The reluctant traveller

Tom Walker reflected on the story he had just heard from his patient.  ‘Fear knocked at the door,’ he mused ; then,  ‘Faith answered – and  no-one was there.’  Oddly, flames raise (in the imagination’s eye) the unspoken terrors that too often trouble us.

In his well-practised way, he gave a slyish glance at the clock on the wall opposite.  It was important to get the timing right in a psychotherapy meeting, so as not to end with anything substantial unresolved.  He mustn’t open up new, sensitive issues near the end of a session.  On the other hand, he mustn’t let his patient think that he is trying to draw the meeting to a close before the allotted fifty minutes.  He wished that he had unlimited time to give his patients, for he loved his work and hated having to end a session without reaching a definite milestone in the scheme of treatment.  However, time was pressing for he had other patients to see.

But the astute lady he was with caught his glance and studied her watch.  ‘Goodness, Mr Walker!  Is that the time already?’ she said.  ‘But I’ve hardly touched on what I came to see you about.’

‘That’s all right, Rosalind,’ said Tom, ‘I suspected you had more to say, and to be honest, I didn’t really expect to get around to it in our first meeting.  It doesn’t do to rush important things.  Besides, we do still have time left, so why not tell me what the matter is just to get it off your chest for now?’

‘Why did you suspect that I hadn’t told you about the real problem?’

‘Just a hunch,’ he replied, ‘It often happens that way.’  He lowered his voice and smiled conspiratorially.  ‘How can I expect you to reveal your real fears to a perfect stranger?  Surely you’d want to weigh me up before you’d risk it !’

Rosalind gave a bright laugh and said, ‘How right you are !’  Then she added, also as if sharing a conspiracy,  ‘But I think I can trust you, so I’ll tell you more.’

‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Tom.  He pressed the intercom button to the reception desk.  ‘Hello, Maggie, do I have anyone for three o’ clock?’  Then, returning to Rosalind, ‘We’ve got another hour if you’d like it.’

‘That’s fine,’ she replied.  ‘And please, do call me Ros.  May I call you Tom?’  And then, settling back in her easychair, ‘That’s an interesting painting you have up there.  Where did you get it?’
‘In Bristol,’ he replied, ‘I have always wanted a garden like that but, you know … there’s never the time to do all we want, is there?’
‘So you content yourself with just admiring a painting?’
‘No, not quite.  You’ll laugh at me, I know, but I’ve actually tried to make my garden at home like that one in the painting.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No !’  he laughed, ‘I just don’t have the eye for it, even if I had the time ; and my fingers are just not green enough.’
‘But I can tell that you greatly desire it,’ Ros said.
‘Yes.  In fact, I think of it much more than I should.  But, hey !  Are you trying to analyse me?’

Ros  laughed again and said, ‘Well, there is such a thing as being afraid of success, isn’t there?  Maybe you’re not bold enough with your gardening.  And maybe you try just a little too hard?  What do the four gods in your painting say?’

At the mention of the gods, Tom felt uneasy.  He felt that his deepest privacy had been violated.  He suddenly felt his advanced years.  The pain in his shoulder – with him fifty years – grew intense.  Perhaps it was time for him to retire from all this?  Then he could finish his garden.  On the wall he looked up at Nyx, born of Chaos, who was gazing at Thanatos her son.

That first meeting had gone well for Ros, Tom thought, as he drove home in the early evening.  It is not  uncommon for an intelligent person like her to be highly-strung. So when she had been assigned a difficult task by her employers, it might be expected that she should be anxious about it.  In such circumstances, dislikes might evolve into fears ; and fears into phobias.  The important thing was to catch it early, and she had done this.

His mind was set to devizing a programme for Ros.  Probably the best way to tackle her agoraphobia would be to arrange, when she has been prepared for it, a practical session in which he would accompany her to a place which gave her the worst difficulties.  It’s all very well merely to tell the patient to remember the tactics for dealing with the problem-places, just as it is well to rehearse them off-line ; but an irrational fear is a terrible thing, and may be sudden in its onset ; and it may drive all the good sense out of a person.  That’s where companionship on occasions of trial makes all the difference between lengthy treatment and brief.

But, before he could prepare Ros for the test, he must prepare himself, so he decided to visit to the place which she had said filled her with absolute dread.  It wasn’t that far.  On his iPad he found the place on the map and then entered the co-ordinates into his satnav.

He was perhaps a mile from the place when he remembered that he already knew it.  He had been there many years before, as a cyclist, keen and very fit.  It was an old railway station on a disused track that ran between Chester and a salt mine, also now disused.  It had long since been a country path for hikers and cyclists.

When he got there, he barely recognized the place.  Of course, he knew already that the track had long gone, but he was unprepared for the sheer overgrowth.  The modest buildings were completely covered by ivy, and the trees of the surrounding forest had advanced so as to entirely overhang the track.  But, curiously, they had not taken root on the trackway itself ; for that was now a clear path gently covered by the autumn leaves of the last century or so.  And it looked as if people still used it for recreation, though it was now a rather gloomy passage.  The only sunlight came from above the station platforms, where the treetops did not meet.

‘I wonder what on earth brings Ros out to this place?’ he thought.  ‘When she told me she took walks here, I imagined it to be as I now remember it – open, sunshiny and always with cheerful hikers about.  And, thirty years ago,  wasn’t there a helpful old chap who lived in the keeper’s cottage over there?’

It was then that Tom began to feel uneasy.  That old chap.  He had been rather odd, with a strange look about his eyes.  Ever watchful.  Missing nothing.  Weighing everybody up with unnatural care.  But saying almost nothing.  Wearing an old-fashioned railwayman’s uniform, he would sometimes find – as if he had sought out – some person, usually elderly and unaccompanied, whom he would invite to his tiny home ‘for a nice cuppa tea an’ summat wholesome.’  Tom looked sharply about as if he half expected to see him.

As Tom paced the station platform, trying to recognize the features he had once known, and his head buzzing with thoughts and questions, he tried to compose himself by imagining what Ros actually experienced in the place.  And, as the shadows lengthened and sky above darkened, he thought that he must be getting on to her wavelength.  He felt a chill in his whole body, though there was no breeze in the deep cutting.  He gazed up and down the trackway, through the tunnel of trees ; but saw no light, for there it had failed.  And, with the dying of the light, all natural life seemed to desert his presence, so that what was left were mere shades of sounds and withered odours of decaying leaves and branches.

And the cold.  He felt his pulse quicken and falter, even as his breathing did likewise.  Was it merely a dislike?  Or was it fear?  His thoughts turned involuntarily to his beloved garden, neglected.

‘Well, I’m sure not bringing Ros to this place,’  he muttered under his breath, ‘As far as I’m concerned, she can scrub it forever from her list of holiday haunts, and without any loss at all !’    He regretted that he had ever come there : or had even thought of coming there.  It was as if these thoughts reminded him that he was a therapist ; and right then it was he who needed the therapy, for his apprehensions were growing uncomfortable.  He had to admit that he was more than a little nervous, and he knew not why.

But he did know that there are two main possibilities with an emotion like fear.  (Why mince words? for he did indeed feel fear.)  You can either experience that emotion or you can think about it ; but you can’t do both at the same time.  If you can think about your fear and also feel afraid, then you are not thinking seriously enough.

And what if you don’t think at all?  What if you simply abandon yourself to circumstances?  You will experience the fear, and you can let it do what it likes to you.  If you are healthy and in a physically safe place, you might feel as awful as you like, and the fear might reach a dreadful peak, but it will then evaporate.  This is the bolder step to take deliberately.

‘Which do I do?’ thought Tom in his confusion.  But before he could decide, events took a new turn, and denied him all notions of controlling the situation he was in.

For it was just then that he became aware that a shadowy mist was emerging from the tunnel of trees over the rail trackway.  The mist was not so much drifting from the tunnel as being gently expelled from it, and it was engulfing him and the entire station.  And, mixed with the vapour was the smell of smoke.  And in a few seconds, he was just able to make out the front of a mighty steam engine which seemed to drift before his eyes, slowing all the time so that it came to a silent halt just as an old-fashioned carriage appeared right before him.

And that was not all.  For he then heard a voice, evidently of a native of these parts, ‘C’mon now, Mr Walker, it’s time for your journey!’  It was the ancient railwayman who had lived in the keeper’s cottage all those years ago!  Dimly in the cloud of steam, Tom could see the rickety, shadowy old man, very business-like and fussing as he opened the door of the carriage.

‘But … surely you must be dead !’ Tom managed to stutter.

‘No time for talk, Mr Walker.  Hop aboard now ; you can’t keep the train waiting.’  And grasping Tom’s elbow he pulled him gently but briskly to the door and then pushed him up into the carriage.  ‘There you be now !  Na’ticket needed for this one.  An’ that’s a job done good !’

