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The Awakening of Spring

3/19/2021

My son and I experienced the full of effect of three seasons within the span of an hour during our walk before lunch today.

When we left the house, it felt like a sunny and cool morning in late autumn. Fifteen minutes later, we were hit by the high winds and falling snow of winter. At the midway point of the walk, the snow turned to cold March rain. By the time we got back home, the clouds had cleared and a radiantly warm sun inspired us to unzip out coats and remove our hats.

Though my son and I enjoyed the rather jarring effects of today's schizophrenic weather, we are both eagerly awaiting the arrival of 'real' spring.

Last week I planted six new fruit trees in the garden - one sour cherry, one plum, one peach, one apple, and two pear trees. Though they are all quite small, I can hardly wait to see them blossom alongside the mature plum and pear trees I already have in the yard.

The Awakening of Spring - István Csok

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Dehumanization Only Applies to Humans, Not Biological Hazards

3/17/2021

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A friend from Canada sent me a link containing the following:

School teachers in Mississauga and Brampton have been ordered to wear goggles and eat alone outside because of increasing transmissions of COVID-19 between staff members.

A directive issued by the Peel District School Board to staff says goggles or face shields are now mandatory "to protect the mucous membranes of the eyes from exposure to potentially infectious droplets" of the virus.

As well, the directive also says teachers and staff must not congregate and must eat alone at lunchtime, "preferably outdoors."

I imagine full scuba gear complete with oxygen tanks are the next logical step; or spacesuits perhaps.

I would like to add a few words about the dehumanizing aspects of measures such as these, but dehumanization only applies to humans, not to potential biological hazards, which is essentially what humans have become . . . and will remain into the foreseeable future.

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Establishing "Freedom From" the Slavery Consciousness the System Instills

3/16/2021

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How we think about and understand freedom is crucial to system distancing.

Once we have acknowledged that the System actively and intentionally opposes God and Creation, we are able to focus our efforts on developing freedom from the System in order to nurture freedom for God.

Above all else, the System seeks to enslave us spiritually, but it is vital to remember that the System has only physical means at its disposal to achieve this end. Consequently, the only way the System can spiritually enslave us - and this cannot be stressed enough - is if we allow it to.

As a result, the System strives to implement worldly conditions in which we will actively and willingly deny the reality of our own spiritual natures and the reality of God.

If we spiritually capitulate to the System's physical machinations, we forfeit the spiritual resources required to resist the determination of the System's objectified world.

This disrupts the spiritual progression of freedom from physical necessity to freedom for God and inverts it into a spiritual regression of freedom from God to the un-freedom of the System and its crushing necessity.

To promote spiritual slavery, the System is currently employing an ever-increasing array of Ahrimanic restrictions and controls on human agency and freedom. Through these means, the System is conditioning us to believe that our lives are determined exclusively by forces and causes external to ourselves, thereby negating the reality of spiritual freedom and its inherent internal forces and causes.

The attempt to physically imprison us in a bleak, joyless, un-free world is an attempt to further separate human consciousness from the halcyon, joyful, free world of spirit.

It wasn't always this way. This strategy - which in of itself reveals the System's freshly-minted totalitarian nature - is somewhat new. Before the 2020 global coup, the System - which was then probably only pseudo-totalitarian or semi-totalitarian - relied on the existence of a great degree of physical freedom to encourage spiritual enslavement and soul damnation.

Rather than lock people down and terrorize them with fear, the semi-totalitarian System inspired people to run amok in the world and freely indulge in officially-sanctioned sins, mostly via hedonism, lust, greed, and pride.

As is the case with the System's current closed world strategy, the open world strategy sought to instill a denial of the reality of God and replace it with the misguided belief in the sole reality of the System.

The open world strategy sought damnation through misguided pleasure and hope; the closed world strategy seeks to ensure damnation through misery and despair.

Both strategies encourage people to become overly preoccupied with their physical, temporal selves; both strategies promote inflated egocentricity and the belief that the purpose of life begins and ends in the physical world of the System and its necessity.

In essence, both strategies work to degrade consciousness by locking people in the objectified world, thereby diminishing people's ability to effectively relate to God and to what is god-like in themselves.

The only way to avoid the slavery consciousness the System foments - regardless of how it is fomented - is to understand that we are not wholly determined by forces external to ourselves - that what is most meaningful and beautiful about us is, in fact, determined by internal forces.

These forces lie in the recognition of ourselves as primarily spiritual beings. This recognition also affirms the reality of God.

Once this reality has been re-established, we regain the spiritual resources and freedom needed to successfully resist the determination of the objectified world the System forces upon us, no matter what form it takes.

Hence, freedom from the System via system distancing is not so much a matter of physical freedom from, but a matter of spiritual freedom from, which is significantly more important than any possible physical freedom from because it sets the stage to pursue freedom for God.

System distancing is the understanding that physical freedom from the System is not a prerequisite for spiritual freedom from the System; that one can be spiritually free from the System even while one is physically un-free from the System.

It is also the understanding that physical freedom from the System alone - if at all possible - is neither required nor enough to establish the spiritual state of freedom for God.

The manifestation of freedom for God depends entirely on spiritual freedom from the System - and this boils down how we think about and understand our freedom in relation to the System.

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System Distancing Is About Spiritual Freedom, Not Worldly Freedom

3/14/2021

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I am trying to intuitively develop the concept of system distancing against the backdrop of our current technocratic and totalitarian circumstances. The first and most significant discernment I have been able to reach regarding system distancing is that it is spiritual rather than a material imperative.

