instrument of oppression, their cathedrals were a wonder of beauty) but there is a greater contrast. Under the Romans the prosperity of Britain increased greatly, whereas the Normans severely damaged the economy (by razing the North, and by destroying farms to make forests on a vast scale). The Romans brought full bellies, roads, glass and warm baths; the Normans systematic and deliberate mass starvation.

Overall, I feel that - for all their many faults - the Romans were A Good Thing; but the Normans were Bad.

Another mysterious aspect of the Roman time was the arrival of Christianity... I am an adherent of the idea that the first church was built in Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea; and that Christianity therefore slowly, but incrementally, spread through the country from the middle thirties AD. This was likely helped by the unification of the nation imposed by the Romans.

After this point, Christianity was never eradicated in Britain - although it reached a low ebb after the Angles and Saxons invaded, and before they converted.

In general, the Romans seemed timely, and synergistic - what was needed at that time and in that place, and strengthening of the distinctiveness and destiny of the nation. When the Romans had left (from the early 400s) there was an economic collapse, and social and military disorder - the nation took hundreds of years to re-emerge.

By contrast the Normans were an alien and parasitic imposition on the nation, and held back its spiritual development for several hundred years - perhaps only in the middle 1300s (with Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain poet) did England re-emerge from the under the invader's yoke, and much good had been lost.

The work of angels in Modern Man

It has often been said that Christians are pretty much obliged to believe in the reality of both demons and angels - since they are so often mentioned in the New Testament. Yesterday, William wrote about demons - today I am mentioning angels.

Readers of my Notions blog will now that I have been very interested in a 1918 lecture by Rudolf Steiner that was translated (with the help of Owen Barfield!) as The Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body. 

This is a very difficult thing to read for several reasons. Firstly because it includes several of Steiner's assumptions concerning the nature and structure of reality - which it is unlikely that you will believe are true (I don't). For instance, he accepts the complex and constrained hierarchy of angels derived from Dionysius the Areopagite; and he divides (sharply and rigidly) the human into Physical, Etheric, Astral and Ego/I 'bodies' or sheaths. All of these have some validity, but I mostly need to 'retranslate' them into something I regard as closer to reality.

Secondly, because this is a lecture transcription, and was never edited by Steiner, it seems to contain some errors and omissions - or at least awkward and hard-to-follow transitions. For example: the last few paragraphs don't seem to have much to do with the main lecture. Perhaps they were in response to a question from the audience?

Thirdly - I think the lecture material is a mixture of the most brilliant prophecy I have ever seen, bar none; and stuff that is just wrong.

However - if you are prepared to make the effort to tackle this piece, I think you will be deeply and profoundly rewarded. I have found it to be of immense value in understanding what is happening nowadays; and what failed to happen in recent generations.


In essence, the lecture is about the way that angelic influences have tried to inform Men by means of conscious ideas and imaginations (i.e. 'astral' knowledge) - but modern man refuses to acknowledge the reality of the spiritual; and instead the same impulses have only had an effect unconsciously, at the level of instinct. And this has led to the evil we see around us.

An example Steiner gives is sexuality. The true angelic impulse is towards a recognition of the divine in all persons, an actual knowledge that every human is a son or daughter of God. But this explicit spiritual knowledge has been refused (because people reject belief in God, and deny any meaning to the divine). Instead it works through at a materialist level, and impact in the form of the political ideologies of Leftism - with the false distortion that all humans are 'equal'.

The suggestion is that we have an angelic impulse; but this is demonically distorted. According to Steiner, there are two classes of demons - Luciferic and Ahrimanic: the Luciferic works at the level of instinctive gratification - so this would include the sexual revolution, promiscuity; the aim of more sex with more and more people (and things) of more and more different types etc. The Ahrimanic is the bureaucratic pseudo-rational - and this would include the many regulations and laws that assert that all Men are the same, interchangeable, and that Life ought to be monitored and regulated to enforce this materialist model of 'equality'.


Although the demons are of two, very different, almost opposed types (eg instinct and impulse versus planned and bureaucratic); in practice they reinforce each other; just as the mass media (Luciferic) sustains the world of regulations and laws (Ahrimanic) - when the media 'calls for' ever-more regulation and monitoring to solve 'problems'; which then identifies more 'problems' and generates more media pressure.  Public Relations is where the two interface.

Anyway, this is only one of the amazingly precise prophecies that Steiner produced 100 years ago.

My point here and today is that this is evidence of angelic influence in our lives.

