We were talking this morning about the latest insanity when she said ‘I hate all these damn politicians!’ I answered, saying that she had to quit imagining that ‘politicians’ control anything, at least at the apparent front-end of the dog. Why? Because there’s no such thing as ‘political control’ anymore. Yes, there are ‘Controllers’, of course. But they are not politicians. The purpose of the politician today (apart from the few who are as-yet untarnished) is simply to announce what the ‘Controllers’ have lately decided.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not in the camp that says the Controllers are omnipotent. Far from it. They are more like The Hidden Persuaders in Vance Packard’s seminal work from 1957. All of today’s insanity was entirely foreseen, by a few prescient souls. (Packard saw much more, as well, as his bibliography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Packard shows). But nobody listened, because we were all having a good Imperial time! It didn’t take much to persuade us. Now the Persuaders want us to imagine that they are indeed omnipotent, and thus rightly known as true Controllers. The logical extension of that thought is that whatever they say, we must obey. When, in fact, we don’t.
But the sad fact is, most people will. And their numbers will grow. Some from fear, some from stupidity, others from sloth, and others who actually enjoy being ‘controlled’. It relieves them of all responsibility, or so they think.
I know this sounds defeatist, but it’s not. It’s realistic, given that I believe this is the actual script foretold to us by Jesus. There’s going to be a gradually increasing decay in the body-politic, that results in a head-to-head confrontation. And the head Persuader, a dazzling and often charming fellow, will finally meet his actual Controller.
But let’s not dwell on this foretold scene. Instead, let’s look at what we got persuaded of, and what we abandoned in the process. And how that’s led us to a new priesthood. Who all wear white. Just like the Klan, coincidentally.
According to (IMO) the greatest western philosopher of our time, Wolfgang Smith, we have been willingly led to believe that only that which can physically be counted can actually exist. In other words, when we dumped Euclidean Geometry in favor of Cartesian thinking, some 500 years or so ago, we effectively abandoned the idea of ‘wholeness’. A geometric object no longer represented anything more than points and lines. The wholeness of the form had no intrinsic meaning. It was simply the expression of numbers, which counted the ‘values’ we see expressed in a Cartesian Set.
That is to say, to the new priesthood, quantity alone exists. And ‘quality’, the thing Euclid understood (but materialists don’t) was supposedly nothing more than the interior perception of the perceiver. Res cogitans, as Descartes termed it. A thing of the mind (and not something real). Color, for example, didn’t really exist. Nor any of the other qualities we are informed of by our senses. That, according to Plato and Smith is the purpose of our senses. To display, in five different ways, the forms that surround us. Whole forms, as Smith would say. Forms that are irreducible. Unless you want to smash them. And reduce them to pieces. Physical pieces. Countable, to be sure. But un-recognizable from their original corporeal form (and purpose).
Smith is convinced that there is a cosmic difference between the ‘physical’ and the ‘corporeal’ world. The cosmos, according to Smith (and Solovyev), is a single entity, having a corporeal form. And all those things that originally populated the cosmos (like planets and people) have a corporeal (whole) form as well.
Descartes (and many to follow) disagreed with this view. They say that matter is all there is. A piece of an apple, eaten today, becomes part of the eater tomorrow. And thus, the atomic (‘physical’) world proposed by Democritus, devoid of overarching forms, became the new worldview. A view of the underlying basis of existence. Molecules in motion. That’s all we are, and that’s all there is. To him, that is.
Plato disagreed, of course, and said the uncountable was what really counted. For a long time, Platonic thought prevailed, especially as it was supportable by people who believed in the un-seeable things of life. And the seeable as well. As in, the qualities. The colors, the sounds, the aromas, the tastes, the touches. All of this, and that quintessential thing called ‘life’ (apart from mere matter) made sense. And still does, if we bother to ponder it. As Smith and Solovyev have. But for the past 500 years, we haven’t. We have gradually been persuaded to the view of Democritus. We’re all Democrats now.
All of which has led to the destruction of Western Philosophy, according to both Smith and Solovyev. Western wizards became paralyzed in their two-pronged attempt to prove that either the subject or the object actually exists in ‘the real world’ of matter. If our senses inform our minds, but our minds are separate from reality, then, as Solovyev saw clearly, there can never be a relationship formed between the subject and object. Because, of course, neither camp of the Enlightened ones could prove their own existence (let alone their counterpart’s). And thus, neither the subject or the object could be a part of a ‘oneness’. There could never be a cosmic ‘wholeness’. Therefore unity, of any kind, could never be achieved.
Smith sees this same problem, but expresses it in a slightly (yet profoundly) different manner. Smith, in his last and greatest work, Vertical Ascent, says there is an innate unity to an object, a ‘wholeness’. He says that that both the subject and the object possess a corporeal integrity as expressed by a ‘form’. Very much as Plato said. And Smith goes on to show that, like Plato, the actual essence of an object lies in this form, and not the matter it encompasses.
Which leads to the question, does the soul (‘form’) possess the matter, or does the matter possess the soul? The answer ‘matters’ far more than we think. And the inability of our new priesthood to solve this question has led to their paralysis in the quest to find their Holy Grail in the ‘science’ of Quantum Physics.
Here’s the problem. If matter alone exists, and it is not in the grip of some ‘form’ that holds it together in some corporeal state of wholeness (say, an apple), then all that is left is the ‘physical’ state, as Smith says. So, he sees a difference between the (corporeal) apple and the (physical) atoms that compose it. The question then is this; is the apple simply the sum of its physical parts? Parts that can be counted, that is. Or is there a further element needed to compose those atoms into a perceptible object in order to be perceived as a legitimate ‘thing’? Can parts alone produce a whole?
Now while Solovyev was more concerned about the ability to form a relationship between the perceiver and the perceived, he understood as Smith does, that the overall unity (Oneness) he was focused on, must be preceded by singular unity (Wholeness). Hence his disgust with the navel-gazing of Western ‘Enlightenment philosophers’ that seek to eternally atomize mankind by questioning their own existence (‘rationalists’) or the images they perceive (‘empiricists’).
