The Speed of Fear and Anger

Something I learned many years ago, in my early 20s in fact, as a result of the intensity with which I pursued martial arts in a very traditional dojo of karate-do in Cape Town, South Africa, is a lesson of psychology and life that I think I have not seen addressed in any detail anywhere.

Succinctly put, it is this:

Something that makes us instantly angry, usually happens so fast that exploding the emotions like a schematic of some engine, is never considered.

What I mean is that if you take the time to consciously go through the steps from start to finish of how you went from neutral or calm to pissed off, very often, you can’t really do it properly.

There is an infinitesimally small space of time where the anger kicks in, but just before that, there is often something else. It is so compressed and so tiny a space of time that it can take real effort to slow the memory of the emotion down enough to be able to take note of it. This is why I make the analogy of a schematic of an engine. It is a bit like consciously taking apart a complicated engine and being very detailed and clear about where and how each part fits with the whole.

In the moment it happens, this process of analysis is practically impossible to do, unless something significant happens to interrupt the instinctive response. For me, a logical sequence that makes the event reasonable can do it, but this rarely happens in life.

Therefore, analysis after-the-fact is pretty much all you have left, and most people are very, very, very unwilling to revisit such events in detail. Especially with a view to self examine instead of blame the outside world in some way.

The intensity of doing martial arts in an environment where real injury is a given if you don’t keep your wits about you, over time, at least for me, and I would say for people who are either obstinate or willing enough to put themselves into harm’s way repeatedly and regularly, is that eventually, you get somewhat desensitised to fear.

From a young age, it was always a natural instinct that anything that made me afraid I wanted to conquer somehow. And it didn’t much matter what kind or type of fear it was.

Eventually, doing enough martial arts, I got to a point that fear of other human beings being able to do me harm was not really much of a concern.

If you take the time to do the self-reflection, you will find some very interesting things about yourself. I found that in my case, anger was usually the result of a sense of injustice. In general this can be true of most people, since anger is often a reaction to a perceived trespassing of some boundary. But I also noticed that at times it was a reaction to fear. The transition from:

normal—>afraid—>angry

was so quick that it took real effort to notice the fear part. In fact, it presented mostly as:

normal—>angry

But it was the nanosecond of fear that was the key.

If a threat presented, the sense of injustice was the result of a fear of being violated somehow.

A potential mugger, violent threat, or even just an uncaring attack in training in the dojo, done with intent to cause damage from someone that did not understand or apply the principles of honourable violence we operated under, would result in a tiny fraction of a second of fear; of being hurt, or someone I cared about being hurt, and then the anger at the injustice of their action towards me or mine.

Eventually, the fear did not present itself anymore once I had been in these type of situations enough times. A kind of slow motion effect allowed me to process the event in real time even as it happened, and then it became quite clear, even obvious at times, the fear of the other person was instrumental in their own actions, quite often. Which in turn allowed a more measured response from me, that is a calmer reaction, which could mean anything from ignoring a perceived “trespassing” even when it might potentially have been quite serious —even to the point of being amused by it— to a calmer and more precise physical response that worked very well and was far more effective because so much more precise.

But the lesson learnt about the internal mechanisms that fear produces was invaluable. And the key take away for me was that fear is always a lie. In some respect or other, fear is always an illusion. I am in fact known for the statement that fear is always an illusion, a lie, for about three decades.

What I mean by this is not that fear is not at times justified, for it can be, but rather that the process of letting fear determine your reaction is counter-productive. In an ideal situation, if you could always react to any situation with a calm mind, the response will invariably be more effective.

The fear response is designed to activate various autonomous responses as quickly as possible, it is a survival mechanism, and therefore an important part of any living creature’s make-up.

If, however, you manage to gradually desensitise yourself to the fear response in various settings, you can learn to produce a correct response that is not any slower than the fear response, but that has the advantage of being a far more balanced one.

Any effective martial art performed at a high level of realism and intensity for years will create some of this. Correct Systema training will be particularly effective at this, and in my experience is far superior to the other martial arts I have investigated for myself in this respect.

But a conscious understanding of this is also very beneficial, and an experiential knowledge of it is extremely beneficial.