Bruce Charlton confirms this discernment in a post published on his blog yesterday. In that post, Dr. Charlton offers a succinct summation of our current predicament:

We live in a world where there is a single, totalitarian and evil system - that has assimilated all major institutions, and controls both supply and demand sides of the economy.

The System is global, and it is aligned with the agenda of Satan; and also The System is what keeps everyone alive.

The measure of our situation (and what identifies these as the End Times) is that we cannot truly escape The System without dying.

I believe this is an accurate and sober assessment of the current situation. Taken seriously, it should also pour cold water on notions of "hope" in the System to provide meaningful material improvements in the foreseeable future.

In addition, Dr. Charlton's post lays the bare the paradoxical nature of the apparent dilemma in which we are immersed.

How can we spiritually distance ourselves from the System when we are physically dependent upon it to ensure our material survival?

I believe the answer to this question can be found in the way we think about, understand, and respond to material necessity from the core of our potential spiritual freedom. This requires a thorough re-examination of the apparent tension that exists between earthly bread and heavenly bread.

The tension between earthly bread and heavenly bread arises when the relationship between the two is understood purely as a dichotomy; that is, as two mutually exclusive and opposing parts in which nothing can simultaneously exist. This comprehension leads to a realm of stark choices; since one cannot be on the sides of both earthly bread and spiritual bread simultaneously, one is either on the side earthly bread or on the side spiritual bread.

Conceptualizing the perceived paradox of earthly bread and heavenly bread as an antinomy rather than dichotomy is more helpful, but it does not negate the inherent contradiction between the two forms of bread.

The solution to the tension between natural necessity and supernatural freedom can be found in the Bread of Life sermon in the Fourth Gospel (John 6), in which Jesus not only draws a sharp contrast between the material and the spiritual, but also insists upon the proper ordering of these considerations - a proper ordering built upon the primacy of the spiritual.

To paraphrase, earthly bread keeps us alive in this world, but heavenly bread grants us everlasting life. Thus, the proper use of the necessity of earthly bread is to nourish the potential for heavenly bread. Without this nourishing potential, earthly bread in our mortal lives is reduced to its purely worldly function, thereby denying the reality of our spiritual being. When we value and covet earthly bread more than we value and covet heavenly bread, we oppose the essential spiritual nature of our being and reject the gift of everlasting life Jesus offers to us.

Thus, one can be on side of earthly bread while simultaneously being on the side of heavenly bread as long as one understands the proper role, function, limit, and use of earthly bread as a means to further the potential for heavenly bread.

Whenever I write about the global coup of 2020 and the totalitarian conditions it has implemented, I do so primarily from a spiritual perspective. That is, I attempt to determine the spiritual implications of this new technocratic tyranny.

This does not mean that I have no interest in the worldly/material aspects of what is currently transpiring, but rather that I interpret the worldly/material aspects of everything we are experiencing today as secondary - secondary in the sense that they are only meaningful and useful if and when they are filtered through the primacy of the spiritual and an individual's own awareness of his or her spiritual purpose and destiny.

Of course, this should be the default position for all serious Christians regardless of external circumstances; not only because it organizes properly, but also because it provides Christians with the means needed to properly interpret, order, and resist the forces of determination and objectification within the material world.

The nature and scope of current developments are designed and have been implemented to confront and lay siege this default spiritual position. The twin demonic objectives of spiritual enslavement and damnation fuel the ever increasing and expanding forces of determination and objectification we are currently experiencing.

Above all else, the demons want undermine our belief and faith in the reality of God and everlasting life. They aim to achieve this by convincing us that we are ruled solely by external, material forces. This ramping up of perceived natural necessity increases the demonic pressure to become solely preoccupied with forces external to ourselves, which, in turn, challenges and inverts true conceptualizations of spiritual freedom, thereby locking us into the temporal world where we face the possibility of being rendered powerless against the deterministic and juridical machinations of the totalitarian System.

I have argued that the primary motivation for system distancing rests in the understanding that the System in its current form is intentionally and strategically opposed to God and Creation. As mentioned above, the necessity of earthly bread within Creation is a meant to be interpreted as a physical means that leads to a spiritual end. The System has negated this spiritual end and has made earthly bread a physical means that can only lead to a physical end.

The paradox of earthly bread is that it can never lead to a state of freedom - temporal or otherwise. Yes, we need it to survive in the world, but this necessity reveals the un-free nature of earthly bread while simultaneously dismissing the real nature of supernatural freedom.

Daily portions of earthly bread can sustain the illusion of temporal freedom, but this illusion dissipates the moment earthly bread is withdrawn, which brings to mind Nietzsche's barb about the belly being the reason why man does not take himself for a god.

But even if physical hunger never comes into play, the consistent consumption of earthly bread sans a simultaneous hunger for heavenly bread results in one, and only one, end - physical and spiritual death.

Contrary to Nietzsche's quip, the belly is not the reason why man does not take himself for a god; the reason why man does not take himself for a god is because he is under the false conceptualization that his being is solely defined by and limited to his belly (and other aspects of natural necessity). This is the pressurized lie the System is enforcing as it seeks undermine the promise of everlasting life and convince souls to willingly choose self-damnation.

The recognition that our mortal lives should not be solely defined by or limited to our stomachs - or any other natural necessity - is the driving force behind the spiritual imperative of system distancing. This spiritual imperative does not deny the reality of natural necessity, but opposes any force that attempts to use natural necessity (external forces) to subvert spiritual freedom (internal forces).