So, Smith concludes that the problem for the Quantum Fools of today is that they have only a ‘horizontal’ outlook that denies the reality our senses detect. A reality that includes the qualitative as well as the quantitative.
What has this got to do with anything today? Well, Citizen, in fact, it is the heart of the ‘matter’. Because we are now at the point where Elijah must confront the Priests of Baal. While Elijah hasn’t shown up just yet, the Priest of Baal have done their part. They have done their dance trying to call down fire from the Heavens to consume their sacrificial bulls. To no avail. As Thomas Kuhn says in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a ruling paradigm continues to rule (even when it has become clear that it is false) until a new theory can reasonably take its place. Or, in Smith’s case, even an old theory. You can’t replace something with nothing.
That’s where we are now. Quantum Physics has failed. It can’t explain the non-local effect. Einstein, Schroedinger and Heisenberg have failed to call down their heavenly fire. Let me give you an example. You rack up the balls, chalk up the cue, and as you smack the cue ball, all the others fall into their pockets before the cue ball moves. Instantly. I know, it’s a crude example.
The double-slit experiments all end in the same way. Instantaneous simultaneous identical reactions that can occur a galaxy apart. How can something, in a mechanical (a.k.a. physical-only) world react instantaneously, when distance separates the particles in question? Traversing distance requires time, even at light speed. There’s the problem. If there is only matter and space (and Time, as Albert insisted), then if an action is initiated locally, at one end of the universe, it’s gonna take a little time to affect something at the other end. The cue ball has to roll, and that takes time.
The paradigm fails. It can’t explain reality. The White Priesthood cannot explain their results in their Horizontal-only world. But Wolfgang has provided us the new (but actually old) paradigm that replaces this Cartesian matter-only-matters world view of modern man.
Smith says that the universe is tripartite. Which is to say, there are two other parts that the Cartesian Priesthood cannot see (and thus, cannot count). And if they can’t count it, it can’t exist, right? Smith understands that Physicist have blinded themselves, and cannot see what even a child can see. Namely, that there is more to life than matter.
Now let’s get down to brass tacks. Let’s see where this intersects our daily lives. Imagine, if you will, a white-coat looking into his microscope, at a grain of sand. He dials further down and detect a molecule of that grain. He dials down more and just beyond the billboard of Democritus he sees the atoms of that molecule. He goes even further down and finds the electrons and protons of an atom. Not content, in his pursuit of the Grand Unified Theory, he dials down yet again, finding muons, leptons, and quarks. Fascinated with his physical prowess, he dials down again, hoping this time to reach the final frontier, the Theory Of Everything! After all, how low can you go before you reach Prime Matter? What else can matter?
And then, all of the sudden, as the Priest of What Matters dials down to what he hopes is the final descent, the matter disappears. Into an energy wave. No substance remains! The physical has disappeared. Oh My god, how can we count what we cannot see? How could this happen?
God has such a sense of humor! He led these fools all the way down, with their expectations heightened at every willing step. And, like Julian the Apostate found out at the bottom of the stairs to the gate of Hell, nothing promised was ever delivered. But there was a booby prize. Made of Fool’s Gold. Losers.
It becomes clear, at least to Smith (and I’m betting Solovyev would agree). The metaphysical is the root of the physical. Even if you can’t believe that there is a ‘form’ (an idea, or ‘soul’) pre-dating the physical existence of every creature (animate or not), counting the creatures gives you nothing but a number. No matter what number you come up with, counting every particle you can find, I can always add ONE to it and come up with a bigger sum. A sum bigger than your bin of parts.
That ONE is the missing link in the Quantum world. The ONE they cannot see (and count). But if they would open their physical (and metaphysical) eyes, they would see the qualities they have denied. They would see the difference between Good and Evil. Beautiful and Ugly. Life and Death. Each of these is rooted in qualitative terms. None can simply be counted. They can only be absorbed (and thus known), via the senses.
It becomes clear that there is a Oneness, a Wholeness to the Creation. Smith says the way to get there is not through Horizontal causation, but rather Vertical causation. A force that can move from the aeviternal center-point to the corporeal world (and back, by the way), instantaneously. How can it do that? Well, the center point is not bounded by time or space (remember, a point has no dimension). The intermediate plane, (known by the Hindus as the astral plane), while bounded by time, has no distance. Thus, any action that links the corporeal circumference of creation with the Center Point can occur instantaneously. Thus, solving the quandary of the Physical Priesthood.
What does this have to do with us? Everything, Komrade. Everything. Because today, this failure of the Physical-Only paradigm in the Scientistic World has been matched by our Political Priesthood in the human realm. After all, ideas have consequence, as someone once said. And the idea that you can endlessly dial down the microscope and find a never-ending chain of ever-more-exotic particles that bear no relationship with the corporeal entities that have them in their physical makeup, has consequences as well.
Sure, you can take an apple and stick it into a blender, and after a few spins, you can pour out the glop. But nobody thinks it’s still an apple. Except the New Age Priesthood. They think the glop is exactly the same thing they put into the blender. When you object that it’s not red, they say that ‘redness’ doesn’t really exist. When you say your other senses don’t detect a real apple either, they say you’re in the grip of mental fixations that don’t reflect physical reality. After all, all of the particles in the apple are still there. Why can’t you perceive the apple, friend?
That’s what we have done, politically, as we have followed the logic of those who would dis-assemble our ancient world, atomizing every corporeal object into their constituent (but lifeless) parts. And then telling us that there’s no quantitative difference between the apple and the glop. Telling us that as long as the matter is there, it doesn’t matter what form it assumes.