The door slammed, and the old man blew his whistle.  Immediately the train pulled away with a jerk that staggered Tom into his seat.  And, for the first time, he heard the chuffing of the steam engine, soft and slow and unstoppable.  He heard also the click of steel wheels on a track, and wondered what on earth was happening to him.  But he saw nothing, for the steamy fog outside was denser than ever, and the carriage was unlit.  He felt nothing beyond a guess of a dream ; a perilous adventure ; but he could not guess what that adventure might entail.  He was left with only a succession of fleeting images ; from thoughts that did not seem to be his own.

Thus it was that Tom succumbed to the rhythmic thrum of the train’s wheels as it sped through the darkness.  Was it this, or was it the smooth swaying of the carriage, that overwhelmed  his mind?  The image of beautiful Nyx, goddess of the night, appeared to his understanding – and he smiled in fond recognition.  Then blessed Hypnos came, and he was aware that his eyelids had relaxed and met.  Then all was forgot as even Morpheus slumbered.

When Tom came to his senses again, it was the brightest day in his living memory.  No cloud marred the even blue of the sky ; a sky that seemed to shine without the aid of sun.  The sun himself (if indeed it was he) bathed the landscape and all that it met there with a gentle warmth ; it filled the carriage as if from the bottom up, and he felt its life enter his limbs.  For a minute or two, he reflected on the dream he knew he had had ; a dream that had left no trace but perfect calmness.  Then he roused himself and lowered the carriage window.  He marvelled at the fuller scene outside.

The train stood at a deserted platform set in rolling countryside.  How long it had been standing, he knew not.  Nor had he any idea where he was, though he had a vague feeling that he had known the place.  Was it from long ago in his youth?  or was it somewhere he had read about?  No nameplate announced it, and there were no staff to be seen.  All was calm and undisturbed.

Since nothing seemed to happen here, Tom decided to explore further.  He reached out of the window and twisted the big brass handle of the door.  It opened easily.  He wondered if he might cause a disturbance if he slammed it shut in the usual manner, so he pressed it shut soundlessly.  And, at the instant he did so, the train began to pull away, as if by a secret signal ; for there was nobody to be seen.  Now he found himself in the centre of that wider landscape ; in the centre of that broad and perfect day.

The station was very neat, clean, and well kept, but there were no buildings at all.  No timetable poster and no warnings about trespassing on the track.  Nothing that might identify the place.  No people.  The track curved away both to the left and the right, set in a high hedge ; the train could be known only by its receding trail of steam, for it was now beyond earshot.  The only feature he could see, that indicated human habitation, was the feint line of a footpath that wound its way across the lush roll of the meadow beyond.  He did not so much decide to follow it, as felt drawn to it ; as if in answer to a call.

The going was surprisingly easy.  He passed cattle here and sheep there, but he saw no fences and no gates.  The path took him through several copses and across streams at suitable places.  Tom looked back only once or twice, but marvelled at how far he had come in what seemed such a short time.  Looking ahead, he saw the path descending towards a great wood that covered all that was visible in the balmy haze.  Through that wood he continued, for the way was clear, and there he heard an endless chorus of birds who seemed to take up a theme as he approached them, and quieted as he passed.

So he continued until, at last, he came to a glade, and here he himself rested, not from weariness, but gladness.  He slept.  When he awoke, it was to the sound of a woman’s voice.

‘You have slept well, Tom.’
With a little start, he turned towards her.  ‘Ros !’ he cried, ‘Can it really be you?’
‘Yes, my friend, it is me.  And now we meet again, as we should.’
‘Surely I am dreaming …’
‘No, Tom, this is no dream, though it may seem so.’
‘But, where are we?  And why are we here?’
‘We must all come to this place when our work is nearly done.  That is the way of things.’

Without another word, she led towards the far end of the glade ; and then briefly through the wood until they came to open country again.  There they passed through an arch of green and into an area bounded by an antique wall of stone.

‘Why !’ exclaimed Tom, ‘This is my garden !  The garden in my painting !’

‘For indeed it is, Tom, and here lies your final task of this kind. This is the garden that you must finish before you may move on. I thought I should never get you here. I thought I should never even get you to the railway station. I am sorry to have been so devious, but it had to be done. Your time was up, you know, and you had such a fear of that final journey – and I wanted so much to make things easier for you.’

‘And so you decided to come with me?’ A light flooded Tom’s mind.

‘Except … well … no-one may accompany you.  But I determined that I should be here to welcome you – that much is allowed us.’

Raggedly and in confusion, Tom whispered, ‘Where are we?  Are we in ….’

‘I think not !’ she said, with her silver laugh, ‘But, if all goes well, you are on the way.’  Then, adding gravely,   ‘Ask no more questions of me, Tom, for I may not answer.  There is much yet for you to do, and it must be entirely on your own account.’

Even so it was that Tom set to work in his garden.  It simply had to be finished – brought to perfection – before any more progress could be made.  It was a hard and taxing labour.  But it was truly a labour of love.

Of prophets and prejudice

Long ago I read a newspaper article which beautifully praised the life and works of a famous artist.  I have forgotten his name but that is of no consequence, for similar articles appear from time to time describing such clever people.  What struck the writer of the article most strongly was the ability of the artist to visualise ideal scenes – the sort that idealise Nature to a seemingly impossible degree.  Thus it was that he could paint a scene (real or fictional) not as it would normally appear, but as it seemingly ought to be if only the faults and vagaries of Nature were removed or rectified.  But perhaps that, in itself, was not the true genius of the artist ; rather, his genius showed itself in what he described as the perfect clarity of his visions, and in his wonderful ability remember and to paint exactly what he saw.

I expect there are many artists who share this gift in some measure ; and many more people who have the vision but lack the artistic skill to reproduce it.

And I expect there are just as many who have the visions (and maybe the artistic skill) but of a kind that are not at all beautiful – visions of perfect awfulness.  And it may well be that just about everyone has had such visions (both beautiful and horrid) in dreams.  Perhaps the great artists manage to enter into a dreamlike state whilst remaining fully awake.  Those with experience of hypnosis will have a good idea of what I mean.

One also hears occasionally of people who experience vivid impressions of scents and tastes, and even bodily feelings such as tensions and pains, though these are not so easily conveyed as art.

So four of our senses may be directly and vividly stimulated without any involvement of the organs of sense.  And generally this is accounted a good thing, a mark of genius.

When we turn to the fifth sense we find, first, something similar.  For example, it has been said that Beethoven could hear an entire symphony before he even set pen to paper or toyed with his piano keys to confirm his hearing.  Perhaps his profound deafness sharpened his imagination, but I don’t think that wholly accounts for his ability here, for Mozart also had the gift or genius.

I suspect also that great poets may vividly hear their lines before they begin to write ; as if their muse (or genius) is instructing them on what to put on the paper ; so as to ensure that the sounds, the rhythm, the rhyme, the metaphor and the meaning are all quite perfect for the context.  Again all this is generally marked as a gift of great price.

But then, the general opinion changes markedly in a certain respect.  For if the person who hears the voice in his head is not an acknowledged literary master, then his voices are taken to be signs, not of genius, but of madness.

There only so much that might be written about many things in the world ; but when it comes to people, the possibilities for discussion are endless.

The traces of thoughts

The traces of thoughts

To the roots of mountains ;
to the utmost heights of streams ;
to Sun and Moon ;
to the very womb of Cosmos…
Seek thee the source of all things good.

Hark the music of the Spheres
And be glad.

Watch the paths of shooting stars,
Feel the breath of world’s first wind,
In Ithilien fair scent first blooms
That touched the tastes of angels,
And recall.

Thine infinity is not thine own,
Sweet soul,
Nor yet thine personhood.

Your I you love and all admire
Is a universe indeed ;
Touched by angels it surely is,
But yet by something more.

Seek it with impressive drive ;
And strive to know it as ne’er before ;
And think the thoughts that from it come.

A worthy search, a worthy find.
A loveliness of other kind.

But pause …. and first recall your words …
And question boldly – then –
Find a thought that comes from I?

But ask not, “Whence comes I?”

Jamie MacNab 10/2011

After Atoms of Stars …  http://atomsofstars.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/the-inward-eye/

Enduring truths

It’s  interesting how marriage can change a young man’s mind for the better, and sometimes to his complete surprise.  It is as if a thousand thoughts, neglected and unspoken in the careless days of bachelorhood, silently combine in wonderful ways to produce new understandings of the world ; which then make themselves known step by step.

This process, of unconscious thinking, has a name given by psychologists : they call it latent learning.  Of course, psychologists, being of a cautious disposition, presume that all the unconscious knowledge we have has been previously learned at a younger age, from the time of birth ; there are few now who are so bold as to presume that individuals might have knowledge that they brought with them into this world, or knowledge that they might have acquired directly mind from mind.

These thoughts were going through my mind recently as I was re-reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a book I first read when our first daughter was on her way into the world.  For reasons I could not have been fully aware of, I began to take an interest in what was to me a somewhat alien world – the world of myth and legend, of allegory and fable.  And, to my surprise, through that master story-teller I discovered the importance of these genres ; and their essential truths.  Much more was to follow in the coming years.