We need, more than almost-anything, to become consciously aware of these angelic influences in our own minds. Only by such direct awareness can we understand what really needs to be done.

Demons

 A large part of the world is currently possessed by demons. I realise this statement would be regarded as, at the least, outrageous and more probably neurotic or just plain insane by most people, including many religious people, and it is one I have reluctantly accepted after quite a long time. But it is clearly true. The degree to which we have embraced falsehood is just too great for any other explanation.

When I say people are possessed, I don't mean in the traditionally understood way of a demon actually taking over and inhabiting a person's body. That is an extreme case and probably rare. But there are other forms of possession including that of thought. On the plane of ideas demons can influence the mind, and when an individual mind inclines towards the distortions of reality that the demons have concocted, often with enough elements of truth incorporated to make them plausible to the unwise, then that mind does become possessed to an extent. It's like an infection by a parasite, and if you are not properly inoculated against this infection (by a sound religious doctrine, for example, though a pure heart would also serve the purpose), then you become infected. You effectively become possessed. Sometimes this is even noticeable when you talk to a person afflicted in this manner. He or she might be impervious to reason, aggressive, argumentative, with eyes showing an underlying hatred. Not everyone infected is by any means that bad but some are as can be seen most noticeably perhaps in public demonstrations by leftist agitators.

The demons can only infect us to the degree that we let them do so. We have to have something in us that corresponds to the poison they wish to spread to become their victims. Hence there are no innocent victims in this regard. The social justice warriors are examples of people animated by hatred and the desire for power, and this is why they are such suitable victims for the demons who obviously inspire them in their behaviour. But even milder people who wouldn't dream of behaving in this bullying, aggressive manner have been infected by the current plague. And it is a spiritual plague that is sweeping through the world and contaminating thought. Only those who have developed the protection of a valid spiritual practice and faith are properly placed to resist it.

The left is demonic. This might seem to be a classic case of a prejudiced individual demonising (literally) his enemies. However I do not say that leftists are demons but that demons are behind the left and influencing its advocates. What is the left actually based on? Stripped back to its fundamentals, it is based on hatred of the good and resentment of the superior. That is why leftists will ally themselves with anyone who is an opponent of the Christian West. It is the Christian West that the demons behind the left wish to destroy, and you have to admit that they are doing an excellent job. Their long-term strategy has been most professional. They have used lesser truths to attack greater ones, for instance putting material improvements above spiritual priorities and then using the excuse of love and freedom to justify constant attacks on the natural order. They have moved in small incremental steps but always in the direction of greater corruption, more undermining of the truth and subversion of the idea of what is good. They have taken the idea of unity and used that to attack quality, the idea of better and worse, which inevitably brings the better down to the level of the worse. 

Even people whose minds are not possessed by the leftist parasites directly are not immune. When society's intellectuals and the media are largely on the side of the demons (not knowingly in most cases but they are) then everyone else will find it harder to hold out against the infection. It will be in the air they breathe, and their exposure to it will be constant. Their resistance to the infection is weakened and they will succumb unless they have some powerful medicine to fortify them. That medicine will have to be religious in nature to be strong enough to effect a cure. Secular resistance will hold out for a while but is unlikely to stave off eventual submission, especially in the case of those who have grown up in a world of materialistic leftism. Older people with connections to the past may survive but they will increasingly be prone to despair unless they have recourse to spiritual help.

We must exorcise these demons from the human mind. That is what this blog is about, and this exorcism is a prerequisite for any true awakening. The first step is to acknowledge God but it is crucial that this acknowledgement be a spiritual one by which I mean that it must, it absolutely must, be made in the context of spiritual not worldly good. That means that it must see humanity in the light of its spiritual purpose and destiny and not as creatures of this world.

The corruption of romanticism - Wordsworth and Coleridge versus Byron and Shelley

It is salutary to compare the character and achievement of the first and second 'generations' of English romantic poets and philosophers - of whom the leading spirits were Wordsworth and Coleridge (born 1770/2) and Byron and Shelley (born 1788/92).

In terms of achievement we could say that W&C were each first rate of their kind - Wordsworth ranked behind only Shakespeare and Milton as a poet; and Coleridge being the leading all-round intellectual of the early 19th century as well a a poet of the second rank. Byron was extremely famous/ notorious/ influential - but a far lesser poet than W; and Shelley wrote some important essays (and great poems) while never matching the extraordinary depth and range of C.