But if that’s true, and if (as these Priests tell us), these same quarks and muons and leptons (and whatever else they can name) can also be re-assembled into anything else besides an apple, then Bruce Jenner is now a woman. But Bruce Jenner is still a man, and not a woman. No matter how long you blend him. Any idiot knows this. Except the New Age Priesthood. If Bruce is now Brucette, there is no difference between any corporeal object. It’s all a big Leggo set. Some sets have more blocks, some have less. But parts is parts. And the sum of the parts must equal the whole. But this sum of the parts is lacking the whole (as in, the soul)!
What they are really saying is alchemy is real. Lead can become gold. But they can’t show us the real gold. Just more Fool’s gold. Remember too, these are the same idiots that have spent a century and more telling us that the monkey-and-the-typewriter paradigm was true too. But they can’t show us that monkey. Or his book.
Never-mind all that, Citizens. Here’s the real meaning of this alchemical spirit of liberation. Anything can become something else. Even though that means leptons can become muons, and quarks can become quirks, or whatever other name they give their next phantom particle. Which means there is absolutely nothing permanent in the physical world. Which means, to my way of thinking, it doesn’t count. If a 2 (today) can become a 3 tomorrow, then counting is senseless. As Smith says, in so many ways, it is precisely this senselessness that has blinded them to the truth. Their search for meaning via matter has ended in the wave-form mirage of their spiritual desert. They can’t bear to admit it, but it’s perfectly clear—matter doesn’t matter!
That won’t stop them. They don’t mind fading into oblivion at their earthly end. They would actually be relieved if this were to be true. Guilt is a funny thing. The end holds no fear for them. The only thing left for them, then, is to be on top as long as their molecules are still in motion. But the only way to do this is to control us as we seek to break free of their failed paradigm. And while they can’t actually force all of us to keep worshiping at their sterile shine of Scientism, they know they can persuade enough of us to keep them in power until they die.
Don’t underestimate their crafty power to do this. After all, it has worked, ever more gradually, for 500 years. All they have to do is keep chanting their mantra. And for us to keep absorbing their lying lesson. The real lesson the Persuaders want us to absorb is this: that, like them, we have no essential ‘form’. Which means no essential created meaning. Which, logically means, we have no true metaphysical meaning. Which is why we mean nothing to them.
If we return this feeling in kind, in the end, they and their brilliant Persuader will have won another round. While I have no concern for their Leader, I don’t want to see that bastard keep his winnings. Winnings, as in chips. Chips, known as souls.
The best way to resist the Persuasive line that we don’t have eternal meaning, is to pray for the eternal meaning of his captive minions. Captive souls. Believe me, it’s true. Count on it.
Pray for your enemies.
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Pseudonymous essayist Alistair McFadden argues persuasively that Smith’s metaphysics is influenced by the Kabbala to an unhealthy degree.
Recognizing the overarching importance of metaphysics perforce thrusts one into deep philosophical waters, fraught with danger. Smith appears to have succumbed. Caveat lector.
If everything is All One then how come everything looks like number two?
There is always something I can’t quite point at. Sheri, YOS, and the other regulars here are likely to see what I am pointing at, but god help me when I am talking to many others, I appear to be a fool.
The kerfuffle going on in Minnesota as I write is, in my addled condition, the same subject as what our host tries to illuminate here. In Minnesota right now, it is expressing itself as “look, I can get a free case of Blue Label, because everything is running in circles around something stupid”. The something stupid is knowing when to fight to the death and when to not to. 1 was apparently over a counterfeit bill while the other was a warrant. The answer is be harsher faster. The cause is being too nice. I don’t know the correct answer. For me the correct answer is having the conversation about what happened with my kids and telling them how to avoid it. Right or wrong, I try and point at the confusion.
The confusion is Uncertainty. Maybe there’s just 1 electron in the universe.
Only the mythical “Descartes” is supposed to have said that matter is all there is. Actual readers of *Descartes* know better. This pop history of philosophy is becoming boring.
I agree with this, to a point. I have been bringing up metaphysics to some scientists/engineers at another site. I try to remind them of the limits of a physical only perception as beings that are themselves mutable, within limits and the physical parts that are mutable within limits. That is fine, so long as you remember the limits. Too many seem to think that the limits are all that matter, when it is He that Is, aka God; that truly matters.
Cogitans is a present active particle, so res cogitans is a “thinking thing,” that is the “soul.” Descartes imagined that is was a second subtance rather than the form of a whole substance. He paired it with the res corpora, or “bodily thing,” creating in one fell swoop the mind-body “problem,” the “problem” of the qualia, the “problem” of intention, etc. Thus, a person walking down the street is two things: his body and mind. But lacking a way for them to interact, the possibility that a res cogitans, thinking long thoughts, might continue straight, while res corpora turns the corner.
We never “dumped Euclidean Geometry in favor of Cartesian thinking”. What a loon.
“Quantum Physics has failed. It can’t explain the non-local effect.” So, so confused.
This guy seems to understand approximately nothing about any of the things he talks about, whether math, physics, or philosophy.
Lee Phillips is here to outline for us in a few sentences that he once again has nothing to contribute other than he doth protest and he wishes it to be noted.
St Benedict Joseph Labre
16th April, 2021 A. D.
A philospher named Peter Chojnowski writes that Wolfgang Smith’s “‘right-wing’ occult traditionalism [] is actually nothing more than a refined and up-to-date Manicheanism.” I hear similar echoes in today’s piece hereabove, possibly reducing man to a corporeal presence with some kind of Platonic dualistic form, overlaid, so to speak, whereas man is actually an “incarnate soul,” as St. Thomas beautifully put it. And even while the soul is immortal, and upon death passes solo to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, while the body is laid to rest in the earth, it does so in an incomplete form. The body too will rise again one day, be reunited with, and thus complete the soul, that is to say the individual man made whole again, on the Last Day (when the trumpet will sound and all). Thus it is evident that Man’s ultimate destiny, whatever that may be–Heaven or Hell–is a destination of both body and soul. This according to traditional Catholic teaching, or perennial philosphy as it was once known.