Most people now know, I think, that Tolkien wrote his great book in order to fill a gap ; a gap so obvious that no-one seemed to have noticed it ; or, if they had noticed it, they felt unable or unwilling to fill it.  What was missing was a truly Anglo-Saxon grand myth.  True, there was Beowulf, but however fine that was, it made but a small contribution to our heritage and was of limited scope.

On my first reading these aims of Tolkien quickly drifted far from my mind.  That was because I was so enchanted by the story, so drawn in to the adventure, that I forgot completely the wider aims of the author.  And that was just it ought to have been ; for no successful story was ever written merely to be an exemplar of a  genre ; a mere literary exercise.

And who can doubt the success of The Lord of the Rings?  And who can doubt the essential and eternal truths it first embodies and then expresses?  Who does not, at some point and to some extent, identify with each and every character in the tale?  Whether you be woman or man, you will sympathise with Eowyn in her dilemmas.  Also with Aragorn in his dangers and toils ; with Gandalf in his mighty hopes and fears.  And we can even identify with Sauron in his striving for mastery over all things both living and unliving.  And who needs reminding of hobbits?

In myth there is a hidden power.  It is the power to stir those obscured thoughts that come to the light of consciousness only when stimulated by some mysterious power that is latent in the very words we use.  If myth were mere fantasy then our rational minds would dismiss it on first sight, and by this stage of our evolution, myth would simply not exist.  But, although a myth may contain elements of fantasy, it is not those elements which stick in our minds and touch our hearts.  And that is why true myths are ageless and enduring.  That is why they adhere to our language.  That is why all successful novels are based on traditional myths.  That is why myths appear and reappear in all our arts and sciences.

From out of the void

From out of the void

From out of nothing did all creatures come
And Time and Chance provide their present forms ;
And all the things, both live and not, that home
Themselves in human mind, have fated norms.
So speak the seers from lofty chairs, new-found,
In places long renowned for more than schemes
That merely glance at Nature and the ground
Of Being ; seeing Earth for what she seems.
But from the spirit that belongs to Man,
Full-formed and of glad, enquiring mind,
A more reflective mood descends to scan
The World and find a  truth of deeper kind.
How comes a thing from nothing?  How come Chance,
Unaided, brings the World to great advance?

Jamie MacNab 2011

Investment

Investment

Survey the hills of home, now bathed in light,
Whose gladness is to please the jaded eye
Of careworn soul, grown weary of the slight
Reward afforded by the dreary tie
Between desire for pleasure and its gain.
And yet, those hills ; what are they if not heaps
Of stones and dust?  And what the light? – in main
An airy nothingness.  Yet fancy leaps,
Investing beauty in the dullest dust,
And so transform the merest native Earth.
Creating things of wonder, as we must,
Is surely our appointed task. If worth
Be reckoned fair and made as kind to kind,
Then beauty’s born from aught but living mind.

Jamie MacNab 2011

In search of the Light

In search of the Light

You steadfast sentinels who guard the heart
Of England fair, stand ready yet, amid
The fallen of your number ; ne’er to part
From sacred duty.  Loyalty unhid.
And yet, what life have you, our standing stones,
That turn their faces to the new-born sun?
As if to capture clouds of glory, tones
Of Heaven’s colour, counting all well-won.
Does blood run freely in the veins of rock?
In hearts of stone, does deity choose to dwell?
Is spirit content in granite to lock
The forces that all ills may sure dispel?
You played your part as vanguard of the quest
That found the light and kindled us, the West.

Jamie MacNab 2011

Guardians

Bright the World

Bright the World

You asked me where the light, that springs anew
Each lovely morning of the world, is born.
But ready answer had I none to view ;
My mind so misted, thoughtless and forlorn
That I was sightless to the inner ‘scape
Where sense and reason meet to make a blend
Of that which cannot else be given shape.
How oft do our inquiries sadly end !
And yet necessity impels us all
To seek illumination at its source ;
It’s been so ever since our shameful fall,
When destiny near lost its holy course.
Had insight been in darkness left, unfurled,
How seek the Love and Mind that brights the world?

 Jamie MacNab 19 September 2011

The way the world is

There are few things more enlightening than to listen to what people say about themselves.  In most cases people are far too modest.

For example, there is a growing tendency in these modern times for people to think of themselves as essentially machines.  Some will openly declare as much ; while others speak of themselves as if they were but machines,- leaving that conclusion as a strong inference.  Ask someone how his eyesight works, and he is likely to reply that it is something like a video camera that registers whatever objects he happens to look at.  And his ears are like a tape recorder that registers whatever sounds happen to fall in range of hearing.

In other words, people see themselves as passive observers of the world ; the world does what it must, and the senses merely register and record what is going on.   But this way of thinking can have pernicious effects, which politicians and other clever people with ‘an agenda’ are not slow to take advantage of.

Also this way of thinking says that the world does what it likes to us ; and, being mere machines, all we can do is respond mechanically to what the world does.  Thus the world makes us what we are in the minutest details of thoughts, words and deeds.

So, we are just machines ; but the world also is just a machine, and so we are nothing more than cogs in its complex mechanism.  It is a world of causes and effects, and nothing more.  Whatever happens must happen ; and there could not have been an alternative, except by chance.

And yet, when people reflect more deeply on their relationship with the world, they are not convinced that everything is mere mechanism ; in particular, they have feelings that they themselves are more than just machines.  They feel that they have the will to act somewhat independently of what the world is doing ; they feel that they have the power of making real decisions ; they feel that they have the ability to perceive the world, and act upon it, in their own ways.

If it is true that we can perceive the world in our own way, then at least one interesting conclusion arises : that the world is becoming as we make it.

But, it will be objected, How can our perceptions of the world affect the world itself?  How can our consciousness (which is non-material) affect the world (which is material)? Surely consciousness and matter are different kinds of substance ; therefore, how can they affect each other?  How can they act and react upon each other?

The evolution that matters

In a sense, everything is history.  For example, when I look at an object such as my computer screen, I am aware that I see it not as it is but as it was a fraction of a second ago ; this is because it takes a definite length of time for it to be neurologically processed and to be presented to conscious awareness.  When we move away from that kind of example towards more everyday awarenesses, to thinking about what to have for breakfast for example, things get even more historical ; if I decide on cornflakes, then where does my liking of them come from if not from pleasant memories of breakfasts past?

In a sense, then, while the arrow of time is always pointing forward, our sense perceptions of the world are always pointing backward.  It is as if Nature made us to feel more comfortable to look at the past rather than the future.

And in a sense, everything is spiritual.  For, even though I can persuade myself that I am looking at a material thing as I gaze at the computer screen, the moment I start to think about it, it becomes entirely a phenomenon of consciousness ; i.e., not material at all but spiritual.

These thoughts and others like them were crossing my mind as I enjoyed reading the history of the events following the Norman conquest, from the time of King William himself to King John.  I was conscious of enjoying that period of history as a purely spiritual pleasure ; for there is no way I could possibly enjoy it as a sensory one.  I might have imagined what it is like to be clad in heavy chain mail on the Sussex Downs ; I might have imagined what the weight of a swinging sword or mace might feel like ; I might have imagined the pain of taking an arrow-hit in the eye.  But there is no way that I can experience these things that are long in the past and beyond hope (or fear) of repetition.

“How wonderful life must be for the historian, I thought, living one’s subject entirely through one’s imagination!”

And imagination is but one short step back from its alluring cousin, fantasy.  “How comforting it would be,” I thought, “If the nobler Anglo-Saxons had never allowed themselves to become embroiled with those ghastly Normans and French!”

But then, history is history, as they say, and the events cannot be realistically imagined as being different from what they actually were.  All ‘what if’ scenarios are mere fantasy.  Perhaps that is why so many students of history see their subject as elaborate lists of dates, names and deeds ; nice and safe lists with little margin for error.  But surely this is not history at all ; it is  little more than chronology.

So, perhaps that is why they also like to have each item in the list tagged with the opinion of their teacher ; in the belief that this somehow adds veracity to the content of the list.  But such opinions are so often conditioned by the political opinions of the teacher, which always contaminate history with modern ideas alien to the age being studied.

Of course, history is bound to contain large amounts of historians’ opinion, but I do not think that this is what it is really about.  For, surely, no subject is worthy of study unless the student is in some way in love with the subject being studied.  And what is being studied in ‘History’?  it has to be simply people.  So the first requirement of an historian is to love people and, from that, to desire to know what they did and why they did it.  The ‘what’ is easy enough ; that is the bare menu.  But the ‘why’ is where the recipe is ; it leads to the kitchen where the tale of entire nations and civilisations is cooked up.

History is a tale with many story-lines, therefore with as many aims ; but apparently without an over-arching plot.  In 1066 nobody in England had the faintest suspicion of a Hanoverian monarch.  History has many chronologists but not an all-knowing author.

