I want to make the case that Bible based Christianity contains many of the Aenean elements you are looking for.
The call to exercise dominion over all the Earth found in Genesis is not inherently Faustian -- especially in the light of the New Testament.
Luk 22:25ย And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.ย
Luk 22:26ย But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.ย
Luk 22:27ย For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.ย
See also Ephesians 6:1-9, Colossians 3:18-25
A great many of Jesus' parables involve a steward left to take care of the master's property without supervision. How we take care of those that we are in charge of is a really big deal -- especially as we are training and auditioning to be priests and kings in the world to come.
The Old Testament has laws against binding the mouths of the kine that tread the grain, strangling meat animals, and harnessing dissimilar animals to a plow. The rich were expected to give zero interest loans to fellow Hebrews in need. Masters were to treat their slaves well, etc.
Then there is:
Pro 13:22ย A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.ย
Trashing the planet and squandering finite natural resources are the opposite of leaving an inheritance.
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The closest thing to reincarnation that I see in the Bible is demonic possession. For the most part, the Bible says that the dead sleep. The New Testament (and the Wisdom of Solomon) teaches that those who sleep will wake up. The New Testament teaches of two separate resurrection events, the first at the Second Coming and the second at the end of the Millenium. The "dead in Christ" are those to be awakened in the first resurrection. They aren't to go to Heaven; they are to go into the clouds as Jesus comes down from Heaven. This is to be an assembly point for a takeover of Earth, not the beginning of an eternity floating and playing harps.
The prophecies of tribulations and the Second Coming have a potential Aenean component. We are in the process of building the technology needed to make the woes described in Revelations happen. The timing of these woes may be a matter of human choice. There is precedent:
* The Flood was a consequence of human wickedness.
* Sodom and Gomorrah would have survived if there were some righteous citizens therein.
* God was ready to wipe out all the Hebrews save for Moses and his family at one point. Moses intervened.
* In Deuteronomy, Moses calls upon the Hebrews to "choose life", that is, to follow the Law. But he also prophesied that it was inevitable that a future generation would deviate from the Law resulting in exile and persecutions. These two ideas contradict, unless one thinks in terms of the timing of the exile. Do the right thing and woe gets postponed.
Today, we have the technology to cause great woe. Or we can postpone the woe to a future wicked/reckless generation.
Yo! So I certainly believe that Christianity could be reconciled with Aenean elements. It just wouldn't be the Christianity that is currently on offer in most churches. And I think it could be reconciled with NDEs and so on if one accepted the experiences as valid and revelatory. But most Christians would insist that any NDE that isn't Scripturally aligned must be from the Devil. I find that hard to accept. My wife was in physical despair and mental depression, so the Devil sent her a message of... love, hope, and meaning that renewed her faith and sense of purpose, enabling her to become a better wife and daughter, and recover her health so she could devote her time to volunteering for the Republicans and rescuing dogs? This is not quite the plot of the EXORCIST movies, eh.
The Near Death Experiences are too consistent and plentiful to ignore. Not sure how they fit with the Biblical description of the afterlife. Is this what the Sleep is like? Heaven? I know not.
The idea of reincarnation seems too far removed from experience -- unless only a special few are reincarnated, or most of the reincarnations are of those who died very young. Not sure how I could have been another person and not have any memories of such. Such a deep memory erasure seems like equivalent to creating a new person.
I would argue that difference between hell and the samsaric cycle of unending suffering life, death, and rebirth is largely semantic. Whereas it is largely only by the intervention of heroes/saints/bodhisattvas that anyone has a chance of advancing to the cosmic purgatorial climb through the spheres of the guardian planets aka the "aerial toll houses."
File under: Dante isn't a Doctor of the Church but he should be.
The Outer Dark, the lake of fire, the place set aside for the Devil and his Angels is a place of eternal suffering.
The cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation is also a place of eternal suffering.
Both Christianity and Buddhism both offer a way out of an otherwise inescapable forever of suffering.
Both offer a pantheon of heroes to help you break out.
Dante in Paradiso and Neoplatonists both see the spheres of the wandering stars as way stations for souls as they purify themselves and approach the Pleroma, the uncreated light, the glory seat, beyond the light of the fixed stars. Some Orthodox mystic visionaries speak of similar "tollhouses" where the dead must engage and defeat Demons who seek to deny them progress. This is somewhat controversial with the clergy, but a persistent folk belief.
Sorry it took me Five days to get around to both reading & replying to this. My health is declining at an increasing level, and while that's going on, I have to try & come up with a few thousand dollars for legal fees to keep from being kicked to the Curb in a Divorce, with no way to work because I'm too disabled (Guess why I'm getting Divorced?...) It's a fun challenge. Generous people have contributed to a fundraiser of mine, but there's along way to go. Anyway...
I won't deal with everything here. Let me focus on mostly just the 'NDE' portion. I will probably seem harsh, maybe I will be so, but it's not a goal. I just value Truth far more than Feelings & I don't do 'The Tactful Dance' very well anymore.
So, our Western Culture has been so completely Materialist for so long now, that most People are like those starving & dehydrating in the Desert. They are *Desperate* for Spiritual Experiences of ANY sort, even if they don't consciously realize it. I have found that those who are most susceptible to Fantasy, Witchcraft/Wicca & New Age Teachings, are Atheists.
This is not by accident. Jesus talks about how a Man was purged of a Demon, but did not fully commit to his protection. The Demon went out, found a bunch more, worse than himself & brought them back to live in the Man where he was comfortable. THAT is where we are heading. Rationalism/Materialism did do a good job of purging many absurd superstitions in the West, at a certain level it reinforced Common Sense. Then, it went too far & said that the Material World was all there was, leaving our Culture wide open for a kind of Paganism the Ancient World would hold our Beer for.
That many, probably most, NDE's are 'Real', as in, actual events that people actually experienced, I believe with no doubt. The next thing I would say to any professing Christian is- 'Does it comport with what God's Word Declares, or Not?' If it doesn't, double or triple-check your understanding of Scripture and if it still doesn't, then congratulations, you've earned the attention of either a Demon or Fallen Angel attempting to lead you astray. Every Miracle of the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, point to His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, in some fashion, explicitly, or obliquely (and not very at that.) Every Spiritual Experience that is not composed of lies, is for the Good of Others & leads to God & His Word.
There's a Part Two to this, because all together, it was Too Long. Let's see if I can squeak the rest in that.
(Pt2) I've said this before, But since it bears directly on the issue, I'll repeat them- In 1993 I had a direct confrontation with the Spirit of a Dead Nephilim (Giant). This creature was superior, in EVERY WAY to any human. It was trying to lead two young women astray, via a Ouija Board, for the purposes of gaining long-term possession of them. It initially pretended to be the 'Ghost' of a 19-year-old Greek Fisherman, who died in a boating accident back in 1917. It was utterly convincing. When its responses on the board became jumbled, one of the Girls asked if there was something in the room that was bothering it. It quickly & forcefully spelled my first name. At that point, it dropped the disguise & revealed itself to me. The closest example I can mention of how it looked, was how Peter Jackson portrayed the Eye of Sauron when Frodo Donned the Ring. I felt like a Bug on a Pin. If the Holy Spirit of God had not emerged from inside me & made this Ferocious Beast into a Whiny Toddler, it could have done anything with me that it wanted to, including pretending to be an, 'Angel of Light.'
In the fall of 1997, came the event that was by far, the most powerful & tragic to me personally. I should note very emphatically, that this was not an NDE, although it easily APPEARED that way, especially from the perspective of the Woman who was with me. I was engaged to this Young Woman for nearly 2 years & during that time, learned that not only had she been abused as a child, but especially due to her Feminist Ideology, had Weaponized that experience, turning it into both a Club ('You don't understand what I've been through.' and a Shield ('You CAN'T Understand what I've been through.') Eventually, I came to understand that, to her, it was her 'Ring of Power', it had become the defining aspect of her Core Identity. The night after her Father had passed after a struggle with Cancer, we were laying down in bed together, fully clothed and not doing anything, I should point out, when she suddenly got it in her head to change that. She leaped on top of me, in a way that was actually quite disturbing, made a lewd comment and then-
I'm standing in the doorway of a different room, the late afternoon sun blazing in from the window of a room just opposite. I remember feeling the warmth on my skin & watching dustmotes flit about with a clarity my poor eyes absolutely do not possess. The Colors were more Vibrant, the Light, richer, the Sounds, more distinct. Everything was more 'There' than I had ever experienced before. Looking around in Wonder, I also realized two things- One, I was not in a different place. Two, it was the same place, but a different TIME. It was likely the mid-to-late 1970's, judging by the style of the decor. Then, I heard two voices, both likely children, but one very young & Female, the other, older & Male. As I moved towards them, I also noticed that the room I was now fully entering, was the exact same one I had just been in with my Fiancee'. I moved past the bed which was blocking my View & saw an older boy of perhaps 12, whom I did not know. He was sitting on the floor with a little girl I instantly recognized as my Fiancee' at perhaps age Four. She looked up, we made eye contact and everything changed.