Wyatt gets it right, nonetheless, to ask whether an atomic, subatomic, or purely ‘physical’ view of nature gets us anywhere at all. Even the much-vaunted “H2-O” tells us precious little about water’s nature, after all, in contrast to a sip or a swim.
America’s last philosopher, the late beloved James Larson, has written well on this subject at WarAgainstBeing.com.
As to Smith, I am uninitiated, but wary, to say the least. I invite your review of an article published just today pointing out Smith’s connection to the occult over at http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2021/04/traditionalist-occult-neo-modernism.html, where Dr. Chojnowski prefaces a review of Smith’s obscure but significant work: In Quest of Catholicity: Malachi Martin Responds to Wolfgang Smith (2016).
In quest of something, at any rate.
I for one will read both the book, as Fr. Malachy Martin has long intrigued me for his take both on the origins of the clerical Homosexual Network Strangling the Church as well as on the Third Secret of Fatima and its prediction of, unsurprisingly given the success of the former, utter “Apostasy in the Church at the highest levels,” but also Dr. C’s review, with interest, especially in view of the recent Coulombe Tarot Kerfluffle. Cf. Alistair McFadden on Esotericism and the One True Faith, https://justacatholic.medium.com/, for some light weekend reading on the state of Traditionalism Inc. in the Church.
CPB
Wolfgang Smith is indeed one of the most profound and necessary thinkers on the planet today. Highly recommend his book “Christian Gnosis: From St. Paul to Meister Eckhart” as well.
Good to see Soloviev (sometimes transliterated as Solovyov) mentioned here also (another long overlooked genius whose been getting renewed attention the last couple decades – especially with so many new editions and previously untranslated works finally making their way into print in English in recent years). A good place to start for those unfamiliar with Soloviev is “War, Progress, and the End of History: Three Conversations and a Short Tale About the Anti-Christ” – quite a prescient book, not only of the 20th C at the threshold of which it was written, but even now unfolding before our eyes with the globalist-oligarchical regimes of today).
Ignore that meretricious article by “Alistair McFadden” linked above (it’s been making the rounds for a couple weeks now). “McFadden,” a sede-vacantist way out of his intellectual and moral depth, libels nearly every other traditionalist Catholic of current or recent prominence – not only Wolfgang Smith, but Valentin Tomberg, Roger Buck, Charles Coulombe, Malachi Martin, Jean Borella, Jean Hani, Michael Martin, Stratford Caldecott, Rama Coomaraswamy, Robert Spaemann, Fr. Zuhlsdorf, Angelico Press/Sophia Perennis publishers, and many others, such as past figures like Ficino and Pico della Mirandola (non-Catholics as well, such as the great metaphysician, René Guénon, whose “The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times” is essential reading) – as secret “occultists” and “new agers” who are really in league with Satan. It’s such a comprehensive “who’s who” of the last 20-40 years of prominent TradCath intellectuals it’s almost laughable this sede-vac guy thinks they are all really subversive anti-Catholics at heart (but being a sedevacantist isn’t subversive or undermining the faith at all!).
Mike H –
There was a time when Dr. Smith had fallen away from the Church early in life, and his wife brought him back.
Naturally it is correct to be wary of bringing in false and erroneous ideas into the Church, and it seems that some of the context of those ideas stem from the problems of Vatican II ecumenism and its opening up to the world to learn from it that many faithful men have fallen to.
In one way it makes sense, in the same way that the Church Fathers to Aquinas borrowed from the Greek philosophers who were pagan, I believe Wolfgang offers up a similar proposal within that context, in that there may be useful material outside the collection of Traditional wisdom.
Early apostles to pagan nations, seeking a means to convert them would also study and record their pagan beliefs and myths and accounts and would find remarkable synchronicity with Biblical accounts from the Creation to the Flood of Noah to Joshua’s halting of the Sun and the Moon, as well as vestiges of older beliefs and worship of God that predated their paganism that accorded to those of Cain and Abel and the King of Salem’s as well as things that foreshadowed Christ. Such things inherent in these cultures could also be used for their conversions as Our Lady of Guadalupe demonstrated in South America.
So I believe that Dr. Smith considers it in this same context, though I do see a problem with it in the context of the erroneous belief that God positively wills all religions. But we must recall that all mankind once shared a common heritage until they continued to fall and were broken up at Babel.
It’s possible that many of these groups could have maintained traditions common to humanity that accorded with the Truth that might still be there amongst the rot, or at least useful as a means of further evangelism.
There are sources in Rabbinical and various pre-Christ Talmudic writings that historians and the Church use to bolster apologetic materials. Wolfgang muses that perhaps some Jewish mysticism has retained something useful. We have many saints and mystics like St. Hildegard of Bigen that have remarkable insight into the cosmos. So perhaps early Jews were also privy to similar insights or inspirations.
So while it’s correct to be wary, the proposal of Wolfgang’s isn’t that absurd, but given how this concept has been so abused by all manner of heretics and modernists, it’s understandable why this would set off a red flag.
CPB –
Wolfgang isn’t saying that the corporeal and Spiritual are separate. He proposes that they are one and the same, but it is the spiritual and up that commands and gives form and quality to the corporeal and below.
So it is vertical hierarchy that controls the natural world. With God at the top, and the microscopic at the bottom. This is in contrast to the materialists who claim the quantum world defines reality from the bottom up.
CP Benischek writes: “A philospher named Peter Chojnowski writes that Wolfgang Smith’s “‘right-wing’ occult traditionalism [] is actually nothing more than a refined and up-to-date Manicheanism.” I hear similar echoes in today’s piece hereabove, possibly reducing man to a corporeal presence with some kind of Platonic dualistic form, overlaid, so to speak…”
I find it curious to charge Smith with “Manicheanism” or dualism, since he has often explicitly stated that he rejects dualism and describes himself as a “metaphysical non-dualist” in the mode of Meister Eckhart (and Dante as well, whom Smith also cites often; basically this was the default philosophical and metaphysical worldview of most of the Ancients and Mediaevals before the rise of nominalism, which achieved its reductio ad absurdum in the Cartesian bifurcation of the 17th C).