And yet there are patterns in history, which suggests something about human nature.  And the patterns do not lead to mere repetition of events, which suggests that human nature is changing.  For example, in general, the farther back we go, the more violent are the methods of government ; and this suggests that we are moving in a direction where force as a method is giving way to persuasion.  And violence, of course, is the outcome of ways of seeing the world and of ways of thinking.
Therefore, it seems to me that history is the tale of the evolution of human consciousness.  It is a spiritual tale.

A tricky question

Well, the multicultural experiment seems to have had a short life but a merry one.  What began as a grand design, apparently hatched up by the BBC and the university history departments, seems to be gurgling down the drain.  This does not mean that the multiple cultures in our country have disappeared ; but it does mean that the predicted harmonious relations between those cultures have not been supported by the observed facts.

So what is to be done?  There will be no shortage of advice to (and from) the politicians, the academics and the broadcasters, but we may be sure that the substance of the advice will not be either broad enough or deep enough to make a difference in the longer term.  We may be sure of that because the august bodies that determine our fate have failed to realize that the problems are moral problems, whereas they see them as political.  What we shall be given is not moral solutions but politically correct solutions ; they will be solutions founded on the political beliefs and expediencies of the various parties, and hence of no lasting value.

But you cannot be rid of political correctness ; indeed, we should not wish to be rid of it.  But mere PC is not robust enough to support a nation, any more than mere sand is strong enough to support a skyscraper.  What is needed is a moral foundation, a rock on which to build with confidence.

Perhaps we can accept that morality is the set of unalterable principles which guide us in governing the relations between people ; and, because government is all about the relations between people, moral principles are indispensable to social stability.  And, because the principles are unalterable, they must be simple.  In themselves, they are not detailed enough to be made into state laws.  For example, the moral principle “You shall not kill” cannot be absorbed directly into law for there might be occasions when killing is unavoidable or even just.  It might well be unjust to punish somebody who kills in self defence or in the defence of other innocent people.

So, we need to build a body of secondary principles upon the moral foundation.  We might call these secondary principles our ethics. They represent our generally agreed interpretations of the moral principles ; an ethical principle amplifies a moral principle by giving concrete examples of what is meant by it.  It is to the ethics that politicians turn when drafting their policies, and to ethics they turn when drafting or amending a particular law.

But now we come to the thorny question :  who decides the unalterable moral principles on which everything depends?

A simple answer is that the politicians do.  Another simple democratic answer is that the people do.  But both politicians and people are variable in their opinions of morality ; so both these answers land us back in the realm of political correctness.  And PC doesn’t work.

So, who does have the authority to decide the moral principles?

Time to step back and rethink

Many miles of news have been printed about the recent serious disturbances in London and elsewhere.  Clearly, the mere fact of the riots indicates the corruption we have in our society today.  People are even beginning to talk about our having lost our country.

On the Daily Telegraph blog site, Pym Purnell has written a blog titled ‘Seven steps to reclaim England‘, and it received a number of thoughtful comments and suggestions (as well as some unenlightened ones).  But I think, in general, the better ideas were more concerned with reclaiming control of current circumstances rather than reclaiming England ; they were topical rather than systemic ; they were more in the nature of a national medicine than a healthy diet.  But they were necessary.

However, if we truly wish to reclaim the England (or the Britain) that we all loved, we must look deeper.  If we do not, then we will be committing the same class of errors that led us into this mess.  We will be looking for redemption through procedures rather than through thorough reform.

The true believers in socialist philosophy, whom I blame almost entirely for our present difficulties, imagined that they could best improve our country by enforcing arbitrary laws that would promote the ideals of egalitarianism.  The laws would make all people equal ; tinker, tailor, soldier, burglar – all of equal worth.  And such is the appeal of egalitarianism that many people who considered themselves politically conservative were taken in by it.  They imagined that they could take the bits of political correctness that they liked and discard the rest.  Well – the rest is history ; and it is also our present plight.

And our present plight (in summary) is characterised by unwarranted ambitions on the parts of people who desire much more than their personal circumstances allow.  Thus we have an uneducated mass who demand employment on their own terms ; we have a half-educated mass who believe themselves to be worthy of grander positions than employers are able or willing to pay for.  We have created, in the laboratory of the social scientists, many thousands of women whom society has deemed unworthy to be mothers until they have carved a prosperous career for themselves ; created a climate in which to be a young married mother is to be beyond the pale ; in which to wish to be a good mother who educates her children in the ways of her family traditions is to be deviant.  Women now join men as mere Soviet-style units of production in the economic machine.

The socialists have also appealed to would-be conservatives by making an abstraction of society.  Society now is simply an economic entity, as if money and purchasing were all that counted.  To do this, they abolished the concept of nation with its connotations of kinship and shared traditions.  And, to emphasise their disapproval, the socialists have actively encourage mass immigration to dilute the character of the nation.  And this measure was calculated to be the last nails in the coffin of what was once Great Britain.

Many of these things, nominal conservatives went along with, because they saw advantages to themselves in the new freedoms on offer ; they were blind to the trap that was laid for them.  But the awful truth is that we have to discard the principle of egalitarianism itself, for there is no justification for it if we are to have a healthy society.

For all the faults

 

For all the faults, though ne’er so grievous, borne
Upon my soul so perfect made but marred
By misdirected hopes and fears so long,
My prayer attend, O Lord, with mercy sworn.
Thou  know’st of whom I speak so no retard,
By extra words, impede or do aught wrong.
Thy faithful servant all her life has loved
And honoured Thee in heart and mind and deed ;
But now lies low, so hurt by fate ungloved ;
And of thy healing hand so much doth yearn.
Pour out on her what things may do her good ;
What goodness that might be is no concern.
If we were best in wisdom to decide,
What need had we to tame and quench our pride?

[For Sr T]

Tempting ideas – and where they might lead

I am not sure why, but from an early age I have been curious about psychology – from even that time before I knew the word psychology.  Of course, each of us is an individual, but what really interests psychologists is those things we have in common.  Like it or not, there’s more to humanity than just individuals – there are types of individual.

I was thinking about this as I remembered a conversation that I shared some longish time ago.  It was one of those turning points in my life.  It’s a marvel how our lives are shaped by little things.  Or are they little?  Judge for yourself.

Thoughts which take strong materialist line have a funny way of turning out.  For example, it you say to a certan kind of physicist, “I see the light coming from that searchlight,” you are likely to find yourself drawn into a strange dialogue.  For the physicist, putting his authoritative scientific hat on, is bound to respond with, “No you don’t.”

“But I can see it!” you cry.
“It is important for you to remember that what you call light is, in fact, electromagnetic radiation.  It is a field of electricity and magnetism, both of which are invisible,”  he announces with an air of finality.
You overcome your diffidence in the face of such authority to venture, “Then what is that beam of light I see shining away from us up into the sky?”
“That is not a beam of light,” he replies with a hint of impatience.  “What is happening is that some of the invisible radiation is reflected off the particles of dust and moisture in the air.  This reflected radiation then enters your eyes, and your mistaken response is to say that you see light in the sky.  What you really mean to say is that the radiation has caused your brain to produce light in your conscious awareness.”

“So how can you prove that no light is coming from the searchlight,” you dare to ask.
“That’s easy,” he says.  “We could do an experiment. We could, of course fly to the Moon, where there is no atmosphere and no dust.  You would find there that, if you shone the searchlight slightly away from you, then you would see no beam of light coming from it, because there is no dust or moisture to reflect the radiation back into your eyes.”
“Thus demonstrating that the radiation itself is perfectly invisible?”
“Yes, quite.”

“So, generally speaking,” the physicist continues, “There is no light at all in the world around you.  It is all in your head.  Light is a phenomenon of psychology, not physics.”

Now I know it comes a surprise to many materialists that their doctrines lead to such a conclusion ; their instinct is first to deny it and then to find a way round it.  By extending the above experiment, it can be shown that the world around us has no colour, no sounds, no scents, no flavours and even no solidity of touch.  And there is no such thing as beauty either.  All such things are psychological, all experienced in consciousness and nowhere else.

It also comes as a surprise to many materialists that our ancestors certainly gave much thought to the appalling consequences of materialism.  A dark, drear, colourless, utterly neutral world of nature gave them no comfort at all.  And it went against their direct empirical experiences of living.

So, they came up with answers.  And, just to tease a little … you will find the OT fascinating.  😉

Are we getting physical, then?

The great Oracle at Delphi once told a young Athenian that Socrates was the wisest man in the world.  When the youth asked Socrates why this was, he replied, “I suppose it is because I know nothing, but I do have opinions on many things!”

We can see that Socrates was using the word knowledge in a special way here ; what he meant was that he had no certain knowledge of anything ; he did not know reality.  This kind of humility was thereafter a persistent character of most of the writings of learned people right through antiquity and up to the modern age.

Then something new happened.  First, we discovered (or invented perhaps) powerful mathematics ; then we invented what we now call the scientific method.  The mathematics enabled us to make statements about the material world that were more or less precise and in a way that had hardly been attempted previously, and the second enabled us to investigate the material world in a highly particular systematic way.