In some way I don't pretend to understand, our Spirits became intertwined, or locked, together. Though I still had my own mind & consciousness, I was now also part of HER. I knew what she knew. She was indeed, Four years old. This boy was her 12-year-old Cousin & he was trying to get her to 'play doctor'. The Ploy was working. Now, not only were our conscious minds intertwined, our emotions were as well. Even though I still had my own emotional responses, I felt everything she felt, as she was feeling it. I felt her honest curiosity at what her Cousin was talking about, I felt her confusion, I felt her fear, I felt her pain & worst of all, worse by far, I felt the emergence of feelings & sensations that should have lain dormant for many years yet & *because* they emerged in the way they did, they became twisted, broken, cancerous. I screamed. I screamed at the appalling corruption of innocence I had been made to experience, with the full awareness of an Adult. I screamed at my Heart's complete inability to contain it. Most of all, I screamed for God to please make it stop.
After a time, it did.
I found myself back in 'The Now' & realized I was still laying in the same bed, but was now turned around 180 degrees, with my Feet up by the Headboard & my head in my Fiancee's lap. She was kneeling on the edge of the bed & was bent over me, calling my name. Yelling it, judging by her expression, but I could barely hear it. Everything, not just her voice, seemed to be muffled, like it was swathed in Cotton. This also included my emotional turmoil, for which I was duly grateful. She must have sensed something changing though, because she also started to shake me, in addition to yelling my name. I suddenly had an experience like when one finds oneself underwater for too long & the desperate need for air hits all at once. I took a huge lungful of air & the 'Cottony' feeling faded somewhat. By the third, things seemed to be back more or less, to normal & my Fiancee' had stopped calling my name. Now, she was desperately asking me what happened. I nodded slightly, that I had heard her, but in a quiet & somewhat whispy voice, asked her what she had experienced.
She told me that after she got on top of me, I suddenly started thrashing about, fairly violently, like I was having an epileptic fit, that's how I ended up turned around. Then, my body went completely limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. I stopped breathing, my body went cold, I wasn't even blinking & my eyes gained the dull & flat look of a dead thing. She was afraid I HAD died, right in front of her & she was about to call '911', when I came back to myself. This seemed logical to me. After all, the Body can not live without the Spirit.
This apparently took roughly two minutes. To me it seemed much longer. I then relayed to her what I had just been through. Let me say that, as Human Beings, we really don't live in Seconds, Minutes, or Hours. We don't actually live by the Clock, or the Calendar. We live our lives in MOMENTS & if we are not careful, we can become fixated on powerful Moments, suffering a kind of Solipsis. Even with 'Good' experiences this can happen, though its far more common with bad ones, likely because they tend to be much more common. This is the basis of what used to be 'Shell Shock', now 'PTSD'. Both the experience & telling my Fiancee' about it, composed such a Moment for me. As I looked up at her face, her Beautiful Adult Face & thought about what had happened, it felt like my Heart was being smashed in a Vice. I mastered my Voice however, & started telling her what had happened. As I did so, she made no sound, nor did her expression change, but huge, burning tears, fell from her eyes onto my upturned face. Part of me can still feel those tears & probably always will. When I finished, she closed her eyes & almost whispered, "Where am I going to find another Man like you?"
Two months later, she left & our relationship ended. As part of the process of making sure of that, that it was good and Staked, she told me I was, 'The Most Abusive Man She'd ever known.' For some time after, too long really, I had felt like this was an insight God had given me for the purpose of strengthening our relationship. I thought that it was something I was supposed to learn from, to be a better potential Husband to her & that I had failed in that. What I came to realize much later, was that this experience was not for Me.
It was for HER.
One of the cornerstones of her life as I said, was her Victimhood. Again, she used that Victimhood like a Club, beating on anyone she felt did not give her her due, again, using it as a means of separating & isolating herself because, 'No One can understand what I have been through.' God clearly intended this as a direct refutation of that. Not only did He show her that others could understand & empathize, He understood what had happened & He understood it PERFECTLY. Looking back, I can also see that she understood why this had happened & she understood it that very night. As I said at the start, every single 'Spiritual', Supernatural, or Miraculous experience that comes FROM God, points TO God, but we are under no obligation to accept them.
There's more, including the time God empowered me to attack a Pit Bull with my Bare Hands to save the life of one of my Furry Loves, but this is clearly long enough. My Main points are that you don't need to have an NDE to have an equivalent experience, also, there are extremely powerful forces in the world that can and do, lead people away from their Creator with extremely convincing fabrications. The mere EXISTENCE of the Supernatural doesn't automatically mean, 'god'. God will never contradict His Word. If it comes from the Ancient of Days, the miraculous never will.
As a teenager, my mother told me I was an old soul. She thought this because of the depths of thought and emotion she observed in me throughout my maturation. My experience was chaotic, intense fear of my darkness and yet joyfulness in life. I recall dreams and intense intuition of angels around me fighting evil, but not always winning. It was more than I could bear so I turned away from religion. This strong sense of the divine and awareness of evil overwhelmed me for a time until I reclaimed faith. That faith was based on the reality of choice and my ability to rise above the chaos that sometimes appeared within and around me; to allow it its moments, but not to be carried away in its currents.
I was raised a Catholic imbued with a child's black-and-white perception of reality. As I grew, I came to believe that God would present his divinity to cultures that fit their context. Inferring that there is clearly God, but not one requiring dogmatic commitment to the theology of one cultural context for all. That makes me a bit of a Christian heretic, I suppose.
We can't fully comprehend God, the divine, but must strive to align.
Your Aenean philosophy resonates with me and I'm thankful you wrote this. Accepting the premise of life before life and life after death, is there ever an end?
I am with you in your view of divinity. God presents His divinity to all cultures in ways that can reach them. We can't fully comprehend the divine but must strive to align.
Your intuition of angels fighting evil and not always winning aligns with my own theodicy (warfare theodicy). Is there ever an end -- perhaps when the spiritual war is over?
William Horden is a Western-born Daoist lineage holder who also trained with a Mexican shaman. He had an extended NDE wherein he saw his philosophy made manifest, namely his individuated soul merged back towards the One overall soul which accommodates all reality (we live in a soul-generated experiential continuum wherein consciousness is an irreducible, and nonmaterial, element). He didn't go all the way to the One, because at that point his individuated soul would have dissolved, like a drop of water into the ocean, but to some Daoist lineage ancestors, ancient spirits who instructed him for several weeks before he decided to go back. But something interesting happened on the way to these Ancestor Spirits pretty high up the Soul Aristocracy: he passed several communities of Christian congregations; at first he thought they were caught up in a diversion, a mistake, perhaps even a trap because such a realm was somewhat illusory but then he realized that the power of their faith created this afterlife realm for them wherein they dwell for a while before either moving further back towards the archetypal soul, or even the One, or return to more corporeal, individuated organisms wherein the soul principle is often occluded by the intensity of flesh-wrapped experiencing.
Having experienced 2 NDEs and three "past life 'dreams'" I have no doubt about the future of a 'soul' or reincarnation.
A most informative book is 'Life between Lives' (AKA Journey of Souls) by M Newton (Free download PDF +- 2 hour read)
What I would love you to explore/explain is how Aeneanism would handle the concept, 'evil'.
For instance the Genocide taking place and wanton deliberate killing of children cannot be explained by avarice. The motive to "Kill the Amalekites" (or whatever other group or tribe) is beyond my limited comprehension.
I understand that grand philosophies attempt to explain the grand plan and ideas, and I like to read and contemplate those, but I get hung up on the details of real life in the here and now.
Are there only a handful of people who stand back, shake their heads and ask "WTF?" whilst everyone else can't see?
Are the thinkers required to retire to the jungle or mountain or study and spend their lives in just contemplation or meditation?
โThe philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.โ โ
Karl Marx
I have a sign hanging on the inside of my door, which I look at every time I leave the house; "You are now entering the Insane Asylum."
No matter which age we are in, or which philosophy rules, 99.9% of the rest of the world is mad.
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius
โThe real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.โ They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.โ โ
Aldous Huxley โ Brave New World Revisited
Must I lock myself away and read and think and study and contemplate and ignore the madness outside the gate?
How do we, the thinkers, handle the reality in which we exist?