Likewise, Smith’s latest book has an entire chapter devoted to “Gnosticism Today” in which he locates one of the main sources of our society’s current metaphysical and moral confusion in the revival of a jumbled mishmash of ancient Gnostic views (even though most may not be consciously aware of it as such) of rooted in Valentinism, Manicheanism, Marcionism, Magianism, etc. (not to be confused with what Smith – and Jean Borella – calls proper “Christian Gnosticism,” which is grounded in scripture – the word “Gnosis” appears some 25 times in the New Testament, all but once with a positive connotation).
Nor does Smith anywhere reject the resurrection of the body – or any other Catholic dogma – or see Man as simply a spirit for whom the body is merely a temporary vehicle/meat machine (that is precisely the neo-Gnostic view that his distinction between the “corporeal” and merely “physical” – and his promotion of hylomorphism – is meant to avoid. By reducing the cosmos – and hence Man himself – to the merely physical or material, modernity strips both of ultimate meaning, rejecting the wholeness and unity of the spiritual and corporeal).
Dennis, it is disingenuous to characterize McFadden as a sedevacantist, as he distances his arguments from those whom he distinguishes as sedevacantists—and specifically of a sede “bishop” who apparently identifies as a “Catholic Occultist.” Some substantiation of your assertion would be welcome.
Mike: He’s been heavily promoted by sede sites like Novus Ordo Watch and True Restoration (though sympathetic to much of their work myself, I part company on the sedevacantist issue; though I see Francis as an anti-Pope, I deem Benedict XVI to still be true Pope, whereas the sedes reject ALL the Popes after Pius XII), so I assumed he was one of their ilk (especially since his own Medium page at which his article was posted included no “about” section clarifying his position, or giving any other background since he uses a pseudonym as well).
If he’s not, then I retract that, especially since whether he’s sedevacantist or not ultimately isn’t the point regarding his article and its mass of confusions and libels against many outstanding Catholic thinkers, past and present, anyway – thinkers who’ve done much to help return many to the Church and worked to restore the Church’s deepest mystical and metaphysical traditions and insights that have been lost by modernity.
Here you go: “And may the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ” 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
God bless, C-Marie
Exactly right Johno.
“Only the mythical “Descartes” is supposed to have said that matter is all there is. Actual readers of *Descartes* know better.”
Agreed Curmudgeon.
Sorry Ianto, but Descartes was a substance dualist and not a physicalist like Democritus. That’s why for Descartes, you have the “thinking substance” or Res Cogitans or soul in addition to having a physical substance or body out in space.
So W. Smith along with Aquinas advocates hylomorphism, the idea that the soul is the form of a living body individuated by the body. So what individuates the soul after the body dies? Note: hylomorphism is a philosophical position formulated by Aristotle; hylomorphism was not an original idea from Aquinas.
I’m not a strict Cartesian dualist, nor am I a hylomorphist, but the Cartesian dualism has a serious advantage over hylomorphism when it comes to death.
At any rate, Ianto, I’m not totally sure how all this relates to the problem of the authoritarian plutocracy in the USA. However, I would grant that materialism/physicalism does have some (limited) impact on the political and social environment of things particularly with the case of cultural marxism.
I would have to read up a bit more of Wolfgang Smith to better get what he thinks of things. I find it funny, nonetheless, that W. Smith advocates the passé geocentric theory which has been long discredited by the science.
Re Bobcat:
“Only the mythical “Descartes” is supposed to have said that matter is all there is.”
Seems a bit of a straw man. I’ve never encountered anyone who claimed Descartes said matter is ALL there is. Perhaps some later thinkers who call themselves “Cartesian” do think that, but of course Descartes was not a “Cartesian” in that sense, and like many thinkers perhaps didn’t even understand or foresee the full implications some would later draw from certain of his ideas.
“So W. Smith along with Aquinas advocates hylomorphism, the idea that the soul is the form of a living body individuated by the body. So what individuates the soul after the body dies?”
I’m not quite clear what you mean by inserting the words “individuated/individuates” above. According to the theory of hylomorphism, the soul is the substantial form of the body (Aquinas held that it is the ONLY substantial form of the body). It is the soul that gives life to the body, not the other way around. The soul is not “individuated” by the body, but itself “configures” (individuates?) the body. After death there is no need for anything to “individuate” the soul, for the soul is already an individuated thing (the “configured configurer” as it has been called).
“I find it funny, nonetheless, that W. Smith advocates the passé geocentric theory which has been long discredited by the science.”
Well, people have been taught to believe it’s been discredited. But the point Smith makes over and over again in re. not only geocentrism but also Einsteinian physics altogether, is that far from geocentrism having been disproven (or Einsteinian physics having been proven), people have have simply accepted that it is so because it better fits the philosophical (at bottom theological) predispositions of modernity. In his most recent book he discusses this a lot, including different models of planetary motion (geocentric vs not), each internally consistent, and which equally accord with observed motion of the stars and planets, but neither model of which can be “proven” since there is no means for us to leave the field of observation and get a truly objective view – the model one chooses to posit as “true” depends on one’s first principles (at bottom metaphysical and theological).
I would recommended reading more on what a Smith has to say about this, and also checking out the films “The Principle” and “The End of Quantum Reality.” It was especially interesting in the former the see Lawrence Kraus and other physicists squirm and dodge at the implications of the confirmation by the Planck telescope (further confirmed by other observations last year) of previous observations indicating that the CMB is not only not uniform throughout the universe (as Big Bang Theory requires – thus exploding that theory as well), but aligns with the Earth’s ecliptic (with obvious massive implications for geocentrism and design, undermining Kraus’ and many others’ beloved notion that the universe and everything in it is just the more or less accidental result of random particles and events utterly devoid of any possible meaning or design).