For most normal people leading normal lives, the likelihood of them being able to do this is remote, as this level of self-analysis and experience generally comes only from being repeatedly placed in dangerous or even life-threatening situations. Having experienced many of these from early childhood and then choosing them consciously in teenage years and more so as an adult, one can then begin to develop such conscious thoughts, but even then it is rare, because most people who have such life trajectories are on some level survivors of some intense situations and tend to try to avoid such things later in life. Even if they do not, they can become trapped in a process of trying to “harden” themselves for years. A kind of natural response to potential harm if you can’t get away: fight.

In my experience it is a rare fighter that learns the deeper nature of what triggers him and then adjusts and evolves beyond it. Some do it over a few decades of training but even then, it is usually only partial and remains quite rare.

Only the ones that really push themselves to go as deep as possible within themselves do it. Sometimes life circumstances force them to do so, and sometimes their own internal damage drives them to do so, but it is never a comfortable journey, although, in the best of cases, it is certainly a worthwhile one.

If you do manage to essentially wipe out fear, for the most part, you can still be left with what I would call righteous anger, which is just as fast, but doesn’t have the element of fear as the driving factor. It is its own driver; and maybe can’t even be defined as anger really, at least not in its motive efforts and effects.

An example might be a home invasion by violent attackers. It would be normal to have fear for one’s family in such an event. In fact, most people would remain stuck in that aspect of it. My personal response to it, unless it was an active hostage situation before I could even react, is not, however, fear, nor, in the case I experienced, was it anger. I would say it was best described as hyper-concern.

A guy had broken into the apartment I lived in with my then wife and baby daughter of only a few months. My wife had left a kitchen window open and this guy had snuck in and silently hidden in the hallway behind the baby stroller. When my wife woke up, put the baby on the couch in the lounge and went to do something in the kitchenette she had no idea there was a man hiding in the house. This was her routine at about 5am, when the baby woke and although I would wake when she left the room, the lack of sleep in general would make me fall asleep shortly afterwards. When I heard her scream my name, I was in that deep sleep you fall into in the early morning when you’re exhausted.

I remember opening my eyes while still lying in bed, then the next memory is of me pushing the lounge door open. I have no memory of how I got out of bed, opened the bedroom door, went through it and onto the lounge door, nor what I hit with my knee on the way there, as I realised only once the police had arrived much later, that I had a giant swollen bruise on my knee that had dinged the cartilage. I had felt nothing. I did feel it for the next three weeks or so though.

At the moment of pushing the lounge door open, I distinctly recall my thought, which was crystal clear, fully formed and although it had many parts, was absolutely simple due to it’s clarity. For some reason, I expected there to be three intruders on the other side of the door. The lounge of that small apartment was small and regardless of where my baby daughter or wife would be in it, I knew I would get to my daughter even if one of them had already picked her up and had her. The speed at which I was moving would not let anyone focus on harming the baby, worst case she’d fall if I didn’t catch her after dropping whoever was holding her.

I had the entire layout of the lounge in my head and the thing I was sure of was that whoever was on the other side of that door that didn’t belong there would be neutralised without any holding back or reservation whatsoever, and it would happen as fast as possible. I knew I would only require one hit on anyone that was near my daughter. It wouldn’t matter their size or strength. Something I always had inside me in all the fights and physical confrontations I had, including serious ones, was completely gone: I was absolutely free of any restraint in response.

I even had in my head an instant picture of the lounge and which walls, including the tv screen the ones further from my daughter would be rammed into after I took out the one closest to her.

As divine providence would have it, the guy had already jumped over the couch and ran out the side door before I’d entered the lounge. I never saw him and my sense that there was three of them, prevented me from giving chase in case there was someone else still in the house and I’d be leaving my baby and wife with them.

If that man had been a second or two slower at exiting, or if he’d stopped to threaten my wife, I very much doubt he’d be alive. I am sure my first punch would have knocked him out as well as break my hand badly, but I would not have felt it, and the idea I had of there being three men, means I would not have hesitated to stomp him once he was down, to ensure I could be over my baby daughter without distraction from anyone else.

There was no fear, and no anger. It was simply a state of hyper-concern. I would have felt no more emotion ramming a hypothetical home invader’s head into the concrete wall than I would have felt in putting my shoes on to go to work.

I also know from other experiences that in that state my physical movements become essentially perfect. It is a state I have entered a few times in my life, always in extreme circumstances, and which I have found best described in the book of the void, the fifth and last book of the book of five rings, Go Rin No Sho, by Myamoto Mushashi. The translation by Victor Harris being the best one. It is barely one page long.