Natural necessity is an inescapable fact of our mortal lives. Without earthly bread, we cannot physically survive in this world. The key to system distancing is the understanding that the inescapable necessity of earthly bread to survive in this world should never eclipse the desire for heavenly bread to attain everlasting life.

The System is currently opposed to God and Creation because it has weaponized natural necessity in an effort to destroy spiritual freedom. The System believes it can crush spiritual freedom under the burden of earthly bread and pressing physical necessity, but it can only achieve this aim if we willingly abandon the offer of heavenly bread in favor of earthly bread.

Above all else, system distancing is the recognition that the System keeps us alive, but it can never grant us everlasting life. Moreover, it is the explicit understanding that the System in its current form intentionally and strategically opposes the gift of everlasting life.

As such, we must abandon all hope in the System and see it for the malevolent force it has become. This abandonment does not entail turning our backs on the earthly bread the System provides. Instead, it entails an honest and dignified understanding of the end goal the System is attempting to achieve through temporal necessity.

For all intents and purposes, the System has established a monopoly on physical necessity. It has done so for the express purpose of eliminating spiritual freedom. The only way to counter this monopoly on physical necessity is to maintain one's spiritual freedom.

This may or may not lead to acts of material resistance, but material resistance should not be the ultimate goal of system distancing.

As Dr. Charlton points out in another post:

And since all major institutions are assimilated (more or less) into the System; then any resistance will be 'me against the world'.

Once this is realized; we can put aside prideful and grandiose fantasies of material resistance or 'opting out'; and focus our effort on spiritual discernment and repentance; on salvation and theosis; on learning from worldly experience to prepare for resurrected Heavenly life beyond biological death.

. . . Yet, it so happens that this is also the most effective possible form of material resistance - since God can work through a repentant, God-aligned Man.

The excerpt above provides some clarifying insights into my own intuitive understanding of system distancing a spiritual rather than a material imperative. I imagine many interpret what Dr. Charlton suggests above as a spiritual sidestep or an evasion and that our true spiritual imperative is to confront the evil currently facing us head on in the physical realm.

Though there may indeed be times when an individual is impelled to do so for spiritual reasons, I sense the reactive impetus to don armor and physically fight dragons actually plays right into the enemy's hands at the current moment. But if we utilize system distancing as a spiritual rather than as a material imperative, we remain firmly entrenched in the territory the enemy most wants to occupy.

If the success of the 2020 global totalitarian coup has emphasized anything it is this - our worldly freedom has been firmly and systemically curtailed and restricted. Resisting these restrictions to regain lost worldly freedoms will only suffice if it is motivated by deeper spiritual motivations.

Without these deeper spiritual motivations, we will have gained a little more world and little else. With these motivations intact, we can maintain our spiritual freedom and alleviate the full force of the physical slavery the System has imposed upon us.

System distancing is about nurturing and maintaining a state of spiritual freedom in which we remain receptive to heavenly bread and the call of God even when our worldly freedom has been curtailed.

Note added: I don't believe there is a one-size-fits-all formula to system distancing. Though the basic concept remains the intact, individuals must use their discernment and judgement to tailor their own necessities. This includes repenting those thoughts and actions in which individuals were unable to properly order earthly and spiritual bread.

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Vaccine Easter Bunnies; Our Only Hope

3/11/2021

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Maybe it's just me, but I think the fat one in the middle looks downright evil.

The Hungarian confectioner who introduced the world to face-masked Santas this past Christmas is now offering a sweet taste of leporid "hope" via chocolate Easter bunnies carrying vaccine syringes.

Needless to say, the System's media appendages have promptly splashed this little "feel good" piece all over the globe (in the exact same way they did with the face mask Santas back in December).

Rimoczi said the vaccines, made of fine Italian chocolate and sprinkled with silver food coloring powder, signaled there was a way out of the coronavirus pandemic.

"For those who think . . . I will ruin the good mood of children at Easter, I can do bunnies without vaccines as an alternative," Rimoczi added.

Aw, gee . . . what a swell guy!

Speaking of ruining the good mood at Easter, I am currently celebrating my one-year lock down anniversary today. Yes, on this exact day one year ago I was unceremoniously forced into exile within the confines of my home. And here I am a year later - in full lock down mode once again.

In the year that has passed, the Hungarian government has enforced face mask mandates, travel restrictions, social distancing, and non-essential business, school, and church closures.

Oh hey, I almost forget about the curfew.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the government initiated a mass vaccination campaign in the "hope" that the peck will help develop herd immunity in the population (something that could have been achieved quite easily without government interventions, but hey, I'm no expert) and finally bring an end to this "trying time".

Over a million Hungarians have voluntarily lined up for the peck, which, the last time I checked, comes in five or six different varieties ranging from British-Swedish all the way to Chinese.

You would think the combination of a full of year draconian measures - initially meant to be temporary in order to flatten the curve and keep the healthcare system from collapsing - and the recent roll out of pecks would have had a massively positive effect in containing the spread of the birdemic.

Yeah . . . no.

If official sources are to be believed, the country is actually in a far worse position than it had been as early as a month ago, thanks to the dreaded third wave. Cases are still going up, reported daily deaths are increasing, and the entire healthcare system is apparently cratering . . . again.

So glad the totalitarian restrictions have proven so effective. I can't imagine where the country would have ended up if the government had simply decided to do nothing at all.

Aw, but why am I complaining about the birdemic? After all, none of this is about the birdemic.

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The Further Development of Christianity Depends on Choosing to Be Free "With" God

3/10/2021

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I believe in the further development of Christian consciousness because I believe Christianity holds the true vision of what humanity is called to become. This vision is a divine-human destiny, and the manifestation of it will rely solely on the further development of human consciousness within a Christian paradigm.