Oh, interesting! I am aware of Anthroposophy thirdhand by way of Dr Bruce Charlton, who references Owen Barfield, who built on Rudolf Steiner. I believe that the concept of Ahrimanic, Luciferic, and Sorathic evil originates at least in part from Steiner. Thanks for the links!
Incidentally, just as Rudolf Steiner, in his lifetime as Thomas Aquinas, removed the detritus of what the philosophy of Institutional Christianity had become, he also masculinized Christianity, while building it into the institutional counterpoint to the Islamic Platonism of Avicenna.
Someone is trying to do the same, in his own manner. He seems to be manifesting the spiritual impulse of Masculinizing Christianity, but needs a Masculine philosophy as the spark.
I meant Dr Steiner was chosen by Nietzsche's SISTER, to organize the Archive.
Incidentally, Dr Steiner stood next to Nieztsche at Nietzsche's bedside, where he had been bedridden by a stroke, and communed directly with that Great Soul.
A brief thought in response for this refreshingly fascinating essay, perhaps more later:
A tangential aspect of your Aenean phase which comes to my mind is the notion of leap. One goes from the known into the unknown and there is some compulsion, drive, need or necessity to do so.
This may also involve acknowledging that the current paradigm, or individual pattern, is flawed or blocked so something outside the box, outside the current field of vision or comfort level, is required.
And two such leaps I am personally trying to get to in a writing project, and looking for in other authors, are:
1. Fashioning new philosophies or explanatory paradigms from the starting point of non-material insight versus always starting with the objectivist, aka scientific, essentially materialist point of view and then gradually slow-walking from there off the plank into the non-materialist deep which is regarded as foreign, mysterious and at least somewhat, if not entirely, questionable. Whereas for much of human history, especially during periods of high culture, it has been widely understood that we are spirits wrapped in temporary flesh, that there is more to this world than the merely visible, that there are gods whispering to us through our ordinary experience of values, which are neither material nor mortal, values such as honour, courage, loyalty, honesty and adjacent non-material qualities of experience such as love, affection, aspiration, duty, mastery, humility and so forth. Or simply something we call 'character' or 'meaning' both of which are core aspects of our human life experience and yet not material in the slightest, not subject or even visible to the scientific method which in this sort of domain is barely relevant, valuable as it is in other domains of knowedge and learning.
2. East West comparative studies because much of the East is based on contemplative disciplines, principally meditative disciplines which emerged in organized form in both Hindu, Daoist and Buddhist civilizations around the Axial Age around 500 BC ish. There is a book called Primordial Breath (two volumes) which lists dozens and dozens of Chinese yogic breathing exercises compiled in the fourth through eight centuries AD but which clearly originate far earlier as do many of the Hindu yogic asanas, which in many ways underlie and predate Hinduism of course. The reason this synthesis or comparison would be so helpful is because the deep contemplative approaches from the Orient, principally featuring thousands of hours of meditation on the part of each practitioner, ground spiritual and philosophical enquiry in this very present corporeal reality and yet are not proponents of material objectivism because the main thing being explored is mind, or awareness or even more ordinarily put: experience. Experience is all we have, all we experience and yet part of it is clearly not physical because of the mind/awareness quotient which, when honestly examined, has no clear beginning or end, has no physical form, no clear physical point of origin (where exactly in the body does the mind begin or end or is it as much in the beckoning finger as the imagined brain inside our skull?).
A modern writer who has rigorously explored some of this stuff is Wolfgang Smith whose 2023 Vertical Causation and Wholeness you might enjoy. He has quite a bit of stuff on the internet and writes in a very clear fashion, essentially bringing the Platonic into contemporary relevance as many others are beginning to do, like also Iain McGilchrist in his magisterial The Matter with Things which concludes, rightly, that the perception of sacredness is the summit of human wisdom, something also experienced directly through meditation but not only. It too is a non-material fundamental of the human experience.
Now much of these things exist in bedrock Western cultures but partly thanks to the surfeit of materialism the past few centuries and corruption in institutional religion, such things have been buried, hidden and banished. Contemplative Christians often go to Buddhists to learn how to meditate well, and then do the yeoman's work of incorporating it into their own tradition.
Well, that was supposed to be two quick thoughts, but I ran on. Apologies.
I actually wrote about Wolfgang Smith about six months ago. I had never encountered his work until recently, but several other people who read this blog also told me that I needed to check him out. I agree with you that he is very much worth reading. I was saddened to hear of his recent passing.
I haven't read Ian McGilchrist, but I take note of your recommendation. Both of your areas of exploration seem to me worthwhile. I have not myself explored Eastern thought much, largely because I think just studying Western thought is a lifetime of labor and a man can only be so polymathic before he becomes dilettante. Fashioning new philosophy with a post-physicalist viewpoint is a major theme here.
PS. I think i stumbled onto Wolfgang via that article of yours around the same time I stumbled on your writing from another substack author (neofeudal or neoliberalfeudalism?). So belated thanks.
You might enjoy the less lofty book by Frederico Faggin 'Irreducible' wherein he posits mind as an irreducible element of reality based on spiritual experiences he had decades ago. This man helped invent the microprocessor so is a very grounded individual.
My personal interest these days is trying to approach topics from a post-materialist perspective rather than trying to start there and reach beyond as most of us are doing. Am not there yet but in a few months, once the new home is finally finished, I intend to knuckle down. A meditation hut and a small studio off from the main house await!
I went to an experimental Buddhist University, which has since lost the plot, and for a few years it hosted a Buddhist-Christian Conference set up in response to requests from various small Christian Schools dotted all over America and Europe, each independent of the other. They wanted to get hard core traditional Buddhist meditation training because, they said, their tradition had lost it years ago. They always had a great time (though I was not a participant of their conference) and I heard there was almost no hand-wringing about learning basic techniques and then incorporating them into their various sects. William James said that everyone should learn mindfulness and that its a universal skill with nothing religious about it, just basic mind-training which any hunter, craftsman or leader has to master. He was right. Then awareness is an additional layer but that too is universal and anyone who masters anything develops it naturally.
But these things take time. And by the time one masters one way, be it that of a meditator or that of a baker, one rarely manages to then master another Way and be able to compare notes. So meditation still generally remains in the purview of those studying the Asian traditions even though it really is a universal basic tool of mind and body training and does not require or depend upon any particular doctrinal overlay; such things have more to do with developing moral fortitude in a confusing, often evil, world, and cultural cohesion so that one can better lead morally uplifting and meaningful lives. But the bedrock mind training should be more rapidly universalized. THere are mindfulness training groups but somehow it always becomes a little cult-like. They started teaching it in the US Army, a very good idea, but I never heard what came of it. Also helpful in prisons where a couple of groups have made inroads. Those sorts of practical, secular situations are where the most inroads will be met, I trow.
Anyway, I think you are right to stay embedded in the West which is bottomless. The Dalai Lama, fwiw, agrees with you. But old school mind training from Asia would help the journey. William James exercise: look a the tip of a pencil or the moving second hand of a watch for a full minute and keep your mind on the object of focus without wandering. Work up to five minutes. Extremely simple but not always easy. Like exercising a muscle. Awareness: do the same thing with the same focus but be aware of the inner and outer space in which such attention is taking place. Those two skills are called 'the two wings of enlightenment'. When fully mastered, you win the cannoli! (No need to go to India or Tibet.)
The humanity's greatest achievement would be if humans stopped fucking around with their surroundings in a vain quest to transform it into something the fucking idiots humans are don't even know what it should be, and learned to exist in peace with themselves and their natural habitat.
The greatest achievement of individual humans would be if they achieved inner peace with their own selves, learn to control their mostly fucked up minds, so on so forth.
The inner space is boundless and offers unlimited possibilities for exploration and achievement. That's what humans should explore.
Sending spaceships out there, even though that won't happen, ain't it. It's bad enough that humans have fucked up their own planet. No need to wreak havoc in the rest of the Universe. There might be creatures who live in peace up there somewhere and we have no right to fuck up their lives the way we have fucked up the animal kingdom down here.
The humanity's greatest achievement would be if humans stopped fucking around with their surroundings in a vain quest to transform it into something the fucking idiots humans are don't even know what it should be, and learned to exist in peace with themselves and their natural habitat.
"And above your tomb, the stars will belong to us."
Paul:
The greatest achievement of individual humans would be if they achieved inner peace with their own selves, learn to control their mostly fucked up minds, so on so forth.
In reply:
To what end?
Ayn Rand wrote elegant, and forcefully, on the human vegetables who felt At One With The Universe, and accomplished absolutely nothing for those of us on Earth.
In the New Testament, we are told The Creator chose us for a Purpose before he laid the foundations of the Heavens and the Earth.