Well, I don’t wish it upon you, to enter that state of the void, because if and when you do, in my experience, and that of those I know who have experienced it, it is almost a given you will be in a life and death situation. But… if you should experience it, I think you will know that fear is illusion; and that even death is not really… real. Not as such.

And that time too is somewhat of an illusion. And fear only exists if it can hide behind the speed of emotions, for a calm mind will be able to make fear fade, like shadows in sunlight.

I hope some of this information might be useful in some way.

I often receive random emails from readers, this was one such.

I admit, I have no idea what Bear Grylls gets up to, I have never found him remotely interesting and always assumed he was a ticket taking fake, but I have never personally looked into any of it.

He just simply always looked like a fraud to me from the get go. To what degree and detail is the case, I admit, is not of particular interest to me, it remains simply higher than I am comfortable with, in my opinion.

Update: the woman I was taking about is Sharyl Attkisson. You can read her story here.

I think it was on twitter some decade ago I first became aware of shadowbanning. Since then, the effect has been constantly growing.

In the sense that it has become more and more obvious.

The flip side is the artificially augmented boosting that the gatekeepers get.

Every single one of the tech players do it and facebook was also caught essentially stealing advert revenue because people who paid for ads would have rather unimpressive exposure if they were not current narrative friendly.

YouTube does it, Google does it, they all do it.

So, for people who have not bought a ticket, the only way is for literal word-of-mouth marketing and manual linking to the person being shadowbanned. Even then they can mess with your contact emails, make your site “invisible” to prospective clients and many such examples.

I also have had what I call psyops emails for years, on and off, depending more or less on my online activity. I also had my phone and computer hacked a number of times over the last three decades. These were sophisticated attacks that according to IT professionals that investigated it, at least on some occasions were state level actors.

There have also been attacks from private entities, but the nature of those is more well known to me.

My point is simply that big brother has been active in a way I have personally been able to confirm at least since 1995. And I was aware of their abilities since the very early 90s.

I am not particularly troublesome, but I had some experiences that can draw attention to you, and invariably there are state actors that given little or no oversight can and do decide to “have some fun”. A relatively well-done aspect of this, at least as far as Hollywood goes, is the attitude of the spooks in the old film Enemy of the State, with Will Smith.

The private hackers are invariably more malicious, well, on a day to day basis I mean. When the state actors become vicious you’re literally screwed. Note for example the lady who was smart enough to figure out the FBI was uploading child porn to their computer to try and frame her husband. I forgot the name, as it was a while back, but she undoubtedly saved him years of jail time. Given the last 3 years, Edward Snowden and so on, I think it is clear even to the average normie that if you are targeted by state actors with malicious intent, you’re pretty much screwed.

None of this is news to me, as both the reality and the trajectory of it all was clear to me by about 1992/1993, nor should it be to you.

I also don’t believe in self-censorship all that much, beyond the obvious emotionally charged hyperbole. Ultimately, ruling you by the fear in your own mind is the goal.

And yet, the self-censorship that has resulted in the last 30 years is quite astonishing, and has progressed pretty much along the lines that I predicted way back then and later put in writing more than a decade ago.

So, if you get shadowbanned, consider it a badge of honour to some extent. If nothing else, it shows you’re probably not a ticket taker.

Recents commentary on SG has revived some chatter about Bruce Charlton, which, I personally concluded is an intellectual coward; something I have trouble making any allowance for, and hence, I have largely ignored Bruce since late 2022.

Bruce has undeniably some positives here and there, his short pamphlet available on the internet entitled addicted to distraction is quite brilliant and I suggest everyone reads it.

That said, the man is completely incoherent despite his claims of Christianity being a net positive and true, he persists in polluting it with essentially utterly heretical, illogical and nonsensical fluctuating positions.

My last blog post on it was this one, to which he later responded with a comment on his site thus:

@Gf – Fine, that’s good. Those Roman Catholics who disagree with your assumptions can now see more clearly where their assumptions differ, and whether they personally regard their different assumptions as correct, or not. 

I must say, though, it’s a bit childish – because clearly false – to assert in your Headline that I don’t understand Roman Catholicism At All; simply because we disagree about the institutions essential actuality! 

Ummm… except he goes on to totally prove he really has no clue in the very next paragraph.

That aside; in particular I disagree 100% and with absolute personal certainty with your first and foundational assumption “1. The Catholic Church is the one and ONLY Church instituted on Earth by God.”- and by its implication (I presume) that you assume there is no salvation outside of (whatever you define as) the RCC.  