The further development of human consciousness within a Christian paradigm is entirely dependent upon on our understanding of freedom. Without a proper understanding of freedom, Christianity will lose the vision of what humanity is called to become. Conversely, Christianity may continue to sustain the vision, but our misinterpretations of freedom will continue to make us blind to it.

The development of Christian consciousness and divine-human destiny permeates the work of Nikolai Berdyaev. Berdyaev regards freedom as the foundation of all consciousness development within the Christian paradigm, and he understands the ultimate purpose of human freedom - which Berdyaev refers to specifically as "embodied freedom" - to be the answering of God's call through spirit.

Development in Christian consciousness depends upon and only occurs if individuals approach God through freedom. The divine-human destiny Berdyaev envisions cannot be coerced or forced; it must be freely chosen.

This centrality of freedom also defines the quality and progression of Christian consciousness, a quality Berdyaev comprehends primarily from the perspective of an individual's development and ability to relate to God and other people.

To illustrate this, Berdyaev outlines a four mode spectrum of spiritual freedom through which the development of Christian consciousness toward divine-human destiny can be understood. The four modes of this spectrum can be mapped out thus:

Slavery <- -> Heteronomy <- -> Autonomy <- -> Theandric Freedom

Slavery

This mode is the lowest within the development of Christian consciousness. In fact, it is so low, it hardly qualifies as Christian consciousness at all. Spiritual consciousness at this level is dominated mostly by what William Arkle refers to as "false selves." Individuals in this mode of consciousness are enslaved by false selves because they fail to recognize or understand the reality of the divine self and the reality of God.

As a result, they are essentially rendered powerless against the forces of determination and objectification within the material, objectified world. Simply put, at this level people view themselves as nothing more than things in a world dominated by other things. Within this mode, consciousness is obsessed by egocentricity and it interacts almost exclusively within the confines of the material world.  Slavery consciousness - which I have personally referred to as a state of servitus - is almost wholly preoccupied with external forces. The lives of individuals who possess this consciousness are largely ruled by forces external to themselves.

In a nutshell, slavery consciousness is akin to the dominant consciousness of the modern West - alienated, apathetic, atheistic, and materialistic. Though very little real freedom exists at this level of consciousness, the potential for freedom continues to exist, albeit faintly.

However, the development of this potential freedom depends almost entirely on the acceptance of the reality of God. Without the acceptance of divine reality, freedom is limited to "freedom from" at this level of consciousness. Slavery can only conceptualize "freedom from" as brief, intermittent episodes of freedom from physical necessity. "Freedom for" is barely conceivable; when it is considered, it is regarded as an unattainable abstraction. Hence, the possibilities of divine-human destiny are barely perceived, let alone acknowledged.

Heteronomy

Heteronomy is the mode of consciousness in which individuals surrender freedom to an external authority, usually for the purpose of providing for the greater good. At this level of consciousness, freedom is not considered the highest value, and it is freely and willingly surrendered in exchange for other values that are perceived to be higher than freedom. In many ways, this level of Christian consciousness could represent the world of Christianity within the model of traditional churches.

On the positive side, this level of consciousness elevates and keeps people from falling into the level of slavery because it affirms the reality of God and, thus, affirms the reality of the divine within humanity. This establishes freedom, but this freedom is restricted to the reality of God as authority. This level of consciousness focuses primarily on law, ceremony, and obedience, but also allows the individual to freely create within prescribed, authorized forms. Heteronomy generally prevents feelings of alienation from God, but hinders an individual's ability to approach God in freedom outside the boundaries of officially sanctified authority.

On the negative side, this level of Christian consciousness often undervalues the importance of the divine self and views people primarily as servants to the authority of God. Original thinking is discouraged. Approaching God in freedom is discouraged in favor of submitting one's freedom to God.

Heteronomy holds that people are not free and should not be free beyond divine authority. Freedom beyond authority itself is suspect and denounced as nothing more than the potential for sin. God is primarily conceived of as an authority that must be obeyed. The individual can only relate to God via the authority of a church. Relating to God beyond the authority of a church is denounced as heresy.

Divine-human destiny within heteronomy consciousness is restricted to a relationship in which human freedom is largely submitted the supreme of authority of God via institutions that represent this supreme authority in the world. The role of the divine is to dictate; the role of humans is to obey. Heteronomy provides "freedom from" slavery, but limits "freedom for" to obedience to external divine authority.

Autonomy

Most traditional Christians regard the level of autonomy - which can also be described as existential liberty - as a negative form of Christian consciousness primarily because autonomy consciousness views the mode heteronomy consciousness as immoral and oppressive. In autonomy consciousness, individuals are able to act in self-determined ways and harness the power to reject external forms of authority.

Autonomy consciousness is best exemplified by the Enlightenment, which was able to shake off or remodel the traditional authority of churches and make its own way into the world. Nevertheless, this subsequent movement away from the traditional churches also works to potentially alienate autonomy consciousness from God.

Autonomy consciousness is almost exclusively about "freedom from"; whatever "freedom for" it contains is limited mostly to the individual. Whereas heteronomy consciousness overvalues God and undervalues the individual, autonomous consciousness contains the potential to overvalue the individual and undervalue God.

This results in a lack of a fully formed "freedom for" that eventually limits autonomous consciousness to the confines of individuality within the natural world. The human element in the divine-human relationship takes precedence and is elevated, while the divine element is demoted and relegated to the role of a distant, indifferent creator, as exemplified within the tenets of deism.