In terms of virtue - there is no comparison. Wordsworth was a good man, and Coleridge a repentant one. While Byron and Shelley pioneered the inverted morality of the modern global celebrity elite - especially in terms of exploitative promiscuity and self-gratification.

Politically, after the transitional experimentation of adolescence; Wordsworth and Coleridge were conservative Christians; but Byron and Shelley were radical leftists and atheists. (Byron - as licentious aristocrat - being an archetype of the later communist leadership.)

There, in a nutshell - compressed into four persons and a gap of less than two decades - was the decline of Romanticism into modernity; and the point at which the developmental evolution of human consciousness took a wrong turn into incoherence, self-hatred, despair and active self-destruction.

Those who affected to live For the people and poetry were lesser people and poets than those who lived for God. When God had faded even from memory - then so did poetry. 


Note: A further comparison might be made between the women: Dorothy, William's sister; and Mary, Shelley's second (de facto polygamous) wife (until the first had been driven to suicide). Dorothy was surely one of the kindest, most generous and most loving of people I have ever encountered in literature; as well as one of the very greatest diarists. Mary was an important pioneer of Gothic fiction (with Frankenstein) but spoilt and selfish; the precociously seductive wild child of notorious radical atheist celebrities. 

The Robin Hood Option

Let us understand that we live in a day of election, and not of universal conversion. There will be no universal peace until the Prince of Peace appears. There will be no universal holiness until Satan is bound.

J.C. Ryle, Are You Ready for the End of Time?

*

One can never be certain. We are dealing, after all, with a 'God of Surprises.' But it seems increasingly unlikely, to my eyes at least, that there will be a mass, instantaneous awakening in (or of) Albion any time soon. Things are too far gone for that. What has been set in motion needs to run its course. We will have to drop down a bit further, it seems - like Dante descending the circles of Hell - before we can start to look upward again.

'Lantern Bearers' is a phrase I have often used to describe our role and vocation in this age of civilisational decline. Now, however, I am beginning to feel that 'seed planters' might be more apposite. We are probably at the outset of a centuries-long endeavour, but what is absolutely crucial - right here and now - is that we make a start on the renewal of our culture, refreshing it at its deepest wellsprings, radically reorientating it towards the Sacred, the fount and source of everything true and good. 

Our immediate problem is that the times we live in appear more and more inimical to any notion of  the Sacred or Divine. Secularism is becoming strident and militant. Liberalism is growing increasingly illiberal. Christians are squeezed out of the public square and are finding it harder to work with a clear conscience in fields such medicine, law, government and education. How to respond to this burgeoning intolerance has been a topic of much debate, spurred to a great extent by Rod Dreher's book, The Benedict Option (2016) and his pugilistic column for The American Conservative. 

I have been reflecting on these matters during a recent reread of Roger Lancelyn Green's, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1956). As well as some superb storytelling, Green gave me several springboards for thought pertaining to the themes of resistance and renewal and where the two meet and intertwine. Green portrays Robin as an Arthurian figure, bringing succour to Saxons suffering under the Norman yoke as, centuries before, the original Arthur had inspired the Britons to resist their invading ancestors. As Green evocatively puts it:

Then, in that wild and lonely glade, while the owls screeched over the dark forest, and an occasional wolf howled in the distance, they all knelt down together and swore their oath - a pledge as high and as sacred, though they were but outlaws and escaped felons, as that sworn by the noblest knight who, in the days when the Saxons themselves were the conquerors and oppressors, had sat at King Arthur's Table.

'We take for the general good,' Robin declares, 'and it shall be as much our duty to seek out the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan and all those who have suffered and are suffering wrong, and  minister to their wants as far as we can.' This going out to the poor and needy is, I feel, of central importance to our predicament today. Robin's merry men have bigger fish to fry than mere self-preservation. They are engaged on a societal mission. Their rapport with people outside their group earns them kudos and affection and saves them from the hot-house insularity which often bedevils focused, intentional communities and can lead, at best, to a climate of gossip and backbiting and, at worst, physical and spiritual abuse. 

Robin Hood is an intensely charismatic figure. So are his closest followers - Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John and Will Scarlett. They radiate goodness and nobility. People see and feel those qualities in them, and their hearts are lifted. Can we say that truly about ourselves? Does the Gospel show itself in our body language and demeanour? Do our faces shine with love of God and love of Albion? If not, why not? Are we spending too much time mulling over culture wars and not enough time in prayer and contemplation? I think often of Karol Wojtyla in this respect who, as Archbishop of Kraków between 1964 and 1978, began each day with an hour and a half's silent adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. From a worldly, administrative point of view, this is time which would have been better spent breakfasting with colleagues, arranging meetings or answering correspondence. But Wojtyla, like Mary of Bethany in John's Gospel, chose the 'better part', simply spending time with Christ. I am convinced that this practice gave him that palpable aura of holiness that helped him to play such a decisive role on the world stage when he became Pope John Paul II in 1978.