He states this is my personal certainty, which is true enough, and I mentioned it in that post as one of the baseline assumptions of Catholicism (Sedevacantism being the only Catholicism left). I had assumed that Bruce understood the baseline reason why this is axiomatic for anyone who considers themselves Catholic, since it is simple enough a child understands it.

Either Christianity is true or it is not, there is no grey area here. And if Christianity is true, God is a loving God who doesn’t lie, which means He would leave a Way for the truth to be known and followed and remain infallible and uncorrupted, despite humans being all flawed, until the end of days, that is, His return, as stated quite clearly in the Bible. So… IF like Bruce pretends to do, you accept Christianity is true, and given that for over a thousand years there was no other Christianity but Catholicism, complete with Popes and so on, you can only reasonably conclude that Catholicism MUST have been true. At least for at least 1054 years. After that you might be excused if you erroneously think the Eastern “Orthodox” carried on the One True Church. Well… if you are absolutely lazy and intentionally remain ignorant of all history for the last nearly 1000 years. Because the Eastern “Orthodox” did not proselytise, made deals with the Muslims, retreated in the face of conquest, asked for help from the Catholics AFTER their schism and then backstabbed the crusaders who came to help them repeatedly, right up to teaming up with the Muslims to kill them; not once, not twice, but three crusades in a row. Then whined and bitched like victims for the next 900 years when the fourth crusade sacked Constantinople. They even refused to simply take over the fortresses that the Catholics built and maintained in the Outremer for two centuries, when the European resources were finally drying up. They didn’t stop the invasion of Malta, and in any case, they have their own, insular, almost Jewish factions, and currently various splits too.

So you’d be foolish at beat to think the Eastern “Orthodox” are where the infallible Church of God resides. And the very idea that another sect, that promptly split into thousands of factions of Protestantism, 500 years later still is the true Church is clearly ridiculous. Particularly since it was started by an ethnically Jewish theological hitman called Martin, with gluttony, vulgarity and rape of maids and a fetish for sex with nuns as his main personality traits, who ultimately hung himself from his bedpost (possibly in erotic auto-asphyxiation gone wrong).

Given the above, it really does not take Sherlock Holmes powers of reasoning to conclude that Catholicism is it. At which point, you need to familiarise yourself with what Catholicism is, and what its rules are.

And when you do, you realise that by those very rules, two things become immediately clear:

1. Catholicism creates the best society possible for human beings.

2. The Vatican II abomination and its resulting Novus Ordo “Church” are clearly the antithesis of Catholicism.

Given these readily provable and knowable facts, and the level of logic even a child can grasp, since what is true cannot be false, and vice versa, if you accept Christianity as being true, then:

1. Catholicism is Christianity

2. Catholicism is true

3. All that is not Catholicism is false

4. Catholicism is the only way to salvation

There are some nuances, but in broad terms this is it. So, pretending that the axiomatic point that Catholicism is the ONLY true Church, is merely a personal choice is either utterly ignorant, or the conclusion of someone too stupid to do basic research and basic logic, or, the intentional lie of a gnostic deceiver.

You’ll see that I assumed (as charity dictates) that Bruce is merely an ignorant, and a hit and miss thinker. This despite his clearly gnostic tendencies, not to mention absurdist notions of Mormonism being in any way valid. Truly, if you don’t know the story of Mormonism I suggest you go to the theatre and watch the Book of Mormon, it’s not historically perfect, but it is hilarious and effectively points out some of the complete nonsense of that made up cult.

My conviction is rooted in a primary understanding of God the Creator as our Heavenly Father who Loves us all as His individual children – and the utter inconceivability that such a personage would set-up mortal life on this earth (and all its incredible variety of situations through persons, time and place) – and with this mortal life being directed-at salvation – to have such absolute dependence on the contingencies of any possible human institution. 

What did I say? The man is either supremely ignorant of Christianity as a whole, or pretending to be. The Catholic Church has human servants in it, from the Pope (currently not present since 1958) to the last layman, none of which are infallible. The Church, and the Pope, when there is one and he is speaking ex cathedra only, are infallible not because of any human attributes, but because it is supernaturally protected from error by God Himself. As a Loving God would. The Church is not a human institution at all, it is a divine one, populated by humans here on Earth, and infallible through God’s Grace and nothing else!

But apparently Bruce, in Bruce-logic land, thinks a loving omnipotent God would set up a flawed, corruptible, “Church”.