Without a properly defined "freedom for" grounded in the divine, autonomous consciousness sets about establishing "freedom for" within the confines of the natural world into which it has essentially locked itself. Notions of perfection and perfectibility via human reason results in the descent of explicitly religious and spiritual concerns and the ascent of "rational" worldly human endeavors such as science, law, government, nation-building, technology, and social engineering, which all eventually rise to become authorities in their own right.

However, the descent of religious and spiritual motivations eventually creates a vacuum in the divine-human relationship, a vacuum over which sin is able to exert greater influence. The increase of sin causes the explicitly defined "freedom froms" and tenuously defined "freedom fors" in autonomous consciousness to degenerate. Autonomous consciousness begins to lose its momentum and eventually regresses back to either a heteronomy or slavery mode of consciousness.

This is the innate metaphysical danger the heteronomy mode correctly diagnoses within the autonomous mode, but the only cure heteronomy can offer is a regression back toward the external authority of God within heteronomy consciousness. Because heteronomy regards autonomy as a wrong turn, it cannot perceive or refuses to perceive the positive opportunity autonomy provides.

Freed from the juridical and limiting view of freedom espoused by heteronomy consciousness, the state of autonomy consciousness sets up the potential for individuals to hear the genuine call of God; to catch a glimpse of the divine-human destiny nested within Christianity. But this potential requires that individuals at the autonomous level of consciousness willingly and freely turn back toward God and allow themselves to be illuminated by God's light while in the autonomous mode.

This freely chosen, autonomous turning back toward God transforms the divine-human relationship, creating the potential for an authentic "freedom for" motivated by a deep yearning to answer the call of God and create a divine-human union in the form of divine partnership or divine friendship. This yearning to answer the call of freedom sets the stage for manifestation of divine-human destiny and creates the necessary spiritual conditions to nurture the vision of what humanity is called upon to become.

Theandric freedom

The vision of what humanity is called upon to become manifests in theandric freedom, which Berdyaev describes as man's answer to the call of God, and God's answer to the call of man. Freed from all external objectification and determinism, this mode of consciousness establishes what autonomous consciousness could not - the reality of "freedom with." Theandric freedom transcends "freedom from" and "freedom for" by embracing the highest spiritual reality of "freedom with."

"Freedom with" is discovered and revealed in the experience of spiritual life. "Freedom with" describes a mode of consciousness in which the divine element within man is attuned to God and the human element in God is attuned to man, which leads to a state of free union in which man's vision of the world becomes God's vision of the world.

"Freedom with" does not entail being absorbed into God, as is the case in various oneness religions. Instead, it involves the realization of man in Christ and the realization of Christ in man.

First and foremost, "freedom with" is man's freely given answer to Christ's call for love. This freely given answer of love illuminates the personal and subjective reality of divinity. It establishes man as a being who is analogous to Christ and Christ as a being who is analogous to man. This understanding of being is then transferred to other people as well.

This analogous state of beings allows love to elevate humanity and divinity simultaneously, creating the conditions necessary for the joint agency of man and Christ. "Freedom with" empowers man to express his inner divinity via creativity and to become an active co-creator in God's creation, which is suddenly understood as a divine-human rather than an exclusively divine or exclusively human operation.

The first three modes of Berdyaev's conceptualization of freedom within the development of Christian consciousness roughly describe the development of Christian consciousness up to our modern world. Collectively, we are now in what I would call a post-autonomous consciousness that has largely slipped back to the level of slavery, skipping the level of heteronomy altogether on its way back. This is entirely due to our collective inability to utilize autonomous consciousness properly, both in the past and, in increasingly rare individual cases, in the present.

If we look at history, I believe we can easily make a case for a massive collective failure to harness the divine potential within autonomous consciousness. Though I am not a historian, I would estimate the potential to use autonomous consciousness to collectively become illuminated by God began at some time around 1700 and drew to a close roughly a century-and-a-half or, at most, two centuries later. When this opportunity ended, we missed our chance to collectively further the development of Christian consciousness toward the level of theandric freedom.

In other words, we succeeded in freeing Christian consciousness from the stasis of heteronomy, but failed to utilize the consciousness of autonomy to manifest the potential for "freedom with" - theandric freedom - the state of joint spiritual agency with other people and Christ that fulfills the divine human destiny contained within the development of Christian consciousness.

In terms of progression, we neglected (or willingly refused) to utilize the opportunity autonomy provided us and have been slipping back into the modes of heteronmy and slavery ever since.

I believe a big part of our collective failure within the autonomous mode was our inability to conceptualize "freedom with God" as freedom because we were unable or unwilling to understand God as something other than oppressive authority.

In other words, when we looked beyond the autonomous mode, we could imagine nothing higher than authority. Once we achieved autonomy, we became extremely wary of surrendering freedom to external authority. We misunderstood the divine nature of Christ, which resides not in external authority, but in personal, spiritual freedom.

What we failed to understand is that "freedom with" does not involve any surrendering of freedom. The perceived surrender of worldly freedom was regarded as enslavement rather then liberation. We did not understand, or chose not to understand that "freedom with" increases rather than decreases spiritual freedom.

Another possible explanation for the missed opportunity in the development of Christian consciousness may reside in our collective misunderstanding of the increased freedom Christ offers, which is a call to become Christ-like ourselves.

The call for joint agency was too daunting for our autonomous consciousness to grapple with, which resulted in the call largely going unanswered, and, subsequently a regression of consciousness back toward heteronomy or slavery in which the call of Christ via freedom is diminished or excluded altogether.*

It would be difficult to declare our current collective circumstances as being dominated any mode of Christian consciousness. At most meaningful levels of analysis, our collective mode of consciousness is essentially a post-Christian mode of consciousness.