I don't think that Purpose was a persistent vegetative state.
Paul:
The inner space is boundless and offers unlimited possibilities for exploration and achievement. That's what humans should explore.
In reply:
A good book to read for this is Wilson's "The Mind Parasites."
As to what end, after that?
"Chop wood, draw water" was the height of their thinking, at that place and time.
"Study mathematics, conquer the Galaxy" will be the height of the Next Civilization, and ALL Human societies after that.
Paul:
Sending spaceships out there, even though that won't happen, ain't it. It's bad enough that humans have fucked up their own planet. No need to wreak havoc in the rest of the Universe. There might be creatures who live in peace up there somewhere and we have no right to fuck up their lives the way we have fucked up the animal kingdom down here.
In reply:
We (and the Chinese) are sending our eyes and ears, feet and hands, to other planets.
We will follow them.
Ayn Rand wrote about your thinking.
You represent the heights of Rousseau's thought, the Noble Savage.
We, after the Chinese, have done more to practice Ecological Consciousness than anyone else on the planet.
Any one else, and any thing else.
A useful Symbol for you to meditate on:
As Columbus was sailing to the New World, his ships passed Grenada, which was in flames.
Meditate on THAT.
Later, we will talk about Stirling;s "The Domination," and "Drakon."
I don't give a whole lot of fuck about what this dead guy or that guy wrote. Do you have something to say yourself, other than parroting other people's babble?
Also, I would appreciate if you didn't use the imperative. When people tell me what to do, I have a tendency to tell them to go fuck themselves.
Thank you for this - and for the whole Anean series (and line of thinking) hugely appreciated!
Also, as a fellow writer who tries hard to speak about the world clearly, and also has a dear wife who has struggled with threatening illness since her youth, I really could not relate more to your uncertainty about mining your own life, to explain.
You did it beautifully, and yes it was extremely helpful (real concrete experience helps us find our way into grand abstraction, more often than we sometimes think)
Philosophically, I come from the old 80s civil liberties left (entirely drowned-out now by irrational narcissistic emotionalists, sadly). Still feel there is something important to defend in terms of working class interests and vision for the future.
More precisely - my personal grail-quest of many decades now, is non-delusional hope (the non-delusional part, obliterating almost everything which is now commonly offered as hopeful. for anyone with a critical intelligence).
Naturally, I read tons of stuff from all over the spectrum, looking for clues - and there is big thinking happening, on what many insist on branding "Right" (though I swear I hear a lot of ideas discussed, that would have had a smart and principled home on the left also, 40 years ago - back when it still had range, hope and imagination)
Your Anean vision - and indeed, the fertile critiques and enthusiasms both, which it is inspiring - are truly beautiful. Not so romantic as to violate reason - but not so brutally materially dogmatic, as to eliminate magic from life, by dumb denial!
Exquisitely conceived - and there is a ton of love for humanity itself, in the generosity of the vision. So rare and precious nowadays.
Which brings me back to THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!
All strength to your nerve, imagination, reason, and efforts!
And all fortune and blessings to your dear and inspiring wife, also.
(Like you, I understand, strength is not at all what we think it is - and am grateful)
Thank you very much for the kind words! I myself come from the libertarian right, and I suppose I have "moved leftward" economically. I wrote about it elsewhere on the blog but more-or-less I concluded that swapping a .com for .gov doesn't make a person or institution virtuous. I'm nowadays skeptical of both corporate and government power, because increasingly as is the case, they're the same thing. Glad you found this blog and that it speaks to you!
I don't think a new religion can be made at this point. The Faustian mindset is so riddled with skepticism while we currently engage in an age of lies born out of loss of concern for Truth and the sense of being punished for sins. Toss in our tech allowing for deep fakes, and forget it, everyone is a doubting St. Thomas who will need to experience it IRL.
So reform is the only route. Anything else is LARP.
Modernism, the heresy, not the aesthetic or time period, has marched since the mid 19th century and has conquered much of Christianity within her churches, mostly in the form of Liberalism. The unholy trinity of freemasonry and Liberalism - equality, fraternity and liberty - has supplanted itself in the thought of even "conservative" churches. All of the issues of today plaguing the West comes from these three core values and no congregation stands much against it besides some small holdouts.
Reform is needed...but I doubt a discussion on the legitimacy of NDEs will do it. Besides, even if scientifically validated, is such validation part of the 60+% non-replication crisis? Asking for a Faustian, skeptic friend.
Frankly, as an atheist who converted to traditionalist Catholicism...I don't think you need a religion for an ethos. Catholicism's teachings can fit with many an ethos. Indeed, look at how the ethos changed while it flourished, both in the timeline but also geographically such as between West and East. And then the Church declined with an ethos that directly rejected it.
I say we champion the ethos first. If the Faith, whatever remnant of it, steps up showing its congruence or support, then the evaluating can begin. Indeed, it's kinda Faustian to try and seize heaven to make a religion to go with your ethos...I would hope Aenean man would try to correct the errors of the ethos that made a deal with the devil. We need a drive, sure, to go forth, and perhaps like Aeneas, we should bring a bit of Troy with us in building Rome, rather than break completely free from the past.
Maybe all we need is a real return to desiring Truth above all else. We need a love for the Creation, though fallen, that was given to us and a deep want to know the Creator better by fully exploring, experiencing and setting our ego aside to try and understand said Creation and therefore something of the Creator too. We don't need a fully codified faith to drive us forward. We need to set aside collectively our pride, harshly reject the culture of lies, and embrace reality and the Good again.
Also Alex, we need to confront the reality of evil and that there is an intelligence behind it. Been a while since I read tour treatise on Carlton's three types, so I forget your current outlook, but that Evil is something we must content with. Accepting reincarnation, nde's, and past lives pales in comparison to how loud the voice of this evil is right now and why it's stopping so many from experiencing the real and the Good.
I can't believe I forgot to respond to this - the most important part! "We need to confront the reality of evil and that there is an intelligence behind it. Been a while since I read tour treatise on Carlton's three types, so I forget your current outlook, but that Evil is something we must content with. "
I'm in full agreement here. I think we are confronting all three evils at once - Luciferic (rebellious), Ahrimanic (tyrannical), and Sorathic (destructive). I probably further than most in viewing theology from a "warfare theodicy" viewpoint; I think a state of cosmic with a powerful enemy is the real answer to the problem of evil...
These are good thoughts. Some quick thoughts in response:
"everyone is a doubting St. Thomas who will need to experience it IRL."
I agree, yes. But it seems to me that people are having more spiritual experiences, or talking about those they have more openly. The Internet, among other things, has revealed that a lot more people have had such experiences, that the government has closely investigated them and found them real, and so on and so on.
The problem is that those experiences don't quite line up with what Western organized religions is offering right now. In the absence of something on offer that makes their experience / the experiences of their loved ones, they drift into New Age woo-woo or alien Eastern faiths.
"We don't need a fully codified faith to drive us forward... [we need to] embrace reality and the Good again."
I agree that we ought to drive forward without a fully codified faith - I mean, I've been doing this blog for four years and I'm still codifying my own thoughts, while driving ahead. So 100% agreement.
The problem, as I see it, is that without codification, each person is left to figure out reality and goodness on their own. Most people don't have the insight to do it; eventually most will go astray, especially when our society is organized to tempt that in all the wrong directions.
So, recognizing that we need to drive ahead without a full codification, I think part of the drive is attempting the codification.
Thanks for again for taking the time to lay out a detailed response.
*Finishes reading Paterโs Banger of an Essay.*
This warrants a response, and a very thorough one at that ๐ Well done Pater! ๐
Thanks for the kind words!
Whew! That was deep.
I want to make the case that Bible based Christianity contains many of the Aenean elements you are looking for.
The call to exercise dominion over all the Earth found in Genesis is not inherently Faustian -- especially in the light of the New Testament.
Luk 22:25ย And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.ย
Luk 22:26ย But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.ย
Luk 22:27ย For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.ย
See also Ephesians 6:1-9, Colossians 3:18-25
A great many of Jesus' parables involve a steward left to take care of the master's property without supervision. How we take care of those that we are in charge of is a really big deal -- especially as we are training and auditioning to be priests and kings in the world to come.
The Old Testament has laws against binding the mouths of the kine that tread the grain, strangling meat animals, and harnessing dissimilar animals to a plow. The rich were expected to give zero interest loans to fellow Hebrews in need. Masters were to treat their slaves well, etc.
Then there is:
Pro 13:22ย A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.ย
Trashing the planet and squandering finite natural resources are the opposite of leaving an inheritance.