No, Bruce. No. God gave us free will, so we are free to ignore Him and His Church, but if we but choose to look and investigate, it becomes clear very fast what the DEMONSTRABLE FACTS are.

I can understand that – in earlier eras and places – Men did not distinguish the individual from the group in the way that we now cannot help doing.

What a lot of unsubstantiated nonsense. Pure invention with millions of counter examples to discredit it all over the place at all times of history.

Each Man experienced himself in terms of the groups to which he belonged – mostly by birth. To be separated was not to be himself. 

Again, what utter rubbish. Scouts existed at all periods of history. They mixed with other tribes and races and cultures.

Therefore life and salvation used to be (necessarily) conceptualized in terms of groups. men were (mostly unconsciously, unaware of any alternatives) immersed in the groups into which they were born and grew. The religions that grew were spontaneously church-based and church-led – nothing else was even possible; and that was good and right for those times and places.  

And here we see the modernist, secular, gnostic, nonsense raise its beastly head. There are plenty of communities where the truth binds them as a people of one faith, without wiping out their individuality, in fact, Catholicism has always done this. And continues to do so.

But now, especially in The West, almost the opposite is the case. We find it difficult or impossible to consider ourselves primarily in terms of our group membership;

Don’t judge the world by your own measure, Bruce.

and confront an alienated world, cut off inside our own consciousness – and often seeking escape from this alienation by distraction and drugs. 

Again, speak for yourself. While distraction (in all its forms, pornography, wealth, drugs, materialism in general, entertainment, etc) is pervasive, it has always existed. Is it more prevalent today? Sure. But being “cut off” from “others” cannot be done unless you are first “cut off” from your own inner self and inner nature. In short, only those who do not know themselves fall so easily to it all. And the primary culprit for this lack of self-awareness is lack of hardship.

We must now (and indeed do, in practice) accept own our ultimate responsibility for our personal salvation;

It was always this way, Bruce. There has never been a magical group discount to salvation!

Where do you even come up with such specious nonsense?

and I think it is unhelpful to pretend otherwise;

No one here is “pretending” anything, except you Bruce; making up weird “psychological” theories that would have that other fantasist, Freud, blush.

and try (but fail) to make ‘obedience’ primary – when what the ancients considered obedience is literally impossible in a situation when we Must *choose* who exactly to believe and obey; and must choose frequently. 

Seriously, are you this dimwitted or are you in fact an intentional deceiver?

Are you implying, with a straight face, that salvation was, or is, or can be, achieved by forcing obedience on people?!? Really Bruce? Are you sure you’re not a closet Muslim? They believe that shit. Christians sure don’t.

The obedience is self imposed, dummy.

No one forced me to become Catholic. Or to go to Mass. Or to confess. Or to believe Catholic dogma. I choose it. As does every Catholic. We choose to obey. It is the paramount dogma of Catholicism that no one can be forced to become a Catholic, it must be freely chosen, without any coercion at all, by anyone!

It might be said that our great task nowadays is to become conscious of (and understand) much that was previously unconscious (and implicit); and then to take responsibility for our choices. 

Again, pure psychobabble nonsense. Every man, in every age, in every culture, since the very first man, and until the very last one, has had to, does now, and always will in the future, have to learn as much as he can about himself and the world, and whether he knows it or not, likes it or not, wants to or not, always, will, take responsibility (willingly or not) for his choices. Because that is how reality works Bruce.

And that is why at best Bruce is evasive (cowardly) in his thinking. And I’ve not even brought up his “Mormonism Lite” here.

I hope that clarifies things for all the SG denizens.

There are only a few requirements really.

As long as you’re willing to ignore, if not actually partake, in the rampant child sex abuse and satanic lifestyle and rituals, you really only need one of two requirements:

Belong to a specific over-represented ethnicity, and/or, just don’t be obese.

Not being obese in the USA already makes you a complete outlier. This was already true in 1996, when I first visited it. My more recent visit in October 2019, was too brief to get a decent sample size view of things, but certainly, What I did see was large all over.

It’s not a perfect metric, as it’s anecdotal and somewhat unconscious, but, being male, when you visit a new country or area, aside from special interests you may have of geography, architecture, cultural specific events or whatever, something you’ll notice is how the women look. For example, walking in Oxford street in central London, you will see hundreds of objectively beautiful women in the space of an hour or so on the crowded sidewalks.