This is mostly absurd. Wolfgang Smith never, ever, anywhere, at any time has said anything to the effect that “quantum physics has failed.” He has said, in many places, at many times, including the very book the author of this article claims he read (but evidently did not quite understand) that quantum physics is the most successful and accurate scientific theory ever conceived by man.
What he does have a problem with is the idea that the world is reducible to quantity and subatomic particles.
To quote John Trevor Berger, who works directly with Dr. Smith in his foundation, the Philos-Sophia Initiative:
The phrase “the end of quantum reality” [the title of the Initiative’s documentary film on Dr. Smith’s life and work] has been met with much skepticism. Is Wolfgang Smith suggesting we abandon quantum physics, after all the technological wonders it has wrought for instance? Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Smith is perhaps the most rigorous defender of quantum physics alive. What, then, does this “end” refer to? It refers to the end of a spurious cosmological vision which reduces the corporeal world to the physical universe, the popular notion that the corporeal substances with which we are in continuous contact are no more than “aggregates of subatomic particles” — to wit, the idea that reality is fundamentally a quantum reality. But quantum physics is one thing, while “quantum reality” is something else entirely. There is thus no “pseudoscientific obscurantism” here. Quite to the contrary: Smith’s cosmological vision is one which renders pseudoscientific — or at any rate untenable — the “pop cosmology” which has been propagated for decades by the likes of Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, et al. It is this false picture which comes to an “end.” After absorbing Smith’s insights one realizes to what extent authentic science has been contaminated by fallacious philosophical presuppositions which de jure have no place in scientific inquiry. That is to say, by drawing a clear distinction between physics and philosophy, the author brings the true nature of physics into optimal clarity. Moreover, once this task is achieved we find that the genuine “operational” findings of quantum physics fit like a glove into the ontological hierarchy and the perennial wisdom of mankind.
{Source: philos-sophia.org/surveying-integral-cosmos}
@ Dennis: Your replies are excellent. I’m glad there’s someone here who knows what they’re talking about. Are you a member at the Wolfgangsters facebook group? If not, you are Quite Invited.
“the passé geocentric theory which has been long discredited by the science.”
That’s what people commonly like to claim, but nothing could be further from the truth.
‘Discrediting’ Geocentrism requires belief in several absurdities from shrinking dilating time and matter to the invention of several ad hoc never proven to exist concepts that require other alternate universes to exist into infinity all to explain why we cannot experimentally measure something as simple as the Earth’s velocity around the sun. The simple deduction is that maybe it isn’t moving. But for the enlightenment men this is heresy to their religion where mankind and man’s habitat must be seen as un-special as possible so that they might comfortably hold fast to a myth of a random spontaneous chance evolutionary paradigm and never invoke an intelligent Creator, and above all preserve in the psyches of men that myth that the Catholic Church and it’s Papacy is “discredited.” -That- is the real target.
Heliocentrism is essential a ‘transgender’ science. It is spinning based on feelings over facts. Where the real details of the history of that affair are never taught. Just the isolated story of Galileo, and they have to run that version through the politically-scientifically-correct filters too, because even Galileo later in life came around to the fact that he was wrong without any coercive pressure.
Fake news didn’t start in 2016. The ‘scientific’ community were their forerunners. And today we are masked morons pretending men can be women and committing economic suicide because the weather is coming to kill us in our sleep.
Flitcraft- when Ianto said that Quantum Physics failed, he means in terms of the materialist hopes of it being a ‘theory of everything’, not that it doesn’t work.
Johnno (responding to John H-)
I believe you’re onto something.
Regarding his “reversion” to the faith of his childhood, his wife Tea certainly played a part, both by example and prayer, but she never tried to overtly convert him. He said its was his reading of books by two saints, I believe St. Catherine of Sienna and St. John of the Cross, of which he said, “those two books converted me.” Of course, the “Hound of Heaven” is the ultimate author of his return to the fold.
In the same vein, as you note regarding the pagan Greek philosophers, it may surprise many Catholics to know that St. Paul was quoting a pagan Greek poet when he used the words, “for in him we live and move and have our being,” thereby giving testament to pre-Christological Christology, and a valid mystical experience of God outside the defined Catholic orthodoxy. This observation is precisely what “the quest” in the exchange of letters is all about.
Regarding being “wary of bringing in false and erroneous ideas into the Church,” I think he would agree with you—in particular the many modernist beliefs and practices, and in particular the Neo-Gnostic heresies of scientism (Cartesian bifurcation, Darwinian evolution, Einsteinian physics, and reductionism) which have devastated the institutional Church, the University system it spawned, and Western civilization.
I think the book Mike H- references, “In Quest of Catholicity,” exhibits are two superb Catholic intellectuals, who bring the experience of their respective education and backgrounds, and who venture outside of the bounds of recognized doctrine by engaging in theosophic discussion. We might think of their venturing into the esoteric realm as the “strong food” or “meat” beyond the limits of the exoteric—or “milk” of the catechetical church—to places where the Church Fathers, mystics, desert monks, and others encountered an authentic Christian mystical experience. It was through Wolfgang’s early experiences in India, his expertise in quantum physics and mathematics, his studies of Plato and the classics, and his conversations with a highly skilled and experienced exorcist (Malachi Martin), that he came to well understand that “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
“In Quest of Catholicity” certainly isn’t for everyone, and I have no doubt he expected it might upset many who would know little of the esoteric realm—which is far greater—but who can regurgitate, by line, the exoteric. In this respect, he would have little regard for the Inquisition, which might have put many of our greatest saints and mystics to the test for their utterances. This same spirit seems to reappear in the frightened and knee-jerk reactions of those who misread him and subsequently jump to the next available heretical title with which to label him.
As you surmise, he is a Catholic through and through.