Since the missed opportunity at collective theandric freedom, the development of Christian consciousness at the collective level has either stagnated or regressed. Most individuals have abandoned the paradigm of Christian consciousness completely and now reside firmly in the slavery mode of consciousness.

Others have managed to cling to some semblance of the Christian paradigm, but have lost all intuition of divine-human destiny and have largely abandoned the vision of what humanity is called to become. As a result, they have regressed and cling to the paradigm of Christian consciousness within the mode of heteronomy espoused by the external authority of churches, most of which have slipped into slavery consciousness themselves.

The few individuals who continue to maintain an autonomous mode are mostly outside Christian consciousness and are very quickly slipping back into slavery. The few individual Christians who remain in the autonomous mode also face the same danger and will also eventually either regress back in heteronomy or fall back into slavery.

The only way this spiritual regression can be prevented is by answering the call of Christ through freely given and freely received love, which, in turn, will create the conditions needed to nurture the possibility of theandric freedom.

Theandric freedom is virtually impossible at the collective level today, but it remains a viable possibility at the individual level. However, setting the stage for theandric freedom requires a thorough and intuitive spiritual understanding of what it means to be "free with God". Without this thorough and intuitive spiritual understanding, individuals will not embrace the freedom inherent within the joint operation or joint creation of man and Christ.

The further development of Christianity does not depend exclusively upon making "freedom from" and "freedom for" choices, but rather on choosing to be "free with" God.

Without this choice, the further development of Christianity will not progress and the true vision of what humanity has been called to become will not be realized.

* Dostoevsky outlines this masterfully in his Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, which I hope to make the subject of a future post in connection to Berdyaev's ideas about theandric freedom.

Note: This resource organizes the four modes of Berdyaev's concept of freedom in an effective manner; I found it immensely helpful for this post.

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Thordaddy Would Have Been Among Those Who Tried To Stone Jesus

3/8/2021

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Because the First Law of Perfection and objective Supremacy.

Don't be alarmed if that made no sense. You see, it's not supposed to. It's a baited hook meant to real in suckers.

If you have read any alt-right, reactionary, or Christian blog posts over the past decade or more, you have likely encountered comments like this:

A white Supremacist IS A white man who believes in and therefore strives towards objective Supremacy, i.e. The Perfect Man . . .

That's it . . . And your brain must self-scrub all other
Ideas of "white supremacy" for they are all the perverted manipulations of the anti-Christians.

Christian = Supremacist

White Christian = white Supremacist

Deny that one is a Supremacist IS TO DENY that one is a Christian. That is Universal Law. I did not devise this order. I am simply one of the very few who has broken through the brainwashing . . .

Starting to make some sense, but not really? Great! That means thordaddy's managed to get you on the line and will now attempt to reel you in.

I have been aware of thordaddy since 2013 or so; and in all that time I've noticed one significant thing - his comments rarely change. He regurgitates the same (p)erfection, radical autonomy, objective Supremacy gobbledygook almost everywhere goes.

I have allowed him to comment on my blog a couple of times in the past few years, but his observations never really clicked into troll mode. Last May, I came across his ranting on William James Tychonievich's From the Narrow Desert. Wm graciously allowed thordaddy a couple of comments, but wisely shut him down once the troll mode was initiated.

Anyway, thordaddy recently popped up on my blog again this past week. I generally don't indulge in comment conversations with trolls like thordaddy, but rather than shut him down, I decided to engage in a little back and forth with him.

My purpose? I wanted to see if thordaddy had engaged in any spiritual learning since I last encountered him back in May. I confronted his white supremacist shtick with some of my own thoughts concerning Romantic Christianity and Christianity in general. Sadly, my efforts went nowhere. Thordaddy is still the same old thordaddy. No spiritual learning at all. After a while, I finally had to turn off the tap.

Aside from annoying and baffling virtually everyone, what's thordaddy's angle? What is this troll extraordinaire trying to accomplish?

Well, to cut a long story short - he wants to convert us.

That's right. He wants to rally all deracinated, dispirited, and alienated white men to the glorious call of (P)erfection . . . or is it (p)erfection . . . or maybe just plain "perfection"?

Who knows and who cares? The only important thing you have to know is that thordaddy really cares about your white body and he desperately wants to save it . . . by enlisting you an open race war - or some such thing - so that all white men everywhere can finally enjoy their rightful place in objective Supremacy . . . or is it Objective supremacy . . . or maybe (ob)-ject -IVE SUPREmazzzy.

Now, thordaddy will interpret my mocking tone above as proof of my having internalized the cyst-STEM's (his term, not mine) anti-racism propaganda, which has made me believe that I truly am a White supremacist - or is it (w)hite supremacist - or, more plainly, that I genuinely regard myself as a white degenerate. Even worse, I have lost all sense of myself and now actively seek my own annihilation because of self-hatred. Thus, I am a self-hating, "no-self" Christian who has lost all sense of omnipotent (P)erfection because I no longer follow the Perfect Man - or as thordaddy likes to put it, "er, Jesus."

That's right. Thordaddy cares about Christian bodies as well, especially white Christian bodies. And he's going to do his darndest to save as many of those as he can:

White Christians are disappearing (being annihilated or losing faith)…So Christianity AS WE KNOW IT, is disappearing (being annihilated).

A reasonable man interprets these facts as an unwillingness on the part of white Christians TO SURVIVE as white Christians.