The same is true proportionally in smaller European cities, be they Rome, Turin, Berlin, Dublin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, or many others you might pick at random. And some countries, like Kazakhstan, although relatively sparsely populated, have a very high percentage of objectively beautiful women. Some may be relatively ethnically invariant, like Japan, and for some that might be not their cup of tea, yet, once again, there are plenty of objectively beautiful women in Tokyo. Something one can still note even if perhaps they have a thing for tall blonde girls.

The first time I visited the USA, however, I was in my late twenties and on that trip I was single, so that particular radar was rather active, which is why I remember precisely that when I went to visit my brother, who lived within walking distance of Berkley University, so a large student campus, it was three weeks before I saw what I considered to be a beautiful woman. And she was Indian. It left me a rather bad taste regarding the US in general.

There were other factors too, that made me think I’d never want to live there, but as an overall sense of the place, it didn’t leave a good impression. And I honestly think it has to do with what passes for “food” in the USA.

Anyway, that’s my advice for fame in the USA: Not being obese puts you on the short list.

Most of the things I do which matter to me, since childhood, are difficult for me to put into words. Especially words that make sense to other people, and even more difficult, that actually translate a meaningful amount of my real motivation, intention or sense of things.

It is, essentially, why I write. And why my non-fiction is generally peppered with footnotes and references, as well as being rather verbose, though generally I am not thought of as boring despite the usual length of my non-fiction works.

In part it’s because in each instance, each book is pretty much a conclusive reference work for the whole topic and covers it holistically and as fully as anything can be covered. You can see this in each of the three topics I covered so far, each of which has behind it a few decades of interest in one way or other, though that is not always immediately obvious to those who don’t know me personally.

The Face on Mars covered not just the anomalies on Mars, but antigravity technology, human history, Egyptian pyramid details and history, solar system history, Biblical history, Tesla’s work, astronomy in general, and gives enough basic science and historical space exploration information that would allow anyone even only partially interested to have many jumping off points.

Systema: The Russian Martial System was written to both de-mythologise some of the cults of personality that were building up around Systema, as well as the quasi-cult aspects crediting supernatural aspects that in reality are purely scientific and have a very sound foundation in advanced human performance science, which —admittedly— the Russians (Soviets to be precise) developed and have knowledge of far in advance of the West. As a result, it initially upset the status quo initially but to date has generally been quietly accepted by serious practitioners and remains the most comprehensive work of its kind. It succeeded indeed in explaining the little known aspects of military science that are the basis on which Systema was developed, as well as introduce how to apply such principles in ways that will benefit any physical endeavour (with concomitant psychological benefits). So much so that people who practice martial arts unrelated to Systema that have read the book and apply the lessons in it, experience jumps in ability at their chosen martial art that surprise both them and their training partners.

Reclaiming the Catholic Church exposes the deception of —and details the heresy present in— Vatican II, while detailing also who did it, why, and how. And how actual Catholicism is diametrically opposed to the usurping, fake, and literally demonic, current Novus Ordo “Catholic” Church, run by that arch-enemy of mankind, Bergoglio. And how it has been this way since 1958, making Sedevacantism the only Catholicism left. Responding to every single objection that has ever been raised against Sedevacantism. It also lays out the original virtues of actual Catholicism, the courage and infinite faith of its practitioners, and the simple historical fact that they forged, and ultimately created, all that is best about Western civilisation; a fact that no honest historian can deny, regardless of their specific religious beliefs, the best case in point being Rodney Stark.

In my fiction, the path is much easier, there I just need to describe a story, and my imagination was always good in this regard, I routinely won essay competitions at school based certainly not on my grammar but the ideas in the stories.

I mention all this, not to boast, but, as is my nature when trying to explain one of those difficult to verbalise concepts, to provide enough evidence that, hopefully, an objective observer can satisfy him or herself that I am telling the demonstrable truth, without hyperbole or exaggeration.

I have found this to be necessary in my life, though it was only in my early 40s that I realised the reason was the IQ gap, and that an easier way to get along with most humans was to simply avoid the issue altogether or to dumb it down to a point that it may as well be better to keep silent. But what would be the point of that? After all, the point is to share some useful or interesting consideration for the benefit, interest or entertainment of all.