One of Wolfgang’s latest publications is free: “Three Scientistic Heresies,” which is a booklet for priests, and dedicated to The Blessed Virgin. It can be found here: https://philos-sophia.lnk.to/SacerdotalOutreach. I think reading it might help some dispel much of the misinformation about his true faith and motivations.
Thanks for your observations.
Johnno [replying to Mike H-]
I believe you’re onto something.
Regarding his “reversion” to the faith of his childhood, his wife Tea certainly played a part, both by example and prayer, but she never tried to overtly convert him. He said its was his reading of books by two saints, I believe St. Catherine of Sienna and St. John of the Cross, of which he said, “those two books converted me.” Of course, the “Hound of Heaven” is the ultimate author of his return to the fold.
In the same vein, as you note regarding the pagan Greek philosophers, it may surprise many Catholics to know that St. Paul was quoting a pagan Greek poet when he used the words, “for in him we live and move and have our being,” thereby giving testament to pre-Christological Christology, and a valid mystical experience of God outside the defined Catholic orthodoxy. This observation is precisely what “the quest” in this exchange of letters is all about.
Regarding being “wary of bringing in false and erroneous ideas into the Church,” I think he would agree with you—in particular the many modernist beliefs and practices, and in particular the Neo-Gnostic heresies of scientism (Cartesian bifurcation, Darwinian evolution, Einsteinian physics, and reductionism) which have devastated the institutional Church, the University system it spawned, and Western civilization.
I think what this book, “In Quest of Catholicity,” exhibits are two superb Catholic intellectuals, who bring the experience of their respective education and backgrounds, and who venture outside of the bounds of recognized doctrine by engaging in theosophic discussion. We might think of their venturing into the esoteric realm as the “strong food” or “meat” beyond the limits of the exoteric—or “milk” of the catechetical church—to places where the Church Fathers, mystics, desert monks, and others encountered an authentic Christian mystical experience. It was through Wolfgang’s early experiences in India, his expertise in quantum physics and mathematics, his studies of Plato and the classics, and his conversations with a highly skilled and experienced exorcist (Malachi Martin), that he came to well understand that “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
“In Quest of Catholicity” certainly isn’t for everyone, and I have no doubt he expected it might upset many who would know little of the esoteric realm—which is far greater—but who can regurgitate, by line, the exoteric. In this respect, he would have little regard for the Inquisition, which might have put many of our greatest saints and mystics to the test for their utterances. This same spirit seems to appears in the frightened and knee-jerk reactions of those who misread him and subsequently jump to the next available heretical title with which to label him.
As you surmise, he is a Catholic through and through.
His latest publications includes a free one titled, “Three Scientistic Heresies,” which is a booklet for priests. It can be found here: https://philos-sophia.lnk.to/SacerdotalOutreach I think reading it might help some dispel some of the nonsense about his true faith and motivations.
Thanks for your observations.
Yeah may have jumped the gun. I suppose I just wasn’t amused. The statement to the effect that “quantum physics has failed” is very misleading.
Flitcraft, it is clear from the context that Watt was not saying Quantum Physics has failed as a scientific theory. Rather, it has failed to demonstrate ontological materialism. That agrees with the rest of what you wrote.
Well, shame on me for posting without hitting refresh.
Not enticed by this line of thought in the article. The artist M.C. Echer has a drawing – “Angel Devil”. It is covered with both Angels and Devils. Depending on how one looks at the drawing you might see only angels or devils or you may see both.
@ Dixon Duval: Bingo.
@ James M: Exactly.
Incidentally, the two books were Sigrid Undset’s biographical novel of St. Catherine, and St. Augustine’s Commentary on the Gospel of St. John.
“Always remember that you belong to no one, and no one belongs to you. Reflect that some day you will suddenly have to leave everything in this world – so make the acquaintanceship of God now.”
Lahiri Mahasaya
“Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception. Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles. Meditate unceasingly, that you may quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. Cease being a prisoner of the body; using the secret key of KRIYA, learn to escape into Spirit.”
Lahiri Mahasaya
Rather, accept for your Lord, your Saviour, and your God, He Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the Lord of all, Jesus Christ.
God bless, C-Marie
JTB: Thanks for the invite, but I don’t have a Zuckerface account. 🙂
Flitcraft: Excellent quote form John Trevor Berger. Really sums up Smith’s project nicely.
@ Dennis: That’s certainly understandable. But you may want to keep track of the Philos-Sophia Initiative somehow or other on another platform (Twitter, LinkedIn, Gab, ThinkSpot, to a certain degree Parler), although these don’t have the numbers that the facebook group has. Hopefully there will be an equivalent version on the Initiative website at some stage.
I’m on the Philos-Sophia website mailing list and get updates from them. That’s how I found out about Smith’s latest book last Fall.
Ah, well there you go.
Is it possible that all this Mathematics below ( and on WowGoHere.com ) is only “just a coincidence” ???
Acceleration of Gravity multiplied by earth Orbit Time (lunar year in Seconds) = Speed of Light !!!
9.8 x 30,591067.14 = 299,792,458
Earth orbit Velocity squared divided by Pi = Speed of Light !!!
30689.1802376259^2 / 3.1415926536 = 299,792,458
?earth Gravity x ?orbit Velocity x ?orbit Diameter = Speed of Light
3.1304951685 x 175.1832761357 x 546657.1353295171 = 299,792,458
Wikipedia and our best Universities ( https://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_chapter.asp?id=3&page=6 ) declare that the Magnetic Field of the earth is .00003 Teslas.
And all these Electrical units (below) coincide PERFECTLY with today’s accepted Electrical SI Units !!
Electricity = m(A^2 Z^2)
m = quantum Mass
A = Acceleration
Z = Time
Joule = m(A^2 Z^2)
Watt = mA^2 Z
Coulomb = mA
Amp = mA/Z
Farad = m/Z^2
Siemens = m/Z^3
Tesla = 1/AZ
Volt = AZ^2
Weber = AZ^3
Ohm = Z^3/m
Henry = Z^4/m
Elec.Field = Volt/Meter
The Tesla ( Magnetic Field ) in Electrical
SI units is equal to 1/AZ
1/AZ = 1 / earth Orbit Velocity.