We also have to take into account the nature of our particular era. What might have been an appropriate response to spiritual and cultural crisis in former times might not be so today. We don't live in first century Palestine, for instance, where religious questions were of paramount importance across all strata of society. Nor are we trying to convert fifth century European pagans either, who were already, in their own way, open and responsive to the Sacred. Our post-Enlightenment epoch is entirely different - desacralised, deracinated and disenchanted. The supernatural has been safely walled off and the numinous banished to the demi-monde of fancy and subjective imagination. We need to see ourselves, therefore, not so much as 'Preachers of the Word' but 'Evokers of the Sacred.' Without this basic receptivity to the Sacred, the Word will fall on barren soil. 

This is important because twenty-first century Westerners still experience encounters with the Holy; as much, if not more so, than in the past. But the post-modern world has divested itself of the religious terminology which sets them in their proper frame. My experience, talking over these things with friends, tells me that they often take place in childhood. As the years pass the visitation fades from the conscious mind but remains embedded in the heart, waiting for the right moment and the right person, perhaps, to reinvoke it and call it back to life.

That person could be your or I. With this in mind, we should posit a Christ who holds the keys to a wider, richer realm of possibility than that offered by the currently dominant paradigm. Materialism does not satisfy the deepest longings of the human soul. Those trapped in its limiting vision, whether materially well-off or not, are truly the 'poor and needy' of our day, robbed of their spiritual heritage and the deepest knowledge of their hearts, just as the English of Robin Hood's day were defrauded of their ancestral homes and lands by the Norman aristocracy. 

So, what would a 'Robin Hood Option' church actually look like? Something like this, I feel - Michael De-la-Noy's account in his book, Church of  England (1993), of an evening visit to St. Patrick's Anglican Church in Hove in the late 1980s, at a time when the local bishop had recently invited a nearby monastic community to help reinvigorate the Liturgy:

I wandered into church at 6.45. An assortment of tramps, alcoholics and the mentally ill were all jumbled up with parishioners in pews arranged around a free-standing altar in the nave, and vespers was underway, the plainchant being led by a young estate agent. Father Sharpe, in alb, sat in the centre ... 

No account of the liturgy could by itself convey the unselfconscious devotion of the service. For the consecration everyone gathered in a strange intimacy around the altar, within feet of the celebrant. A home baked roll was consecrated; the patten and chalice were modern earthenware. Yet there was nothing folksy about the occasion. At the peace everyone moved round to kiss or shake hands. Everyone, including many of the down and outs, received Communion. 

It was a gentle, moving experience, which seemed by the nature of those present - unwashed, wearing mittens, unpatronised and essentially unimpressed and at home - to offer a glimpse of what worship may have been like in the Middle Ages, a rediscovery of a marriage of reverence, impressive ritual and sensitive simplicity.

Please find below, at the end of this post, a photo of the church at that time. As ever with Google Images, it leaves something to be desired in terms of clarity, but you can tell by the lay-out and the ambience what it portrays - nothing less than holy ground - a place of encounter, meaning, depth and possibility - a fount of living water, from where right thought and action flow into our lives and the lives of those around us, re-baptising and renewing the world without any strain or anxiety on our part. 

St. Patrick's, in those days, was a clearing - a free and open point of intersection between the human and the Divine. In an epoch like our own where there is no set guidance for restorative actions, the first restorative task is to start fashioning such spaces. This is what Robin Hood did with his 'wild and lonely' glade and what people found in Mother Julian's cell in Norwich at the other end of the Middle Ages. Let us leave the last word to that fine representative of the English contemplative tradition. May it act as a reminder that our spiritual foe has nothing to offer men and women, and that with our encouragement, faith and discernment they may find this out sooner rather than later and turn once again to that great Sun that lit up their faces when they were new to this world:

This is the cause why we are not at rest in heart and soul: that here we seek rest in things that are so little there is no rest in them, and we do not know our God who is all mighty, all wise and all good. For he is true rest ... There is no end to our willing and longing until we know God in the fullness of joy.