To begin with, these two aids to investigation allowed us to produce a vast amount of information about the world ; and then allowed us to use that information to manufacture new powerful technology – including the technology to make more powerful means of studying the world more closely.  By the end of the nineteenth century, we had a veritable explosion of information in physics and in its technological fruits.  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that scientists of every stripe were eager to emulate the methods of the physicists

Now there was nothing wrong with this emulation and there still isn’t anything wrong with it as long as we remember that the methods of physics are directed at the material world ; particularly at the non-living world.

But man is a forgetful creature ; also much given to speculation, and easily deceived by appearances.  Thus it was that he forgot the original purpose of physics and the scientific method, and it was this forgetting that turned initial successes into a disaster.  For he began to see living things in purely physical concepts ; and, from there began to perceive living things as machines.  Biological machines.  Perhaps this new way of seeing things was epitomised by an enthusiastic late eighteenth century stock breeder ; he asked, “What is a sheep but a machine for turning grass into meat?”  Few people then imagined that Man would be characterised as a machine that happens to turn shepherd’s pie into thoughts.

But that is where we are today.  Man is a machine which is governed entirely and exclusively by the laws of physics.  Gone is the mind, gone is the psyche, gone free-will, gone is personal responsibility ; banished is the soul and the spirit together.  We are simply machines, assemblies of particles, at the mercy of our material environment (however you might try to dress it up in the exciting tales from quantum mechanics!).

But there is hope.  Physics as it is done today has almost exhausted itself grappling with the myths of the sub-particular world ; and, having led their colleagues astray, it will be the physicists who start breaking out of the prison they have made for us all.  This repentance began about a century ago with such luminaries as Rutherford and Planck, who sounded the warnings and offered the keys of the prison.

Was it not Rutherford who said, “Whether we like it or not, we live in a spiritual world.”  And was it not Planck who said, “Consciousness is everything.  Matter is derived from consciousness.”

But did their colleagues listen?  No.  For the physical sciences are easy to do ; no great wisdom is required.  And they are profitable ; research grants are readily forthcoming, if only for the sake of the saleable technology.

On the other hand, a science of humanity takes the harder road ; the road trodden by Socrates and most of his successors ; the road of modesty.

Does it make any sense?

Whatever we might think of religion, we cannot deny that it fascinates us.  Almost any post on the subject, except the most anodyne, risks attracting undue attention.  That, I think, is a sign of our times, which bear an uncanny resemblance to former, pre-Christian ages.  And yet, religion endures as ever.  Perhaps that is because its writings contain some ideas which still have the power to rather startle us – after we have had first thoughts about them.

“Whatsoever you did to one of the least of my brothers, you did unto me.” Fr Werenfried van Straaten, of the ACN, thinks these words should be dearer to us than all earthly wisdom

It is generally taken for granted now that Jesus was referring to the weakest members of a society – the poor, the humble, the incurably sick, and so on.  Whether we be religious or not, we generally see now the merit of the sentiments involved ; but it was not always so.

At around the time of the Incarnation, it was common to live life with a starkly Darwinian perspective on life – although that name was unknown to people then.  In Greece, for example, weakling babies would be taken to the hills and ‘exposed’ ; left to die either of starvation or aided by the teeth of animals, to be consumed and forgotten.  And, for the Romans, any manifestation of weakness was despised ; their world was only for the strong, the ambitious and the ruthless ; and the more one fell from those ideals, the less regard was paid.

And, even in that gentlest of all religions, Buddhism, it is still held that a person does not live so as to help the poor and the weak, but for his own personal advancement towards a state of blessedness – and forgetfulness.  “It is my destiny that matters, not yours.”  Similarly for Hindus.  This explains, I think, the abject misery of so many amid the fabulous riches of the better off.

Taking all this together explains the extraordinary resistance to the Gospels in the early days ; for the message, the Good News, ran counter to the prevailing orthodoxies.  It was subversive and threatened the powers of the great.  A pacifist, a do-gooder was not merely someone to be derided, but someone who had to be eliminated along with his dangerous notions.

Many questions arise from this doctrine concerning “the least of my brothers.”  But, of all the questions, perhaps the most puzzling is this, “Why on earth should almighty God be in the least concerned with the least of his people?”

I don’t mean this to be personal

Something to think about
Some strange ideas about human nature have emerged in recent years.  One such idea appears to be that humans have no control over their actions.

The world is made of particles
The argument for the idea runs like this.  The entire universe is composed of particles which are perfectly invisible to us ; but these particles assemble themselves in systematic ways to produce larger particles, such as molecules  ; and the larger particles arrange themselves in ever larger groups, until the largest of them are actually able to influence our sensory organs.  In other words, they become visible, audible, tangible and so on.

The world is determined by natural laws
This is not a particularly surprising model of what the world might be like.  We can imagine such things as rocks, puddles, mountains, rivers and so on being made of trillions of invisible particles, all arranging themselves according to what appear to be natural laws which decide on the shapes and sizes and masses of natural things.  In accordance with the natural laws, objects, such as the stones, puddles, mountains and oceans, etc., may only take on certain physical arrangements.  And the things themselves have no power to alter their physical arrangements.  A mountain cannot choose to grow either bigger or smaller, heavier or lighter, etc. ; nor can it decide where to place itself on the Earth’s surface.  This model of the physical world is easily imagined, so no surprises there.

Humans are no different to non-living things
When we come to living creatures such as people, we can certainly imagine the shape and size of a person being decided by the same natural laws that decide the shape and size of a pebble or a mountain.  We can just about imagine those same natural physical laws arranging the matter of our bodies so that we move about on the Earth’s surface.  We are able to imagine this because, if circumstances are right, even pebbles move about on the Earth’s surface – in high winds, for example.  The difference between a moving person and a moving pebble is that the person moves more elegantly and in a much more complex way.

All human behaviour is determined by impersonal natural forces
But now we begin to approach a puzzle.  The puzzle is this : a person will often move about without there being any external natural forces being applied to his body.  But pebbles, etc. do not.  Thus, the model seems to say, people move in that way in response to internal forces acting on the body.  But those forces are of exactly the same kind as the external forces that move pebbles ; indeed, those internal forces are dependent on external forces, in the form of the food we eat (so it is doubtful if they can really be called internal).

Humans have no personal control over their behaviour
And the puzzle deepens.  For this model of the world does not give the person any control over his movements ; all movement is governed by the natural laws which decide the way in which the particles of the body shall act.  So a person has no more control over his movements than does a cloud of dust being driven by the wind.  It’s just that his movements are more complex because his particles are more complex.

Humans are completely material and mechanical
In the new model of the world, there is no ‘essence’ to a human being ; no mind, no soul.  There are just material particles doing what particles do in accordance with the usual natural laws.  Thus there is no ‘person’ in control of the human’s body ; there is no transcendent ’soul’ which is in control of the body.  The model is completely material, mechanical and impersonal.

Humans are machines that have gone crazy
There are many surprises to be investigated in this model of the human being, if only because it is utterly unlike the models we have been used to.  One puzzle is that a completely material, mechanical and impersonal biological machine could ever have come up with the ideas of personality and free-will.  Surely, aren’t such ideas aberrations in the proper functioning of the machine?

My mistake …

It is not wise to generalise too freely about the behaviour of people because, to an extent, behaviour follows personality, and personalities are complex.  Behaviour also follows thoughts ; and our thoughts are complex.  Thus our general behaviour is complex ; even our habits are complex.  Perhaps that is why we are prone to make mistakes, for the more complex a system is, the more there is to go wrong.

During WWI, much interest was shown in the performance of people and their technology.  In particular, there was concern at the unreliability of the artillery in use.  It was observed that there was a high incidence of weapons failing to fire ; of weapons failing to detonate on landing or detonating prematurely or landing in the wrong place.  A number of such types of fault were reported and the authorities decided to investigate in a way that had not been done before.

Their inquiries took them to the munitions factories, and it was here that they made their most interesting discovery, for they found that the operators who assembled the artillery shells worked under the most rigorous procedures.  But, of course, this was not the surprise, for one would expect such a dangerous job would be closely controlled.  The big surprise was not the close controls, but the fact that the operators committed so many errors.

The operators, on average, made about 12% errors ; out of every eight actions that an operator took, one of them was quite simply wrong.  Even the operators’ inspectors made errors at the same rate.  This does not mean that the weapons they made suffered from a 12% defect rate, for many errors were discovered before the making of the weapons was completed, and were duly rectified ; also, some errors did not result in malfunction.  That 12% conceals a complex situation ; but the result was, nevertheless shocking to the investigators and to the manufacturing staff.

So surprising were the results that it was decided to repeat the investigation in other areas of employment, for perhaps it was the very nature of munitions factories to make people nervous and prone to error.  But, over a period of time, it was found that the 12% error rate under controlled conditions is endemic in people.  No matter what kinds of tasks were investigated, the average error rate was more or less constant.

It might be thought that there is some defect in the British psyche that accounts for the errors but that is not so, for the results have been replicated world-wide.