-----
The closest thing to reincarnation that I see in the Bible is demonic possession. For the most part, the Bible says that the dead sleep. The New Testament (and the Wisdom of Solomon) teaches that those who sleep will wake up. The New Testament teaches of two separate resurrection events, the first at the Second Coming and the second at the end of the Millenium. The "dead in Christ" are those to be awakened in the first resurrection. They aren't to go to Heaven; they are to go into the clouds as Jesus comes down from Heaven. This is to be an assembly point for a takeover of Earth, not the beginning of an eternity floating and playing harps.
Details and relevant scriptures cited here: https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/an-afterlife-a-nerd-can-believe-in
-----
The prophecies of tribulations and the Second Coming have a potential Aenean component. We are in the process of building the technology needed to make the woes described in Revelations happen. The timing of these woes may be a matter of human choice. There is precedent:
* The Flood was a consequence of human wickedness.
* Sodom and Gomorrah would have survived if there were some righteous citizens therein.
* God was ready to wipe out all the Hebrews save for Moses and his family at one point. Moses intervened.
* In Deuteronomy, Moses calls upon the Hebrews to "choose life", that is, to follow the Law. But he also prophesied that it was inevitable that a future generation would deviate from the Law resulting in exile and persecutions. These two ideas contradict, unless one thinks in terms of the timing of the exile. Do the right thing and woe gets postponed.
Today, we have the technology to cause great woe. Or we can postpone the woe to a future wicked/reckless generation.
Yo! So I certainly believe that Christianity could be reconciled with Aenean elements. It just wouldn't be the Christianity that is currently on offer in most churches. And I think it could be reconciled with NDEs and so on if one accepted the experiences as valid and revelatory. But most Christians would insist that any NDE that isn't Scripturally aligned must be from the Devil. I find that hard to accept. My wife was in physical despair and mental depression, so the Devil sent her a message of... love, hope, and meaning that renewed her faith and sense of purpose, enabling her to become a better wife and daughter, and recover her health so she could devote her time to volunteering for the Republicans and rescuing dogs? This is not quite the plot of the EXORCIST movies, eh.
The Near Death Experiences are too consistent and plentiful to ignore. Not sure how they fit with the Biblical description of the afterlife. Is this what the Sleep is like? Heaven? I know not.
The idea of reincarnation seems too far removed from experience -- unless only a special few are reincarnated, or most of the reincarnations are of those who died very young. Not sure how I could have been another person and not have any memories of such. Such a deep memory erasure seems like equivalent to creating a new person.
I would argue that difference between hell and the samsaric cycle of unending suffering life, death, and rebirth is largely semantic. Whereas it is largely only by the intervention of heroes/saints/bodhisattvas that anyone has a chance of advancing to the cosmic purgatorial climb through the spheres of the guardian planets aka the "aerial toll houses."
File under: Dante isn't a Doctor of the Church but he should be.
Could you elaborate on this?
The Outer Dark, the lake of fire, the place set aside for the Devil and his Angels is a place of eternal suffering.
The cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation is also a place of eternal suffering.
Both Christianity and Buddhism both offer a way out of an otherwise inescapable forever of suffering.
Both offer a pantheon of heroes to help you break out.
Dante in Paradiso and Neoplatonists both see the spheres of the wandering stars as way stations for souls as they purify themselves and approach the Pleroma, the uncreated light, the glory seat, beyond the light of the fixed stars. Some Orthodox mystic visionaries speak of similar "tollhouses" where the dead must engage and defeat Demons who seek to deny them progress. This is somewhat controversial with the clergy, but a persistent folk belief.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_toll_house
John C. Wright has an extraordinary story about how he became a Christian.
https://scifiwright.com/2011/09/a-question-i-never-tire-of-answering/
Sorry it took me Five days to get around to both reading & replying to this. My health is declining at an increasing level, and while that's going on, I have to try & come up with a few thousand dollars for legal fees to keep from being kicked to the Curb in a Divorce, with no way to work because I'm too disabled (Guess why I'm getting Divorced?...) It's a fun challenge. Generous people have contributed to a fundraiser of mine, but there's along way to go. Anyway...
I won't deal with everything here. Let me focus on mostly just the 'NDE' portion. I will probably seem harsh, maybe I will be so, but it's not a goal. I just value Truth far more than Feelings & I don't do 'The Tactful Dance' very well anymore.
So, our Western Culture has been so completely Materialist for so long now, that most People are like those starving & dehydrating in the Desert. They are *Desperate* for Spiritual Experiences of ANY sort, even if they don't consciously realize it. I have found that those who are most susceptible to Fantasy, Witchcraft/Wicca & New Age Teachings, are Atheists.
This is not by accident. Jesus talks about how a Man was purged of a Demon, but did not fully commit to his protection. The Demon went out, found a bunch more, worse than himself & brought them back to live in the Man where he was comfortable. THAT is where we are heading. Rationalism/Materialism did do a good job of purging many absurd superstitions in the West, at a certain level it reinforced Common Sense. Then, it went too far & said that the Material World was all there was, leaving our Culture wide open for a kind of Paganism the Ancient World would hold our Beer for.
That many, probably most, NDE's are 'Real', as in, actual events that people actually experienced, I believe with no doubt. The next thing I would say to any professing Christian is- 'Does it comport with what God's Word Declares, or Not?' If it doesn't, double or triple-check your understanding of Scripture and if it still doesn't, then congratulations, you've earned the attention of either a Demon or Fallen Angel attempting to lead you astray. Every Miracle of the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, point to His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, in some fashion, explicitly, or obliquely (and not very at that.) Every Spiritual Experience that is not composed of lies, is for the Good of Others & leads to God & His Word.
There's a Part Two to this, because all together, it was Too Long. Let's see if I can squeak the rest in that.
(Pt2) I've said this before, But since it bears directly on the issue, I'll repeat them- In 1993 I had a direct confrontation with the Spirit of a Dead Nephilim (Giant). This creature was superior, in EVERY WAY to any human. It was trying to lead two young women astray, via a Ouija Board, for the purposes of gaining long-term possession of them. It initially pretended to be the 'Ghost' of a 19-year-old Greek Fisherman, who died in a boating accident back in 1917. It was utterly convincing. When its responses on the board became jumbled, one of the Girls asked if there was something in the room that was bothering it. It quickly & forcefully spelled my first name. At that point, it dropped the disguise & revealed itself to me. The closest example I can mention of how it looked, was how Peter Jackson portrayed the Eye of Sauron when Frodo Donned the Ring. I felt like a Bug on a Pin. If the Holy Spirit of God had not emerged from inside me & made this Ferocious Beast into a Whiny Toddler, it could have done anything with me that it wanted to, including pretending to be an, 'Angel of Light.'
In the fall of 1997, came the event that was by far, the most powerful & tragic to me personally. I should note very emphatically, that this was not an NDE, although it easily APPEARED that way, especially from the perspective of the Woman who was with me. I was engaged to this Young Woman for nearly 2 years & during that time, learned that not only had she been abused as a child, but especially due to her Feminist Ideology, had Weaponized that experience, turning it into both a Club ('You don't understand what I've been through.' and a Shield ('You CAN'T Understand what I've been through.') Eventually, I came to understand that, to her, it was her 'Ring of Power', it had become the defining aspect of her Core Identity. The night after her Father had passed after a struggle with Cancer, we were laying down in bed together, fully clothed and not doing anything, I should point out, when she suddenly got it in her head to change that. She leaped on top of me, in a way that was actually quite disturbing, made a lewd comment and then-
I'm standing in the doorway of a different room, the late afternoon sun blazing in from the window of a room just opposite. I remember feeling the warmth on my skin & watching dustmotes flit about with a clarity my poor eyes absolutely do not possess. The Colors were more Vibrant, the Light, richer, the Sounds, more distinct. Everything was more 'There' than I had ever experienced before. Looking around in Wonder, I also realized two things- One, I was not in a different place. Two, it was the same place, but a different TIME. It was likely the mid-to-late 1970's, judging by the style of the decor. Then, I heard two voices, both likely children, but one very young & Female, the other, older & Male. As I moved towards them, I also noticed that the room I was now fully entering, was the exact same one I had just been in with my Fiancee'. I moved past the bed which was blocking my View & saw an older boy of perhaps 12, whom I did not know. He was sitting on the floor with a little girl I instantly recognized as my Fiancee' at perhaps age Four. She looked up, we made eye contact and everything changed.