One of the benefits of blogging is that I do not need to interact endlessly with each person that raises the usual objections (which in 99% of cases have already been addressed in the very points I make, if only they considered them before reacting in usual “But…” fashion). And I can simultaneously reach many more people. They can choose to ignore, disbelieve, dismiss my thoughts, experience and factual presentation of objective truths without disturbing me further, and those who instead are interested (always a minority) can continue to interact in a mutually fruitful way.

While concepts of astronomy, human history, martial arts and models of reality that best serve humanity might be sometimes difficult to explain in words, they are, approximately, like explaining the two times table instead of advanced calculus when compared to trying to explain the mechanism of my internal processes.

I do not need to explain anything important to myself in words. Since as far back as I remember, and I remember being younger than 2 years old, before my brother was born, my internal processes have always been instinctive, wordless, fully formed, and essentially not often mistaken. My internal ability to process, or perceive, the natural and good path of what I can only describe as the numinous, has always been good. My personal decisions may not always be wise, correct, or in any way “safe”, especially for me, but my sensing of the path of what I might call “light” for lack of a better word, is seldom ever wrong, though I obviously cannot give you satisfactory evidence for this. Whether I always take it or not is another topic.

I would say that almost all of my important life decisions have been made with that internal sense inside me. I think of it as the instinct of my heart, leading me sometimes down impossible pathways and dangerous, uncharted territory, but always that being the only way I see to hold true to myself and my sense of the numinous I mentioned. And that sense of the numinous embodies all sorts of concepts for which words are such a miserly approximation as to make them insulting, were it not for their being the only way we have to try to transmit the concepts across. It embodies, in shifting eddies of importance based on the specific situation or event: honour, the holding true to yourself, the truth, putting loved ones before your very life, holding the line even in the face of terror, death and a hopeless battle with infinite enemies of Love. Justice, related to honour, and more, duty. Law and order for all, the steel wall of truth in the face of lies. Strength or fortitude, the will to hold on when there is nothing left in your flesh to do so and your spirit is broken, tired and defeated. Beauty, that necessary balm to allow you to survive the duties of honour, justice and strength or fortitude, and hidden most, in the deepest centre of it all, Love; without which, nothing at all matters.

Such is my engine, and my eyes and my motive force, and my faith in it is yes, my own, but also far more than me. It is rooted in the ultimate truth that without this truth, all is nothing and all is meaningless and as it clearly is not that, God is. And God is Love.

So.

Sometimes —most times— I will not be able to explain it to anyone else. Some, a few, may be able to sense it at times. My son, my daughters, my wife, a friend, my father, my brother. Maybe. But in any case it will not matter nor alter my course, for ultimately, my service, my duty, my absolute devotion, is to that truth. That Love. That which most men, without having anything but the faintest of ideas of what He really is, call God.

Which brings me to the point of this particular entry, and for which, I am sure, this introduction will be deemed overkill by most. Especially anyone who ever appended the title “editor” to their name.

The Valley of the Saints. Why do that? What’s it really for? That sticky post at the top there, what’s it all about? Isn’t it just a way to raise money? Surely.

Sure. In the material world of things, that corrupt travesty of reality we all inhabit, the dominion of the adversary, you can see it as just a cynical way to raise cash. Especially if you are a secularist with little to no belief in actual Catholicism. But if you think that is the main reason or purpose it was created or came into being, you’d be wrong.

I cannot explain the intent, the origin, or the impetus for doing it, other than it is a tiny, almost imperceptible, yet unstoppable, undeviating force that comes from my centre though it is rooted outside of me.

Wordless to me, and as such, largely unknown to my conscious, word-filled brain, but absolute and eternal to my cells and heart and bone marrow.

And now, that you who have done so have put your money and your intention, and your own hearts and motive force in motion towards this too, I have proof. Not that I needed it for myself, and not that I can transmit it satisfactorily to anyone else, but perhaps, in the telling of it, a shadow of its light will reflect and be recognised within you too.

The naming of trees after saints or loved ones passed on, and even one archangel so far, the prayers I offer to them and the people who do the naming, they all join together somehow, like invisible lines of force on the spiritual aether, and more rarefied and subtle than even Maxwell’s equations, they resonate, invisible to the human eyes and the stunned and fooled human heart, but all-perceptible to those hearts that still sense their connection to God, whose word for Him: God, is such a truly tiny, almost entirely meaningless scribble that it would be an obscene blasphemy were it not for His infinite Love, that makes it humorous to Him even as I write these pitiful words to try to explain my ever-fallible attempts at listening to Him and acting for His glory, extremely aware that most times I just muddy His name by associating it at all with myself in any way. And yet He loves me. And He loves you. Yes he does. You specifically, in detail, and the Saint you want to honour, and the loved one you miss or care about or revere. And what is more, what is the real miracle, is that he knows you. He knows me. He knows us in all our pettiness, weakness, disloyalty, viciousness, unworthiness, and still, and yet, He truly Loves us.