And then a reasonable man concludes that this unwillingness to fight for one’s Chrisitian faith MEANS assumingly that one no longer believes in the Christian Assertion.

And what do you know, this reasonable man with access to modern media is inundated with images and sound bites of self-professed white Christians lamenting the death of Christianity while in the same breath denouncing the white Supremacist.

It’s astonishing to witness. The double-mindedness is a thing to behold.

It is astonishing. Hey wait a minute . . . is it just me, or is thordaddy starting to make sense? Strangely enough, quite a few Christians have believed thordaddy has made sense in the past and he succeeded in reeling a few of them into his net.

So, how do we solve this double-mindedness, oh great pseudonymous father of the Norse thunder god? What do I need to do to acknowledge my god-given white Supremacy and then ensure the rest of the world's mongrel races acknowledges it, too?

YOU, like all those white men at the Orthosphere, MUST BECOME HARDER Christians OR it is nighty-night for you are yours and perhaps the rest of “us.” The problem FOR YOU and those at the Orthophere isn’t your Christianity, BUT your unwillingness to be hard about it AND DEFEND YOURSELF WITH VIOLENCE.

I have no such stumbling block. I only need learn more of intellectual and ritual Christianity (this is partially achieved by reading the Orthosphere), but even there I WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe in the Christian Assertion.

And what do you know? One “sees” a nexus between the general modern rejection of the existence of The Perfect Man (The Christian Assertion) AND the totalitarian impulse to crush ALL white Supremacists.

Can you not “see” where this is going AS it pertains to white Christians? Cannot you not “see” who will be the first in line to take seat at the Inquisition table FORCED to answer to The Litmus Test? Are you a white Supremacist? Are you still oblivious to what it means to say “no?” Are you still oblivious to the understanding of the outside world that white Christians NO LONGER FIGHT for their Faith?

Bonald… Those at the Orthosphere are ritual and intellectual Christians, by and large. I am a fighter. And only now a fighter Christian. You actually need me at THIS STAGE much more than I need you BECAUSE intellectually I believe in the Christian Assertion more than you and ritually my lot will be in the physical battle as proof of my faith. But we are still allies at the end of the day.

A white Supremacist is a white man who believes in and therefore strives towards objective Supremacy, ie, The Perfect Man… Er, Jesus Christ.

That does it! Where's my crusader armor? Deus vult!

___________________________________________________________________________________________

All right. That's enough nonsense.

Look. Playtime is over. If you consider yourself a serious Christian and you happen to find anything thordaddy espouses appealing, you need to engage in some serious inner work and repentance.

Let's cut right to the chase. This is a spiritual war. There are two distinct sides. We don't need men like thordaddy. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend if he is not on the side of good; and men like thordaddy are not on the side of good.

Men like thordaddy are not Christians. They are not at all interested in the primacy of the spiritual; they are interested in the externalization and objectification of the material.

Men like thordaddy are exactly the same as the enemy they profess to fight; they are leftist materialists.

They are interested solely in the supremacy of power. More specifically, they are interested only in the supremacy of worldly power. Driven by resentment and fear; they spew nonsensical jargon and speak in invented, inverted languages that are meant to obscure rather than clarify. They very much want to convince you that they are on your side.

They're not.

Thordaddy wants to do the exact same thing the Establishment and the leftist radicals want to do - he wants to imprison you in the world. He wants you to enslave yourself in burdensome, meaningless abstractions. He is not interested in, nor does he understand real Christianity. To him, it is simply a means to an end - and that end is not spiritual, nor is it good.

To get back to the title of this post, imagine thordaddy as a Jew living in Jesus's time. How do you think Jewish thordaddy would react to Christ? What kind of Jew would he be?

The kind who openly embraced Jesus's message of salvation and eternal life?

Or the kind who vehemently rejected Christ's offer of salvation?

Well, picture thordaddy living during the time of Christ. He would be a Jewish Supremacist then, wouldn't he? He would believe in the perfection of his homeland and his people - a perfection promised to his people via a covenant with an omnipotent God.

At the same time, thordaddy would be immensely resentful of the Roman occupation and would eagerly be awaiting the arrival of the messiah - the Perfect Man. Part David, part Moses, this Perfect Man would restore thordaddy's people and homeland and raise it up to eternal glory, which for thordaddy would be perfection.

One day, thordaddy hears rumors that the messiah is in the city. Barely able to control his enthusiasm, he rushes into town and then stands and listens as an ordinary-looking individual preaches about the differences between earthly bread and spiritual bread.

A few minutes later, the individual claims he will not die as Abraham died. That he will rise from the dead and achieve everlasting life with the father in heaven. Moreover, that anyone who believed in him would be granted the same.

How would thordaddy have reacted to such declarations?

The answer is quite simple; he would have been among the first to crouch down and scoop up a large, smooth rock.

Why?

Because the First Law of Perfection and objective Supremacy.

Thordaddy is a pseudonymous troll. Like a true troll, he turns to stone the minute light is shone on him. As such, he is insignificant; but the evil people like thordaddy promulgate is significant. It needs to be discerned and, more importantly, it needs to be thoroughly resisted and rejected by serious Christians everywhere.

Note added: The bulk of thordaddy's comments above can be found in this post from Throne and Altar.

Further note added: I have decided to republish the original content of this post because I believe it contains an important message. People like thordaddy correctly identify the evil inherent in the current anti-racism/anti-white /self-hatred agenda, but their lines of thinking offer no viable solutions. In fact, their lines of thinking only serve to play into the hands of anti-racism agenda by giving it exactly what it desires - the presence of "white supremacists" intent on violence in the name of racial purity. Picture the System as an organ grinder and people like thordaddy as the monkeys dancing to the tunes the organ grinds out and you get a fairly clear image of the dynamics involved.