An interesting study was carried out in the US in the sixties.  The investigators in a hospital decided to follow the fortunes of prescriptions issued  by the doctors.  They would follow a prescription from the diagnosing doctor to the pharmacist, then to the nurses and then to the patient.  The upshot of their findings was that some 15% of patients were receiving the wrong treatment.  The study was replicated in the NHS with a similar result.  It will be noted that the correctness of the prescription itself, and of the diagnosis, were not investigated because doctors would not permit such scrutiny of their work.

It would seem that people are too complex to be relied on to work with a very high degree of consistency.  We may be creatures of habit, but our habits are themselves not habitual enough.  It is not only the lower orders of society who are wayward in thought and deed ; I’m afraid we are all affected.

A creature of habit

Man is a creature of habit.  If he did not have habits, he would need to spend a lot of time consciously thinking about what he has to do.  He would have to evaluate every thought before he spoke of it and before he acted upon it.  He would have to evaluate every course of action before committing himself to it.  Life would be tedious.  But a habit, an automatic response to a thought, saves much time and mental effort ; it is productive of swift action and the satisfaction that goes with it.

It is perhaps small wonder that the most successful people tend to be more bound to their habits than the less successful.  Men and women who act with the minimum of thinking are the ‘achievers’ in this world, and they are rewarded accordingly.  Those less given to habits are the ‘philosophical’ types ; interesting people, but not noted for making their mark in the world of action – the world of trade and industry.

Scientists, too, tend to be creatures of habit.  Once a method or a theorem has been accepted, it takes hold of the scientist’s thoughts and becomes difficult to change.  Not impossible, but difficult.  A method or a theorem is difficult to change because it is productive ; it is productive of further research and is productive of new technology.  In other words, it is productive of wealth and so is a powerful motivator.

But there are some risks attached to scientific habits.  Perhaps the most obvious risk is that they lead to a canalising of research ; the easier lines of investigation are chosen at the expense of the more difficult.  And these lines lead on to other lines.  And as long as these particular lines of research are productive of quick material gains, they are pursued ; science is literally paying for itself.  But only superstition can presume that the easier investigations will lead to greater truths.

But there is a more sinister risk.  The present scientific method was first applied to astronomy and then developed to aid physics.  It was developed and refined to study the inanimate world ; the world which was properly regarded as a mechanism ; i.e., a world where motion is key, and the motion determined by forces external to the body being moved.  All this makes sense in physics.

The method was so successful that scientists then applied it to living things.  Living things were thus classified as machines, which ‘worked’ entirely by forces acting upon them.  So productive was this method of study that many inventions were made to improve the performance of the living machines.  Gradually, almost without anyone noticing, the habit of thinking of living things as machines grew in man’s mind.

The habit grew until many of those of a scientific persuasion came to believe that living things were nothing but machines.  It is now taken for granted by many scientists that man himself is just a machine.

I wonder how many of those scientists have set their habit aside for a while to consider the consequences of it?  What is the future for humanity if we are simply machines, whose every thought and every word and every action is the result of the blind forces of nature acting our bodies?

Where now is the concept of Truth?  of Justice?  How are people to be held accountable for their actions?  On what grounds may one praise a useful machine?

What credit or criticism may one give to somebody’s opinion, if that opinion is nothing more than the result of impersonal natural forces acting on his or her body?

Truth, beauty and necessity

I believe it was Poincare who said, “It is not necessary that a theorem be true, but it is necessary that it be beautiful.” At first sight this seems to be an odd thing to say ; for, surely, the whole practical value of a theorem lies, not in its appearances, but in its truth.

But perhaps his mind was working in a different mode from the practical ; for didn’t he also say that a scientist does not study nature in order to make use of it, but because it is merely beautiful. Also I am sure the idea would have crossed his mind that truth is an opinion ; and our opinions on what is true change over time. Sometime many years, or even centuries can lapse before a theorem (or, more strictly, a hypothesis) may be properly tested for truth. It will be remembered that Aristarchos of Samos argued the hypothesis of helio-centricity in the third century BC.

And then there is the principle of convention. For a theorem to be true, its rationale must be argued by agreed rules of reasoning ; and here, the rules also change over time. Pre-Socratic reasoning is very different from our own – as Socrates himself discovered at the cost of his life. Such reasoning is still current among many peoples, including modern people in the West.

On the other hand, nature does possess beauty, as poets, artists, scientists and people from all sides will testify. Therefore a beautiful theorem, provided it is reasonably grounded, will be very likely true, whether proofs be available or not.

But what makes a thing beautiful? And isn’t beauty also an opinion? Here we are on grounds that are similar to those occupied by reason ; grounds in which convention plays a major part. In very general terms, beauty is evidenced by such qualities as symmetry and proportionality – in such things as form and force, mass and motion, colour and sound.

And our ideas of beauty also change over time. The beauty of an ancient Egyptian portrait or statue does not quite match our own tastes ; and an Aztec painting is something of an acquired taste, too – as is a Salvador Dali portrait.

This raises the interesting question, Can an ugly theorem, that stands to reason alone, be accepted on the ground that it might one day be deemed beautiful?

From all this we can see why truth and beauty have always featured highly in our understanding of nature. And we notice that it is our understanding that we are considering – not that of animals or aliens.

Precious times

I have been catching up on some reading lately ; and not before time, because it is impossible to know as much as is necessary by one’s own direct experience.  And, as one who formally renounced his addiction to gadgets some time ago, I am now obliged to acknowledge my debt to my new Kindle machine.  It’s an awkward thing to use ; clunky in the way computers are ; but useful enough for plain reading of plain material.  Making use of the copious supply of free books from Amazon, I calculate that I have nearly covered the cost of the devilish device itself – yes, I am into profit now.  And not only cash profit, but spiritual profit, too ; for I may now read books which I could/would never risk buying off a shelf or a catalogue.

I particularly enjoyed reading a story by George MacDonald, a Victorian writer whom some may remember as featuring in one or two books by C S Lewis and who inspired other writers such as JRR Tolkien and GK Chesterton.  He was a most imaginative writer of fiction and other types, for adults and for children ; and perhaps it is not surprising that he excelled when immersed in social commentary and metaphysical adventures.

The first of his books that I delved into is entitled At the back of the North Wind.  I chose to read MacDonald on the recommendation of Lewis, and I chose this particular book because I had, years ago, listened to the final episode of it in a radio adaptation – an episode that seemed to end in sadness.

The book itself is much better.  It tells the story of a young lad, born to poor but loving parents in Victorian London.  It follows his fortunes and, most importantly, it tells of his resistance to all attempts to ‘educate’ him out his innate understandings of the world and also his sense of loving wonder at the mystery of it.  A boy such as Diamond need not surprise us at his ability to strike friendships with good people, both adult and child ; his character unerringly guides him to them and, perhaps, draws them to him.  But he is drawn also to the bad types, almost all of whom acknowledge the improvements he makes in their otherwise miserable lives.

Of course, one so young cannot develop so well by his own unaided efforts ; nor even with the help of good parents ; and, in this respect, young Diamond is befriended and taught by a powerful ally – North Wind.  And it is she who, in the end, ensures the youngster’s just reward for all his kindnesses, labours and sufferings.

A touch of sightseeing

I have long admired the three great empiricist philosophers, whose times spanned the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  They set the scene of justification for the sowing of modern scientific thought.  Their thinking is also used to assess the fruits of that thought.  I suppose nearly everyone has heard of the Englishman (Locke) and the Scotsman (Hume), but not so many have heard of the Irishman, George Berkeley.  In his time his ideas were not well-received (though Hume was impressed by them) ; but since the end of the nineteenth century he has inspired much research.

A deep thinker, and an acute observer, he made some startling claims.  For example, he once said, “The eyes are but instruments for gathering light.”  The eyes alone cannot ‘see’ ; they also need the sense of ‘touch’ to get them working.

Such a claim is certainly counter-intuitive, even to most people today.  But, in the nineteen-sixties, researchers, demonstrated some of truth in Bishop Berkeley’s argument.  In brief, they raised some kittens in complete darkness for a short period after their birth, until they were able to walk ; they then proceeded to show that, unless the kittens were given the experience of walking, they were practically blind.  And, once they started walking, their eyesight began to develop normally.  Later experiments have confirmed the findings.

Berkeley claimed that the most important sense is not sight (as most people believed) but what he called touch – or, to use the more inclusive modern word, proprioception, which includes the sense of motion and balance and other bodily sensations.  Berkeley placed great importance on infants being encouraged to be physically active to ensure proper sensory development.

Another confirmation of Berkeley’s ideas came in the mid twentieth-century.  A man in his fifties, who had been blind from the age of three had his sight restored by surgery.  Of course, all the ologists pounced on him to test their theories about ‘recovered senses’ and, in all, the poor patient had a pretty miserable time from all the attention he attracted.

But some interesting findings emerged.  For example, when the newly-seeing man was taken out into the streets, he was quizzed about what he could see.  He was shown a  typical London double-decker bus, and asked to draw a sketch of it.  His drawing was good, but with some striking blanks in it : the driver’s cab was blank and the entire upper deck was missing, too.  It turned out that he had used buses when he had been blind – and his sketch showed good detail of all the parts of a bus that he had actually touched – but almost no detail of the parts that he had not.  He simply could not see those parts.