I still struggle with that, and most days I put it out of my mind, for such Love hurts. It hurts in a way that heals us. Having that Love radiate at you is like having a force squeezing all your impurities out of you, like a fever of sweating out all your evil deeds and thoughts and perversions and weaknesses. It hurts like it hurt me to walk around Venice at night, alone, in 2016. It hurts like looking at a painting of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci. It hurts you with infinite Love, like the pure and innocent smile of my blue-eyed baby daughter, or blonde-haired son, or the knowing, cheeky smile of my happy, relentless little daughter number three, the forceful hug of my stepdaughter, or the gentle one of my eldest.

But this small valley I watch over now, is slowly and surely, inexorably, changing and becoming somehow brighter. That light of the numinous that no one can define but all who have felt it recognise. And with each named tree, each prayer made, each thank you written and thought and whispered, somehow, we all of us grow. And that light begins to spread in ways we cannot know, and touches others and helps them too. Helps them reach and feel and know, find and sense, that Love. That Love that hurts. And that we, all of us, need so much.

Thank you all who have contributed and who continue to do so and will do so in the future.

I don’t know how, exactly, even if I sense it, and I cannot explain it to you, much less with worldly proofs to satisfy the lost, but somehow, you are helping create a power, a sense, a light, that creates a peace over the valley I watch over; not as “owner” but merely as guardian for a time. As long as I can, while here. And I promise, my prayers for your Saints and your loved ones and for you, are as true and good as I know how to make them. And in the doing them, you better me. You help push me into that light, that Love that hurts. It is for this I thank you. And I pray, I truly pray, that each of you fees some of it too, that you can sense at least as much of it as you are helping me feel. And hopefully a lot more too. Truly, thank you, every one, with all my heart. May God bless and cleanse and help every one of you feel His Love.

It has been my experience that the Russians have always had a far more objective perspective on the whole UFO issue than the more sensationalist and hyperbolic Americans.

I have discussed my own experiences with UFOs, to some degree, before. The event is also described in my The Face on Mars and was a widely reported on event in South Africa at the time, as the UFOs in question travelled along the main highway if South Africa, the N1 in a way and number large enough that not just normal citizens saw them, but entire police stations did.

My personal assessment has been in line with the one outlined at the article linked to above.

Gen. Nikolai T. Antoshkin, the commander of a dangerous helicopter firefighting operation in which he and other pilots braved radiation exposure to contain the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, passed away in 2021. He fought in several of the country’s wars and had a long military career. 

During that career he made a brief appearance in a Russian documentary sharing his experiences with UFOs during his military career as a pilot. In that documentary he also expressed that these UFOs are from advanced civilizations who are, in some way we don’t quite understand, keeping tabs on our civilization to make sure we don’t completely destroy the planet. 

He also emphasized that these objects are commonly observed near facilities where the situation is “unstable.” These include nuclear and chemical weapons facilities. 

In 2012, then Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev actually referenced the documentary, stating that their government knows that we are being visited. Mainstream media outlets actually picked up on the story and claimed he was joking. 

What makes his (Antoshkin) claims seem more credible is the fact that it’s a matter of public record that UFOs are commonly spotted near or within the vicinity of nuclear weapons facilities. ‘

In June 2021, Luis Elizondo, former director of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program emphasized this fact in an interview with the Washington Post. He explained how it’s a global phenomenon, that these objects have interfered with and brought nuclear weapon launching capabilities completely offline.

I know a lot of Protestants especially believe UFOs to essentially be demonic events, however, I see no reason why extraterrestrial visitations of a real nature and demonic events masquerading as such are in any way mutually exclusive. Both can be true, although, in my experience, they are qualitatively different.

In The Face on Mars, I explain in logical detail, with all the relevant evidence, why such extraterrestrial beings would be very likely pacifist in nature, at least with regards to obvious, external, weapons of mass destruction. And why if they were nefarious, their modus operandi would likely be of a subtler, insidious nature rather than overt military hostilities.

A more cinematic view is presented in my fiction series The Overlords of Mars, but the logic stands in both cases.