10 Comments

Repentance as a Path to Greatness; G From Junior Ganymede Explains

3/7/2021

4 Comments

G has written an inspiring and insightful post on the subject of repentance over at Junior Ganymede. I have included some excerpts below (slightly edited by me), but I encourage everyone to read the whole post here.

Repentance is the path to greatness. That is the path we have to choose.

We could also say it is our path to glory or goodness or heaven. All true. We were meant for greatness but we are not yet great. We are too ill-formed as yet. So we must change.

We can imagine someone who doesn’t need to change to be great. They only need to develop further who they are inwardly. Christ was like that, I think. We are partly like that too. We were meant for greatness, the seeds are already there, we are just unfolding them. But for us it also means changing who we are. We have contradictions inside us.

Hmm. We might even say that all paths require repentance. Any purpose we have at all is going to require some resolution of our inner contradictions. To choose one thing is to forgo choosing another.

We could even define repentance that way – repentance is when we choose to forgo something wholeheartedly, not because we are forced to, not resentfully, but because we have genuinely chosen. It is that simple. No need to make a big mystery about it. Repentance sometimes takes time because sometimes we have to enjoy the first fruits of our decision before we can truly embrace it.

If we have to repent anyhow, we might as well repent for greatness.

I appreciate the positive approach G uses to describe the purpose of repentance. It challenges conventional views of repentance as a purely negative action motivated by fire-and-brimstone fears and shameful, guilt-ridden acknowledgements of one's past sins and transgressions. It should not involve looking back into the past with sorrow and regret. It should empower and involve embracing the present with enthusiasm and joy.

As G explains, true repentance can never be forced; it must be embraced wholeheartedly. Also, repentance should never stem from resentment, but from the joy inherent in genuine choice.

I believe it is helpful to view repentance from the perspective G presents - not as a "necessary" and perhaps not-wholeheartedly accepted change that entails some sort of "negative" loss, but rather as thoroughly welcomed expression of one's own free will and agency to choose change that leads to positive gain.

Put simply, repentance is not simply about "freedom from"; it must include "freedom for." Moreover, the "freedom for" should be substantially "bigger" than the "freedom from." Thus, repentance should not merely be about relief or escape.

After all, repentance is a crucial component of learning, and each genuine act of repentance should lead to useful and meaningful insights about oneself, the world, and God. True repentance should lead to increased understanding and discernment about what it means to choose to be on the side of Good.

I envision each genuine act of repentance as a moment of metanoia - a mini act of spiritual conversion all to itself.

In this sense, repentance is not just about regret or remorse; it is the decision to initiate a positive and transformative change in the heart and mind.

More than necessary steps in spiritual development, repentance ought to be viewed from the perspective of freedom and creativity. When we repent, we open ourselves up to the possibility of fundamentally changing our thinking.

This, in turn, may lead us the possibility of fundamentally changing our behavior or mode of life, but a failure (or repeated failures) to do so should not negate the mini-spiritual conversion, more specifically, the spiritual understanding and discernment we acquired in the repentant act.

Repentance cannot always solve our inner contradictions, but it can help us acknowledge our contradictions sincerely and authentically. This alone is positive. It may not sound like much, but it is a step toward greatness all the same.

4 Comments

What is the Church Now?

3/5/2021

9 Comments

My penfriend Father S. Janos - a retired Orthodox priest, prolific Russian-English translator, and expert in all things Berdyaev - offers his definition of what a church is:

What is the Church?? The historically venerable and Beautiful structures are, however, not the essential part... The core and essential element is the individual Believer within his Family, and in the Extended Family, -- the Parish!... Christ teaches: "Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am in their midst!"... And thus, Orthodox clergy in greeting one another exchange the threefold "Kiss of Peace", not some mere handshake but an actual Kiss, as anciently was done between believers, -- and is proper even now amongst Layfolk... In exchanigng the Kiss of Peace clergy proclaim: "Christ is in Our Midst!" to which is replied: "He is and He shalt be!"...

2020 was not a good year for churches. 2021 is not shaping up to be much better. The choices churches have made and continue to make concerning litmus tests and birdemic agenda issues have not done them any favors in the eyes of serious Christians. As a result, some of these Christians may be contemplating the validity of Christianity altogether.

To anyone in that position, I can only say the following - do not fall into the trap of interpreting church closures and the continuing corruption of Christian institutions as a purely negative event in the further development of Christianity.

After all, the churches in the System are no longer churches in the proper sense of the word anyway. Think about it. How many can confidently declare that Christ to be in their midst?

To paraphrase something else Fr. Steve mentioned in his comment, the antinomy concerning churches may in fact be a blessing. The time has come to soberly consider what Divine intelligence is communicating to us amidst all of this.

You are now the church; you and your family are now the church; your family and other families you love and can trust are now the church. That is how it all began; that is now where we need to be; that is how Christianity moves forward from here.

And if you are a solitary Christian without family or community, take heart; the Holy Spirit is accessible to every individual. Christ is in the midst and shalt be in the midst of the solitary as well. Far better alone with Christ than in a community without Christ.

Note added: Fr. Steve maintains an excellent Berdyaev website (see side bar), which I highly recommend. He has also translated many of Nikolai Berdyaev's books - some of these translations are available here.

9 Comments

Paging All Old Slavic Women Wielding Canes

3/4/2021

6 Comments

We could really use your help right now!

Chort and Babushka - Jakub Rozalski

6 Comments

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