So, Berkeley showed his astuteness again.  His critics were confounded.

So, ‘touch’ or (more completely) proprioception is really the queen of senses, anterior to sight.  And not only sight.  It has been shown that young infants who are compelled to be immobile do badly in tests of intelligence ; but they make up for that once they are old enough to be allowed to walk about.

And then there is the young Einstein.  It is said that, at the age of eleven he discovered that physical exercise interfered with his thinking ; so he gave up playing sports.  Was it this withdrawal from the world of ‘touch’ that facilitated his highly abstract ideas of relativity?  And, even here, Berkeley pops up again – for the good bishop was writing his own theories of relativity nearly three centuries before Einstein.

And what happened to the blind man who had his sight restored?  Sadly, he became very depressed ; he shut himself up in the dark of his home and turned his back on the complicated world of light.  I read that he took his own life in the end.  So, suddenly springing the rich sense of seeing on someone is not the unalloyed blessing it would seem to be.

Sensitivity

Back in the fifties, when the world and I were young, it was quite common for the BBC to broadcast interesting and informative tv programmes.  I learned much from watching, and listening to, impossibly clever professors of this and doctors of that discussing really important subjects.  Of all the delights that came with these discussions there was one which never failed to keep me rivetted to the screen and hanging on to every word spoken ; and this was when a member of the panel was a foreigner.  In those halcyon days, of course, to be both a  foreigner and a professor meant to be either a German professor or an East European professor.  Nothing less would do.

What struck me most about these foreign professors was that, although they expressed their brilliant ideas in a style of English that was in all technical respects impeccable, they were all handicapped by having almost impenetrable accents.  “How,” I asked, “Is it possible that they have learned the English language so excellently, and yet they cannot pronounce it properly?”  I thought, in my ignorance, that the pronunciation would be the easiest part of using a language.  I was to get clues to their difficulty much later.

Psychologists and neurologists seem to agree that the new-born child is equipped with a full set of cells for its nervous system ; from the brain to the furthest toe, all the nerve cells that will ever be needed are present.  But, although present, comparatively few of them are in full working order ; and this is particularly true of the brain, where our more complex mental functions are performed.  You can get an idea of this when you see how small a baby’s head is.  And you can get an idea of brain-cell immaturity when you see the baby making laughable attempts to control and co-ordinate the movements of its limbs ; for the limbs are directed by particular sets of brain cells.  It takes time and practice for those cells to mature.

And the movements of the muscles needed to produce speech are similarly immature at birth ; they too need time and practice to mature.  And those movements are complex and delicate, which explains, perhaps, why speech is comparatively late in appearing.

Linguists, like all scientists, are forever refining their opinions on the basics of their trade.  But they used to say that there are about forty to fifty distinct sounds that the human voice can make.  No language uses all possible sounds, but most use most of them, with distinct differences between different languages.  Thus English speakers will use (say) about forty distinct sounds, while German speakers will use (say) forty-one.  But several sounds used in English do not appear in German, and vice versa.

But what has this to do with clever professors not being able to speak English clearly?  Well, it boils down to a question of their age when they first learned to speak English.

Brain cells not only mature with practice, but they also have a ‘sensitive period’ in which the maturation can occur.  Attempts to teach a month-old baby to speak are doomed to fail because the cells controlling speech are not ready even to begin to learn ; the sensitive period has yet to start.  When the child does begin to learn it naturally learns to make those sounds that are peculiar to its native language ; it imitates the sounds made by its parents, and it quite quickly becomes fluent.

But it usually does not learn the sounds that are foreign to its parents ; indeed, if makes such a sound, its parents will discourage it.  And those foreign sounds might never be learned by the child ; certainly it will not ordinarily become fluent in them.

So, does all this mean that a German child can never learn good English pronunciation (or vice versa)?  Not at all, for the sensitive period for learning speech lasts until about the eighteenth year.  After that, the learning gets harder until it is all but defunct.  So, schools are quite able to teach a foreign language, provided that sufficient time is allowed for practice.

Well, all this I learned late in life, alas.  But at least it solved a mystery for me.  I now knew why Professor X had perfect English, all bar the pronunciation.  I also learned that there seem to be sensitive periods for other skills, and that they are not the same as for language learning.  So, when I meet someone who is pretty awful at maths for example, despite being very rational, I am slow to judge on his apparent lack of intelligence.  Not everyone who fails to appreciate good music is blameworthy in any way.  And people who lack the dexterity for delicate tasks are not necessarily at personal fault.

Generally, although we are able to understand our own shortcomings a little better with a little more knowledge, we would be wise to avoid the trap of failing to appreciate the knowledge of others ; knowledge of which we have almost no understanding, through no fault of our own.

The gifts in our nature

When we were young we were told that all the essentially good things we possess are gifts.  They are talents, and are not in any way due to any powers of our own.  If I can see the beauty of a colourful garden, it is not on account of anything I did ; if I am enchanted by the sound of a symphony, it is not because I made it possible.  I did nothing to create these gifts ; they were simply given to me.

And, because the gifts were given freely, we had a duty to use them fully and wisely.  And, although we did nothing to create these gifts, we are able to fashion them so as to enhance them.  But we ourselves could do little to fashion the gifts unaided ; we needed teachers who would show us how to do it.  And we had a duty to fashion, or train, our natural gifts ; these received treasures were not for hoarding, as a miser might do, but for using.  I am reminded of the words of William Cobbett : money is like muck, no good unless it be spread.  Likewise, our talents are no good unless they be used.  Or again, from an earlier writer, “Words without deeds are an abomination.”

But where did the idea come from?  What made people first think that our talents are gifts?  Why did they imagine that we ourselves could not have brought them into being?  Clearly, such ideas come from a good deal of thinking.

And, why the insistence that we should be grateful for them?  Why the emphasis on our duty to use them wisely and for the greater, wider good?  Clearly these questions (and the answers to them) arise from the acceptance of the idea itself.  But why should we burden ourselves with a moral responsibility?  Why not just accept the gifts without any inclination to be grateful?

Or, alternatively, perhaps our talents are not gifts ; perhaps nothing was given, and nothing received, either.  Perhaps it is a question of things being just the way they are.  Perhaps things are the way they are because they could not possibly have been otherwise.  If all things in the mighty universe came about by chance, then we have no reason to be grateful for anything ; we have no duty to make ourselves useful.

It doesn’t matter which view we take, we still have a mystery.

 

 

 

 

One thing leads to another

If there is one human habit you can rely on it is the habit of taking matters to extremes.  Once people have discovered a Good Thing, their impulse is to work it to death – or something like death.  There are numerous examples, from the trivial to the grand, and these examples span all of history.  Warcraft has often been seen as a Good Thing, if only to provide defences for civilised people ; but war can be glorified and lead to the downfall of martial states ; Persia, Greece and Rome come to mind.   In modern times, we have our own Good Things.  We ensure that we have an abundant food supply because food is a Good Thing ; and we enjoy so much of its goodness that many people now are so overweight that they will surely die early and painfully.  On the other hand, modern folk have a superstition that it is good to live for as long as possible and with as few bodily inconveniences as possible.  So people pay unconscionable amounts of money to medical gurus to try to keep them alive for ever, even selling all that they own to pay for it ; with the rather unsurprising result that dying has never been a more miserable affair.

Amid all this confusion, there is no doubt at all that these banes (and others) that afflict people began as good things ; but were carried to extremes.  I do not doubt that Aristotle was right when he said, “Moderation in all things,” words that were also used by Jesus of Nazareth and by many of the wise, both before and since.

These thoughts were going through my mind a wedding I attended recently – which goes to show what wonderful thing the human mind is – for what on earth has a wedding to do with such matters as war and food and medicine, etc?  But the mind is a potentially wild thing ; in its knowledge or memory, it finds connections everywhere.  Psychologists have a model for memory (one of several) which they call the spreading activation model. In brief, it says that, whatever your recall alights on in memory, other related memories are stimulated to present their knowledge to you.  So, if you think of breakfast, immediately the memory of coffee might arise, then the memory of toast, then marmalade – and so on.  And each of these subordinate memories can lead you on to recall things which apparently have nothing at all to do with breakfast!

So it is hardly surprising that my ‘wedding-mind’ wandered to the question of having too much of a good thing.  After all, it might have strayed anywhere!  It might have meandered to any extreme.  I wonder it didn’t wander to the idea that, since a wedding feast is a Good Thing, we’d all be better off if we ate nothing but wedding feasts.  More Boeuf  Bourguignon, vicar?