In some way I don't pretend to understand, our Spirits became intertwined, or locked, together. Though I still had my own mind & consciousness, I was now also part of HER. I knew what she knew. She was indeed, Four years old. This boy was her 12-year-old Cousin & he was trying to get her to 'play doctor'. The Ploy was working. Now, not only were our conscious minds intertwined, our emotions were as well. Even though I still had my own emotional responses, I felt everything she felt, as she was feeling it. I felt her honest curiosity at what her Cousin was talking about, I felt her confusion, I felt her fear, I felt her pain & worst of all, worse by far, I felt the emergence of feelings & sensations that should have lain dormant for many years yet & *because* they emerged in the way they did, they became twisted, broken, cancerous. I screamed. I screamed at the appalling corruption of innocence I had been made to experience, with the full awareness of an Adult. I screamed at my Heart's complete inability to contain it. Most of all, I screamed for God to please make it stop.
After a time, it did.
I found myself back in 'The Now' & realized I was still laying in the same bed, but was now turned around 180 degrees, with my Feet up by the Headboard & my head in my Fiancee's lap. She was kneeling on the edge of the bed & was bent over me, calling my name. Yelling it, judging by her expression, but I could barely hear it. Everything, not just her voice, seemed to be muffled, like it was swathed in Cotton. This also included my emotional turmoil, for which I was duly grateful. She must have sensed something changing though, because she also started to shake me, in addition to yelling my name. I suddenly had an experience like when one finds oneself underwater for too long & the desperate need for air hits all at once. I took a huge lungful of air & the 'Cottony' feeling faded somewhat. By the third, things seemed to be back more or less, to normal & my Fiancee' had stopped calling my name. Now, she was desperately asking me what happened. I nodded slightly, that I had heard her, but in a quiet & somewhat whispy voice, asked her what she had experienced.
She told me that after she got on top of me, I suddenly started thrashing about, fairly violently, like I was having an epileptic fit, that's how I ended up turned around. Then, my body went completely limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. I stopped breathing, my body went cold, I wasn't even blinking & my eyes gained the dull & flat look of a dead thing. She was afraid I HAD died, right in front of her & she was about to call '911', when I came back to myself. This seemed logical to me. After all, the Body can not live without the Spirit.
This apparently took roughly two minutes. To me it seemed much longer. I then relayed to her what I had just been through. Let me say that, as Human Beings, we really don't live in Seconds, Minutes, or Hours. We don't actually live by the Clock, or the Calendar. We live our lives in MOMENTS & if we are not careful, we can become fixated on powerful Moments, suffering a kind of Solipsis. Even with 'Good' experiences this can happen, though its far more common with bad ones, likely because they tend to be much more common. This is the basis of what used to be 'Shell Shock', now 'PTSD'. Both the experience & telling my Fiancee' about it, composed such a Moment for me. As I looked up at her face, her Beautiful Adult Face & thought about what had happened, it felt like my Heart was being smashed in a Vice. I mastered my Voice however, & started telling her what had happened. As I did so, she made no sound, nor did her expression change, but huge, burning tears, fell from her eyes onto my upturned face. Part of me can still feel those tears & probably always will. When I finished, she closed her eyes & almost whispered, "Where am I going to find another Man like you?"
Two months later, she left & our relationship ended. As part of the process of making sure of that, that it was good and Staked, she told me I was, 'The Most Abusive Man She'd ever known.' For some time after, too long really, I had felt like this was an insight God had given me for the purpose of strengthening our relationship. I thought that it was something I was supposed to learn from, to be a better potential Husband to her & that I had failed in that. What I came to realize much later, was that this experience was not for Me.
It was for HER.
One of the cornerstones of her life as I said, was her Victimhood. Again, she used that Victimhood like a Club, beating on anyone she felt did not give her her due, again, using it as a means of separating & isolating herself because, 'No One can understand what I have been through.' God clearly intended this as a direct refutation of that. Not only did He show her that others could understand & empathize, He understood what had happened & He understood it PERFECTLY. Looking back, I can also see that she understood why this had happened & she understood it that very night. As I said at the start, every single 'Spiritual', Supernatural, or Miraculous experience that comes FROM God, points TO God, but we are under no obligation to accept them.
There's more, including the time God empowered me to attack a Pit Bull with my Bare Hands to save the life of one of my Furry Loves, but this is clearly long enough. My Main points are that you don't need to have an NDE to have an equivalent experience, also, there are extremely powerful forces in the world that can and do, lead people away from their Creator with extremely convincing fabrications. The mere EXISTENCE of the Supernatural doesn't automatically mean, 'god'. God will never contradict His Word. If it comes from the Ancient of Days, the miraculous never will.
As a teenager, my mother told me I was an old soul. She thought this because of the depths of thought and emotion she observed in me throughout my maturation. My experience was chaotic, intense fear of my darkness and yet joyfulness in life. I recall dreams and intense intuition of angels around me fighting evil, but not always winning. It was more than I could bear so I turned away from religion. This strong sense of the divine and awareness of evil overwhelmed me for a time until I reclaimed faith. That faith was based on the reality of choice and my ability to rise above the chaos that sometimes appeared within and around me; to allow it its moments, but not to be carried away in its currents.
I was raised a Catholic imbued with a child's black-and-white perception of reality. As I grew, I came to believe that God would present his divinity to cultures that fit their context. Inferring that there is clearly God, but not one requiring dogmatic commitment to the theology of one cultural context for all. That makes me a bit of a Christian heretic, I suppose.
We can't fully comprehend God, the divine, but must strive to align.
Your Aenean philosophy resonates with me and I'm thankful you wrote this. Accepting the premise of life before life and life after death, is there ever an end?
I am with you in your view of divinity. God presents His divinity to all cultures in ways that can reach them. We can't fully comprehend the divine but must strive to align.
Your intuition of angels fighting evil and not always winning aligns with my own theodicy (warfare theodicy). Is there ever an end -- perhaps when the spiritual war is over?
William Horden is a Western-born Daoist lineage holder who also trained with a Mexican shaman. He had an extended NDE wherein he saw his philosophy made manifest, namely his individuated soul merged back towards the One overall soul which accommodates all reality (we live in a soul-generated experiential continuum wherein consciousness is an irreducible, and nonmaterial, element). He didn't go all the way to the One, because at that point his individuated soul would have dissolved, like a drop of water into the ocean, but to some Daoist lineage ancestors, ancient spirits who instructed him for several weeks before he decided to go back. But something interesting happened on the way to these Ancestor Spirits pretty high up the Soul Aristocracy: he passed several communities of Christian congregations; at first he thought they were caught up in a diversion, a mistake, perhaps even a trap because such a realm was somewhat illusory but then he realized that the power of their faith created this afterlife realm for them wherein they dwell for a while before either moving further back towards the archetypal soul, or even the One, or return to more corporeal, individuated organisms wherein the soul principle is often occluded by the intensity of flesh-wrapped experiencing.
Fascinating response. Thank you.
Having experienced 2 NDEs and three "past life 'dreams'" I have no doubt about the future of a 'soul' or reincarnation.
A most informative book is 'Life between Lives' (AKA Journey of Souls) by M Newton (Free download PDF +- 2 hour read)
What I would love you to explore/explain is how Aeneanism would handle the concept, 'evil'.
For instance the Genocide taking place and wanton deliberate killing of children cannot be explained by avarice. The motive to "Kill the Amalekites" (or whatever other group or tribe) is beyond my limited comprehension.
I understand that grand philosophies attempt to explain the grand plan and ideas, and I like to read and contemplate those, but I get hung up on the details of real life in the here and now.
Are there only a handful of people who stand back, shake their heads and ask "WTF?" whilst everyone else can't see?
Are the thinkers required to retire to the jungle or mountain or study and spend their lives in just contemplation or meditation?
โThe philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.โ โ
Karl Marx
I have a sign hanging on the inside of my door, which I look at every time I leave the house; "You are now entering the Insane Asylum."
No matter which age we are in, or which philosophy rules, 99.9% of the rest of the world is mad.
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius
โThe real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.โ They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.โ โ
Aldous Huxley โ Brave New World Revisited
Must I lock myself away and read and think and study and contemplate and ignore the madness outside the gate?
How do we, the thinkers, handle the reality in which we exist?
Before enlightenment,
Chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment,
Chop wood, carry water.
For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to seek and a time to find. A time to think and a time to act.
Anthroposophy addresses all of these issues.
Sufffice to say, Anthroposophy is a philosophy within Christianity, and not a religion.
Christianity as it should have - MUST - become, as the Outworking of the Living Word, and the Living Christ.
In the case of Anthroposophy, even a series of lectures on Architecture, and the importance of the Arch in Gothic Cathedrals.
https://steinerbooks.org/products/9781855841239-architecture?_pos=1&_psq=Architecture&_ss=e&_v=1.0
More usefully, go to https://steinerbooks.org and type "Architecture" in the search box.
I will return and elaborate on this.
Thank you for a masterful essay.