The earth is moving through space at 30,689.1802374659 m/s. When you divide 1 by earth Velocity (1/AZ) ( derived from perfectly coinciding Electrical Units above ) you get the exact Magnetic Field of the earth = .00003 Teslas.
How much “Coincidence” has to occur before Mathematicians will say to themselves … there is something else happening here ???
Will you be like the majority and continue to mock or will you see the Mathematics and Unity and Logic and be part of vindicating the biggest scientific breakthrough of this generation ???
( which just so happens to be what Einstein spent the last 20 years of his life diligently and relentlessly pursuing … the “Unification of Electricity with Gravity” )
Cheers, ?
AL
WowGoHere.com
1) Believe the “Mathematics” not the mockers !!!
Mathematical proof that Gravity is Pushing !!! Must See this …
http://www.einsteingravity.com/PENDULUM.htm
2) Speed of Light = Acceleration of Gravity x orbit Time (exact lunar year, seconds)
299,792,458 = 9.8 x 30591067.1428571429
3) Speed of Light = Acceleration of earth in orbit x Diameter of orbit
299,792,458 = .001003207246557 x 298834023606.6740014972
4) Speed of Light = Circumference of earth orbit x Gravity x Magnetic Field
299,792,458 = 938814773208.4623287290 x 9.8 x .000032584773925436
5) Speed of Light = ( sun Velocity / Tau ) x ( earth Velocity / Tau )
299,792,458 = ( 385651.6127181273 / 6.2831853072 ) x ( 30689.1802376259 / 6.2831853072 )
6) Speed of Light = Density of earth x orbit Velocity x 2
299,792,458 = 4884.3347342404 x 30689.1802376259 x 2
7) Speed of Light = sun Velocity x earth Density / Tau
299,792,458 = 385651.6127181273 x 4884.3347342404 / 6.2831853072
8) Speed of Light = orbit Circumference x earth Centripetal Acc. / Tau x Pi
299,792,458 = 938814773208.4560190337 x .0063033370 / 6.2831853072 x 3.1415926536
9) Speed of Light = ?Gravity x ?orbit Velocity x ?orbit Diameter
299,792,458 = 3.1304951685 x 175.1832761357 x 546657.1353295171
10) Speed of Light = Mass of earth / orbit Time^2 x Tau x Pi
299,792,458 = 5537831004648121688015772.9772114697 / 935813388938787.5906497073 x 6.2831853072 x 3.1415926536
11) Speed of Light = earth Surface Area x earth Density^2 / earth Radius^2
299,792,458 = 525823886086903.4639383167 x 23856725.7961072389 / 41843735333124.2629713895
12) Speed of Light = Acceleration of Gravity x orbit Circumference / orbit Velocity
299,792,458 = 9.8 x 938814773208.4560190337 / 30689.1802376259
13) Speed of Light = Acceleration of Gravity x earth Volume / orbit Circumference x Tau^2
299,792,458 = 9.8 x 1133794325320611315049.2969503907 / 938814773208.4560190337 x 39.4784176046139584
14) Speed of Light = ether Heat in space surrounding earth / orbit Time
299,792,458 = 9170971211600180.0128482482 / 30591067.1428571429
15) Speed of Light = ether Pressure of space surrounding earth / earth Density x Pi
299,792,458 = 4600192388721.4460278329 / 4884.3347342404 x 3.1415926536
16) Speed of Light = Gravity^2 x 3131.5 / orbit Acceleration
299,792,458 = 96.04 x 3131.5490038394 / .001003207246557
17) Speed of Light = Gravity^2 x Pi / orbit Acceleration
299,792,458 = 96.04 x 3.1415926536 / .000001006424779544
18) Speed of Light = Density of earth x Gravity x Tau / orbit Acceleration
299,792,458 = 4884.3347342404 x 9.8 x 6.2831853072 / .001003207246557
19) Speed of Light = Density of earth x ether Heat / orbit Radius x Pi
299,792,458 = 4884.3347342404 x 9170971211600180.0128482482 / 149417011803.3373753983 x 3.1415926536
20) Speed of Light = Density of earth x Surface Area of orbitsphere / orbit Radius
299,792,458 = 4884.3347342404 x 280549766208294700469089.1113553686 / 149417011803.3373753983
21) Speed of Light = (Density of earth x 2)^2 x Pi
299,792,458 = 95426903.18442895558466 x 3.1415926536
22) Speed of Light = (Density of earth)^2 x 2Tau
299,792,458 = 23856725.796107238896165 x 12.5663706144
23) Speed of Light = orbit Circumference x orbit Diameter x ether Farad x 2
299,792,458 = 938814773208.4560190337 x 298834023606.6740014972 x 5917665925.8188055886 x 2
24) Speed of Light = ether Pressure x 2 / orbit Velocity
299,792,458 = 9200384777442.8920556658 / 30689.1802376259
25) Speed of Light = ether Pressure x orbit Time / orbit Radius x Pi
299,792,458 = 4600192388721.4460278329 x 30591067.1428571429 / 149417011803.3373753983 x 3.1415926536
26) Speed of Light = sun Velocity x 777.3660166673
299,792,458 = 385651.6127181273 x 777.3660166673
27) Speed of Light = sun Velocity^2 / Tau^3 x 2
299,792,458 = 148727166392.0924462482 / 248.0502134448 x 2
Now The Most Prolific Of All The Equations
Showing Us What Governs The Speed Of Light
28) Speed of Light = ether Pressure x Frequency x 2 / Gravity x Mag.Field x Pi
299,792,458 = 4600192388721.4460278329 x 1/30591067.1428571429 x 2 / 9.8 x .000032584773925436 x 3.1415926536
What thinkest thee ???
?