Past, present and future – an opinion

Somewhere in the book written by Ecclesiastes there are the words, Knowledge is a curse – or something similar.  Perhaps he is near the mark.  We can think of knowledge as the contents of our memory, both individual and collective.  Most creatures have a memory of some kind, but what distinguishes us is that we can become conscious of our past experiences by means of recall.  And we have other highly-developed abilities, too : we can think, and we can imagine the future.  So, by recalling the past and comparing it with the present – by thinking about what was and what is – we can detect a kind of process at work.  From there, we can imagine what the future might hold for us, and also how that future might be amended.  And all this tempts some of us to imagine that we might become masters of our own destiny.

But why should knowledge be a curse?  Because it is never complete ; and because it is never precisely known.  Thus all our plans for the future are flawed right from the start.  From this mere weakness, many strong evils emerge.

 

 

Common thinking

One of the most interesting writers of the twentieth century is Owen Barfield.  CS Lewis, who was no mean intellect himself, described him as the best of his unofficial tutors.  Barfield was destined for a brilliant academic career at Oxford but the early death of his father required him to take over the family law firm at the age of about thirty.  But that did not prevent him writing the most penetrating books on subjects related to language and thought, and the evolution of the human mind.  As with so many British writers, he is not so much remembered in his own country now ; the dominant marxist flavour of academe here has eclipsed such people ; effectively they have been declared persona non grata.  It is to America we must look for a lively interest in the best of British ideas.

I have just bought one of Barfield’s later books, published in 1965 ; it is called Unancestral Voice and is about the evolution of consciousness and thinking.  Surprisingly, it opens with a discussion on the famous trial concerning Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Barfield is a difficult writer for modern minds.  This is partly because his style is terse and partly because his ideas are simple ; so simple that they provoke the deepest thinking in the reader.  They are necessarily simple because they deal with matters at the very foundations of our minds and bodies ; matters such as consciousness, feeling and thinking, which we take for granted as a matter of course.

So, I have begun this book by skimming through it just to capture the flavour of it, and resisting the temptation to delve into its detail.  The next step for me will be to study it just a little more deeply ; just deep enough to identify the difficult bits and clear up any words and phrases that I don’t understand.  That will be followed by a normal reading of it, from beginning to end.  With any luck, I should have grasp of what he is trying to teach me when all that reading is done.

Alas, on page 45 I have come across an arresting idea ; it is pointing to something that is not new at all, but it is put in a way that (to me) is quite startling.  It is this : The brain is related to thinking as the eye is to light.

So thinking, then, is not something private and individual ; it is everywhere, like light. And the brain is not an organ which originates thinking, it is like the eye.  As the eye detects light, so the brain detects thinking.

Is he going to use this model to explain how it is that people of a particular broad culture tend to think in similar ways – the collective conscious?  and how it is that there are fashions in thinking, which come and go and also contribute to the evolution of ideas?  Now this is real psychology, which the marxists wouldn’t even begin to understand.  I will read on, for Barfield never disappoints.

Where thoughts of India lead

I remember talking with a friend some fifty years ago about the problems faced by India and the Indians.  There had been some discussion in the newspapers about the hunger and the health of the people there.  I mentioned that India was potentially a wealthy country with good soil and probably great mineral resources unexploited.

“What they need most,”  I ventured, “Is the technology to farm economically and to dig for minerals.  They need factories to manufacture their own machines.”
“But, don’t you see,” my friend replied, “That the very last thing India needs is more advanced technology.”
“Why so?” I asked.
“Because the one thing that India is undoubtedly rich in is people.  By merely introducing more powerful technology, you will deprive the people of useful work to do.”

Also, his case was that the use of technology to increase the food supply would surely lead to an explosion in the population ; and even the new technology would be unable to satisfy the people’s needs. So, one way or another, powerful technology would lead to a growing number of unemployed people ; and that would lead to trouble.  “Better,” he said, “To find more efficient ways of employing people to do the hard work.”

We discussed the matter to some length, and I had to admit that his arguments made good sense.  I had to admit that my youthful enthusiasm for clever machinery began to wane a little at that moment.  I came to realize that technology is not an unalloyed benefit to civilised people.  A country where a large proportion of the people are effectively paid to be unemployed, while machines do the work, is heading for trouble.  The Devil really does make work for idle hands.  And there would be all kinds of unintended consequences.

Over the years I have also come to realize that the technology problem is not just India’s ; it applies to many developing countries.  And it doesn’t just apply to developing countries, it also applies to us.  How many unemployed and under-educated young men and women do we have?  How many of the jobs, that they might be doing, have been made redundant by technology?  Does the Devil find work for at least some of those idle hands? (metaphorically speaking, of course).

So, when we look for idle hands seeking something to do, we do not have to confine our gaze to places like Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Bahrain ; we could look farther afield.  And we could even look under our own noses.

Being and becoming

To become the person you would like to be, you must begin by pretending to be that person.  If you are poor, but would like to be rich, you must first pretend to have those qualities and abilities that will lead you to riches.  If you are meek, but would like to be powerful, you must first pretend to have those qualities and abilities that will lead you to power.  If you would like to have particular new skills, you must first pretend to have those skills.

It is rather obvious where this line of thinking is leading.  For, as you repeatedly pretend and practise, pretend and rehearse, so you get better at what you’re doing.  By degrees, you become the person you would like to be.  And, as you progress, so you can raise your sights to higher levels of achievement.  And, as you gain confidence in the method, you can even change your aims.  In fact, you will almost certainly change your aims ; but this realization need not interfere with your initial purposes.

But you have to prepare yourself for disappointments, because there will be many.  And what better preparation than to pretend that you can handle setbacks almost effortlessly.  With practice, setbacks become simply parts of the process ; and they are necessary parts, for there is much uncertainty in the world.  Few indeed have the gift of foresight.

Perhaps the big question is, What kind of person would you like to be?  The answer will depend on your immediate needs, but also on your world-view ; and these two things must be reconciled.  For those of a particular (and deep-rooted) persuasion, perhaps the words of Evelyn Underhill have a resonance.  “For it is not what you are nor what you have been that God regards with his most merciful eyes, but what you would like to be.”

The lightness of stones

Who doesn’t feel a certain connection with the stones of Stonehenge?  Is it true that Merlin himself bore them there from Ireland in the sunny past, when every day was Summer?  Or are they the relics of giants who themselves marched from olden Wales ; perhaps to form a secret circle or committee that would decide the destiny of Britain?

At any rate, they are no ordinary rocks ; no common Saxon stanes ; no wild henges.  For they are ancient, they are British and they are there for a reason.

Archaeologists may concoct their wild theories to the contentment of their barren hearts, but those with souls know that Stonehenge is not merely old ; it is timeless.  For there is a touch of the eternal about it.  When all the world has perished and all the seas gang dry, those stones will still be there to rage about it.

Eternal the Henge might be, but it is yet a relic ; for its power over men has diminished.  No longer does it rule their souls but it does warm them, for it is a reminder, a jogger of memories.  It is a reproach, if you like, for our once losing our way on the chalky Downs ; for mistaking one sign for another.

The second thing to strike me about those stanes (after their size and weight) is that somebody must have planned the construction.  If not Merlin then man.  And what form did that plan take?  Did the builders simply go out and stake the ground, knowing that it might take centuries to complete their task?  Or did they make a drawing of what they wanted?  Did they draft it on boards of black Oak using a piece of Wiltshire chalk?

What name did they give to their cathedral of the Sun?  Indeed, what was the sound of their tongue?  And, when it was built, who was qualified to enter its various parts?  What were those qualifications?  Who conducted the examinations?

It would seem that people came from all over Europe to partake of the magic embodied here.  Some are buried here.

And now, folk come from all over the world.  But they come only to stand and stare.

Stonehenge

The lightness of stones

The stones that called the sleeping sun
From out of weepy winter skies
Themselves now slumber on the Down
Forlorn and lost.

Who now remembers when they lived,
All charged with life that was their own
That gave them power over men
O’er whom they ruled?

Their voices, heard no more, they mute
The long lost glory of their day ;
Their eyes now blind and staring blank
At skies they fear.

Rough-hewn they were from Mother Earth
By hands that knew not what they did,
By minds that thought they mastered all
They touched.  Not so.

‘Twas Fate ordained that they be born
From out of distant granite grey,
And be conveyed to Wiltshire clay.
Better for to reign.

And Man was but their instrument ;
Though, foolish, thought he otherwise.
And soon they had him overawed,
Enthralled and slaved.

So thus the age rolled slowly by,
While stone gave way to polished bronze,
And souls grew brighter and declined
To be so used.

Now other ages came to pass,
The Stones were left forgotten now
By all except a stalwart few.
Most force was spent.

By ones and twos they fell unheard ;
Unmourned and unlamented they.
The Sun, he came and went at will,
As ever free.

And Man enjoyed his liberty
From those old tyrants’ baneful thrall ;
They withered in the wild East winds
And ice and snow.

For all the ages their doom was fixed,
By powers greater than any known
To man or beast in nameless days.
The Titans died.

How else it could be none can tell,
For gracious answer there is none.
The World was come into her own ;
The grand design.

An Eastern Light appeared, to stun
The mind of Man who had forgot
The early lessons of his youth.
Rebellion faltered.

Jamie MacNab
2010