Oh, interesting! I am aware of Anthroposophy thirdhand by way of Dr Bruce Charlton, who references Owen Barfield, who built on Rudolf Steiner. I believe that the concept of Ahrimanic, Luciferic, and Sorathic evil originates at least in part from Steiner. Thanks for the links!
On the new outworking of the spiritual impulses that led to the Gothic Cathedrals:
https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/experiences/goetheanum/
Incidentally, just as Rudolf Steiner, in his lifetime as Thomas Aquinas, removed the detritus of what the philosophy of Institutional Christianity had become, he also masculinized Christianity, while building it into the institutional counterpoint to the Islamic Platonism of Avicenna.
Someone is trying to do the same, in his own manner. He seems to be manifesting the spiritual impulse of Masculinizing Christianity, but needs a Masculine philosophy as the spark.
That is THIS guy https://resavager.com/archive?sort=new.
Dune! Warrior Religion!
Note, incidentally, the planet he seems to use as a backdrop in his artwork!
A very useful book: https://rudolfsteinerbookstore.com/product/friedrich-nietzsche/
That site provides a quick overview.
And, for those that need it now, now, now:
https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA005/English/GC1985/GA005_index.html
Note that Dr Steiner was chosen by Nietzsche to organize the Nietzsche Archive.
I meant Dr Steiner was chosen by Nietzsche's SISTER, to organize the Archive.
Incidentally, Dr Steiner stood next to Nieztsche at Nietzsche's bedside, where he had been bedridden by a stroke, and communed directly with that Great Soul.
Thanks.
And now, back to Architecture!
A brief thought in response for this refreshingly fascinating essay, perhaps more later:
A tangential aspect of your Aenean phase which comes to my mind is the notion of leap. One goes from the known into the unknown and there is some compulsion, drive, need or necessity to do so.
This may also involve acknowledging that the current paradigm, or individual pattern, is flawed or blocked so something outside the box, outside the current field of vision or comfort level, is required.
And two such leaps I am personally trying to get to in a writing project, and looking for in other authors, are:
1. Fashioning new philosophies or explanatory paradigms from the starting point of non-material insight versus always starting with the objectivist, aka scientific, essentially materialist point of view and then gradually slow-walking from there off the plank into the non-materialist deep which is regarded as foreign, mysterious and at least somewhat, if not entirely, questionable. Whereas for much of human history, especially during periods of high culture, it has been widely understood that we are spirits wrapped in temporary flesh, that there is more to this world than the merely visible, that there are gods whispering to us through our ordinary experience of values, which are neither material nor mortal, values such as honour, courage, loyalty, honesty and adjacent non-material qualities of experience such as love, affection, aspiration, duty, mastery, humility and so forth. Or simply something we call 'character' or 'meaning' both of which are core aspects of our human life experience and yet not material in the slightest, not subject or even visible to the scientific method which in this sort of domain is barely relevant, valuable as it is in other domains of knowedge and learning.
2. East West comparative studies because much of the East is based on contemplative disciplines, principally meditative disciplines which emerged in organized form in both Hindu, Daoist and Buddhist civilizations around the Axial Age around 500 BC ish. There is a book called Primordial Breath (two volumes) which lists dozens and dozens of Chinese yogic breathing exercises compiled in the fourth through eight centuries AD but which clearly originate far earlier as do many of the Hindu yogic asanas, which in many ways underlie and predate Hinduism of course. The reason this synthesis or comparison would be so helpful is because the deep contemplative approaches from the Orient, principally featuring thousands of hours of meditation on the part of each practitioner, ground spiritual and philosophical enquiry in this very present corporeal reality and yet are not proponents of material objectivism because the main thing being explored is mind, or awareness or even more ordinarily put: experience. Experience is all we have, all we experience and yet part of it is clearly not physical because of the mind/awareness quotient which, when honestly examined, has no clear beginning or end, has no physical form, no clear physical point of origin (where exactly in the body does the mind begin or end or is it as much in the beckoning finger as the imagined brain inside our skull?).
A modern writer who has rigorously explored some of this stuff is Wolfgang Smith whose 2023 Vertical Causation and Wholeness you might enjoy. He has quite a bit of stuff on the internet and writes in a very clear fashion, essentially bringing the Platonic into contemporary relevance as many others are beginning to do, like also Iain McGilchrist in his magisterial The Matter with Things which concludes, rightly, that the perception of sacredness is the summit of human wisdom, something also experienced directly through meditation but not only. It too is a non-material fundamental of the human experience.
Now much of these things exist in bedrock Western cultures but partly thanks to the surfeit of materialism the past few centuries and corruption in institutional religion, such things have been buried, hidden and banished. Contemplative Christians often go to Buddhists to learn how to meditate well, and then do the yeoman's work of incorporating it into their own tradition.
Well, that was supposed to be two quick thoughts, but I ran on. Apologies.
You are onto something important. Bravo!
I actually wrote about Wolfgang Smith about six months ago. I had never encountered his work until recently, but several other people who read this blog also told me that I needed to check him out. I agree with you that he is very much worth reading. I was saddened to hear of his recent passing.
I haven't read Ian McGilchrist, but I take note of your recommendation. Both of your areas of exploration seem to me worthwhile. I have not myself explored Eastern thought much, largely because I think just studying Western thought is a lifetime of labor and a man can only be so polymathic before he becomes dilettante. Fashioning new philosophy with a post-physicalist viewpoint is a major theme here.
Cheers and thanks for the lengthy thoughts!
PS. I think i stumbled onto Wolfgang via that article of yours around the same time I stumbled on your writing from another substack author (neofeudal or neoliberalfeudalism?). So belated thanks.
You might enjoy the less lofty book by Frederico Faggin 'Irreducible' wherein he posits mind as an irreducible element of reality based on spiritual experiences he had decades ago. This man helped invent the microprocessor so is a very grounded individual.
My personal interest these days is trying to approach topics from a post-materialist perspective rather than trying to start there and reach beyond as most of us are doing. Am not there yet but in a few months, once the new home is finally finished, I intend to knuckle down. A meditation hut and a small studio off from the main house await!
I went to an experimental Buddhist University, which has since lost the plot, and for a few years it hosted a Buddhist-Christian Conference set up in response to requests from various small Christian Schools dotted all over America and Europe, each independent of the other. They wanted to get hard core traditional Buddhist meditation training because, they said, their tradition had lost it years ago. They always had a great time (though I was not a participant of their conference) and I heard there was almost no hand-wringing about learning basic techniques and then incorporating them into their various sects. William James said that everyone should learn mindfulness and that its a universal skill with nothing religious about it, just basic mind-training which any hunter, craftsman or leader has to master. He was right. Then awareness is an additional layer but that too is universal and anyone who masters anything develops it naturally.
But these things take time. And by the time one masters one way, be it that of a meditator or that of a baker, one rarely manages to then master another Way and be able to compare notes. So meditation still generally remains in the purview of those studying the Asian traditions even though it really is a universal basic tool of mind and body training and does not require or depend upon any particular doctrinal overlay; such things have more to do with developing moral fortitude in a confusing, often evil, world, and cultural cohesion so that one can better lead morally uplifting and meaningful lives. But the bedrock mind training should be more rapidly universalized. THere are mindfulness training groups but somehow it always becomes a little cult-like. They started teaching it in the US Army, a very good idea, but I never heard what came of it. Also helpful in prisons where a couple of groups have made inroads. Those sorts of practical, secular situations are where the most inroads will be met, I trow.
Anyway, I think you are right to stay embedded in the West which is bottomless. The Dalai Lama, fwiw, agrees with you. But old school mind training from Asia would help the journey. William James exercise: look a the tip of a pencil or the moving second hand of a watch for a full minute and keep your mind on the object of focus without wandering. Work up to five minutes. Extremely simple but not always easy. Like exercising a muscle. Awareness: do the same thing with the same focus but be aware of the inner and outer space in which such attention is taking place. Those two skills are called 'the two wings of enlightenment'. When fully mastered, you win the cannoli! (No need to go to India or Tibet.)
"the humanityโs greatest achievements"
The humanity's greatest achievement would be if humans stopped fucking around with their surroundings in a vain quest to transform it into something the fucking idiots humans are don't even know what it should be, and learned to exist in peace with themselves and their natural habitat.
The greatest achievement of individual humans would be if they achieved inner peace with their own selves, learn to control their mostly fucked up minds, so on so forth.
The inner space is boundless and offers unlimited possibilities for exploration and achievement. That's what humans should explore.
Sending spaceships out there, even though that won't happen, ain't it. It's bad enough that humans have fucked up their own planet. No need to wreak havoc in the rest of the Universe. There might be creatures who live in peace up there somewhere and we have no right to fuck up their lives the way we have fucked up the animal kingdom down here.
Paul:
"the humanityโs greatest achievements"
In reply, they are yet to come.
Paul:
The humanity's greatest achievement would be if humans stopped fucking around with their surroundings in a vain quest to transform it into something the fucking idiots humans are don't even know what it should be, and learned to exist in peace with themselves and their natural habitat.
In reply:
Like Avatar's Na'vi?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK14JjEwmuE
"And above your tomb, the stars will belong to us."
Paul:
The greatest achievement of individual humans would be if they achieved inner peace with their own selves, learn to control their mostly fucked up minds, so on so forth.
In reply:
To what end?
Ayn Rand wrote elegant, and forcefully, on the human vegetables who felt At One With The Universe, and accomplished absolutely nothing for those of us on Earth.
In the New Testament, we are told The Creator chose us for a Purpose before he laid the foundations of the Heavens and the Earth.
I don't think that Purpose was a persistent vegetative state.
Paul:
The inner space is boundless and offers unlimited possibilities for exploration and achievement. That's what humans should explore.
In reply:
A good book to read for this is Wilson's "The Mind Parasites."
As to what end, after that?
"Chop wood, draw water" was the height of their thinking, at that place and time.
"Study mathematics, conquer the Galaxy" will be the height of the Next Civilization, and ALL Human societies after that.
Paul:
Sending spaceships out there, even though that won't happen, ain't it. It's bad enough that humans have fucked up their own planet. No need to wreak havoc in the rest of the Universe. There might be creatures who live in peace up there somewhere and we have no right to fuck up their lives the way we have fucked up the animal kingdom down here.
In reply:
We (and the Chinese) are sending our eyes and ears, feet and hands, to other planets.
We will follow them.
Ayn Rand wrote about your thinking.
You represent the heights of Rousseau's thought, the Noble Savage.
We, after the Chinese, have done more to practice Ecological Consciousness than anyone else on the planet.
Any one else, and any thing else.
A useful Symbol for you to meditate on:
As Columbus was sailing to the New World, his ships passed Grenada, which was in flames.
Meditate on THAT.
Later, we will talk about Stirling;s "The Domination," and "Drakon."
For you, for now, start here:
https://startingstrength.com/
By magnitudes.
We are just getting started.
I don't give a whole lot of fuck about what this dead guy or that guy wrote. Do you have something to say yourself, other than parroting other people's babble?
Also, I would appreciate if you didn't use the imperative. When people tell me what to do, I have a tendency to tell them to go fuck themselves.
Thank you for this - and for the whole Anean series (and line of thinking) hugely appreciated!
Also, as a fellow writer who tries hard to speak about the world clearly, and also has a dear wife who has struggled with threatening illness since her youth, I really could not relate more to your uncertainty about mining your own life, to explain.
You did it beautifully, and yes it was extremely helpful (real concrete experience helps us find our way into grand abstraction, more often than we sometimes think)
Philosophically, I come from the old 80s civil liberties left (entirely drowned-out now by irrational narcissistic emotionalists, sadly). Still feel there is something important to defend in terms of working class interests and vision for the future.
More precisely - my personal grail-quest of many decades now, is non-delusional hope (the non-delusional part, obliterating almost everything which is now commonly offered as hopeful. for anyone with a critical intelligence).
Naturally, I read tons of stuff from all over the spectrum, looking for clues - and there is big thinking happening, on what many insist on branding "Right" (though I swear I hear a lot of ideas discussed, that would have had a smart and principled home on the left also, 40 years ago - back when it still had range, hope and imagination)
Your Anean vision - and indeed, the fertile critiques and enthusiasms both, which it is inspiring - are truly beautiful. Not so romantic as to violate reason - but not so brutally materially dogmatic, as to eliminate magic from life, by dumb denial!
Exquisitely conceived - and there is a ton of love for humanity itself, in the generosity of the vision. So rare and precious nowadays.
Which brings me back to THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!
All strength to your nerve, imagination, reason, and efforts!
And all fortune and blessings to your dear and inspiring wife, also.
(Like you, I understand, strength is not at all what we think it is - and am grateful)
ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ
Thank you very much for the kind words! I myself come from the libertarian right, and I suppose I have "moved leftward" economically. I wrote about it elsewhere on the blog but more-or-less I concluded that swapping a .com for .gov doesn't make a person or institution virtuous. I'm nowadays skeptical of both corporate and government power, because increasingly as is the case, they're the same thing. Glad you found this blog and that it speaks to you!
I don't think a new religion can be made at this point. The Faustian mindset is so riddled with skepticism while we currently engage in an age of lies born out of loss of concern for Truth and the sense of being punished for sins. Toss in our tech allowing for deep fakes, and forget it, everyone is a doubting St. Thomas who will need to experience it IRL.
So reform is the only route. Anything else is LARP.
Modernism, the heresy, not the aesthetic or time period, has marched since the mid 19th century and has conquered much of Christianity within her churches, mostly in the form of Liberalism. The unholy trinity of freemasonry and Liberalism - equality, fraternity and liberty - has supplanted itself in the thought of even "conservative" churches. All of the issues of today plaguing the West comes from these three core values and no congregation stands much against it besides some small holdouts.
Reform is needed...but I doubt a discussion on the legitimacy of NDEs will do it. Besides, even if scientifically validated, is such validation part of the 60+% non-replication crisis? Asking for a Faustian, skeptic friend.
Frankly, as an atheist who converted to traditionalist Catholicism...I don't think you need a religion for an ethos. Catholicism's teachings can fit with many an ethos. Indeed, look at how the ethos changed while it flourished, both in the timeline but also geographically such as between West and East. And then the Church declined with an ethos that directly rejected it.
I say we champion the ethos first. If the Faith, whatever remnant of it, steps up showing its congruence or support, then the evaluating can begin. Indeed, it's kinda Faustian to try and seize heaven to make a religion to go with your ethos...I would hope Aenean man would try to correct the errors of the ethos that made a deal with the devil. We need a drive, sure, to go forth, and perhaps like Aeneas, we should bring a bit of Troy with us in building Rome, rather than break completely free from the past.
Maybe all we need is a real return to desiring Truth above all else. We need a love for the Creation, though fallen, that was given to us and a deep want to know the Creator better by fully exploring, experiencing and setting our ego aside to try and understand said Creation and therefore something of the Creator too. We don't need a fully codified faith to drive us forward. We need to set aside collectively our pride, harshly reject the culture of lies, and embrace reality and the Good again.
Also Alex, we need to confront the reality of evil and that there is an intelligence behind it. Been a while since I read tour treatise on Carlton's three types, so I forget your current outlook, but that Evil is something we must content with. Accepting reincarnation, nde's, and past lives pales in comparison to how loud the voice of this evil is right now and why it's stopping so many from experiencing the real and the Good.
I can't believe I forgot to respond to this - the most important part! "We need to confront the reality of evil and that there is an intelligence behind it. Been a while since I read tour treatise on Carlton's three types, so I forget your current outlook, but that Evil is something we must content with. "
I'm in full agreement here. I think we are confronting all three evils at once - Luciferic (rebellious), Ahrimanic (tyrannical), and Sorathic (destructive). I probably further than most in viewing theology from a "warfare theodicy" viewpoint; I think a state of cosmic with a powerful enemy is the real answer to the problem of evil...
These are good thoughts. Some quick thoughts in response:
"everyone is a doubting St. Thomas who will need to experience it IRL."
I agree, yes. But it seems to me that people are having more spiritual experiences, or talking about those they have more openly. The Internet, among other things, has revealed that a lot more people have had such experiences, that the government has closely investigated them and found them real, and so on and so on.
The problem is that those experiences don't quite line up with what Western organized religions is offering right now. In the absence of something on offer that makes their experience / the experiences of their loved ones, they drift into New Age woo-woo or alien Eastern faiths.
"We don't need a fully codified faith to drive us forward... [we need to] embrace reality and the Good again."
I agree that we ought to drive forward without a fully codified faith - I mean, I've been doing this blog for four years and I'm still codifying my own thoughts, while driving ahead. So 100% agreement.
The problem, as I see it, is that without codification, each person is left to figure out reality and goodness on their own. Most people don't have the insight to do it; eventually most will go astray, especially when our society is organized to tempt that in all the wrong directions.
So, recognizing that we need to drive ahead without a full codification, I think part of the drive is attempting the codification.
Thanks for again for taking the time to lay out a detailed response.
Thank you for a very well thought-out and written reply.
Casually, the subject matter of this book might provide a useful symbol to understand the dynamic that allows evil to manifest.
https://books.google.com/books?id=myZBmu2o4z8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
As well, of course, as Dr Steiner's book titled "Evil."