Praise for

The Gentle Traditionalist Returns

Sequels are generally darker than the original, and The Gentle Traditionalist Returns is no exception. The Gentle Traditionalist was a charming, delightful book which dramatized an encounter between a mysterious Catholic sage and a well-meaning agnostic. I know at least one soul who was led to the Faith by that book’s novel and creative exposition of the Catholic Mystery. In this sequel, the Gentle Traditionalist faces not a benevolent agnostic, but a slick and sinister spiritual guru—and the fate of an idealistic young woman hangs in the balance. The personal drama of the main story is mirrored by the backdrop: an Ireland where the forces of secular-liberalism, held at bay for so long by the Catholic Church, are now making spectacular progress. The book is set in the run-up to the 2018 abortion referendum, which sought to remove Ireland’s long-held constitutional protection of the unborn child. Although this is a darker book than its predecessor, it would be wrong to assume that it is a depressing read. It builds to an extraordinary conclusion, which left me with a heightened awareness of the spiritual warfare raging all around us, and a renewed eagerness to “fight the good fight.” It is not only a compelling story, but a brilliant diagnosis of the spiritual malaise of modern society, written with gentleness, generosity, humour, pathos… and, above all else, love.

—MAOLSHEACHLANN Ó CEALLAIGH, author of Inspiration from the Saints

Roger Buck’s character, the “Gentle Traditionalist,” returns with a vengeance in this stand-alone sequel. In Buck’s first book, his protagonist was converted to Catholicism by the charm and arguments of the title character. But said protagonist is now married to a devout Catholic woman; though, happy as their marriage is, a shadow drops across it as the wife’s cousin takes up with a self-important New Age teacher. The Gentle Traditionalist re-enters their lives to argue with said Teacher—quite literally for the cousin’s soul. Once again, Buck shows his ability to weave together modern religion and politics—and the many defects found therein. Set against the backdrop of modern Ireland’s headlong flight from sanity, this book skewers the modern malaise with the kind of sanity we have come to expect from this author.

—CHARLES COULOMBE, author of A Catholic Quest for the Holy Grail

Once again, Roger Buck has shown himself to be a prophet in the tradition of Ezekiel; he is the watchman on the wall. Buck’s experience as a convert from New Age activism has uniquely fitted him for this vocation. Like Ezekiel, Buck has followed pathways that seem strange, even bizarre. Yet it is these very experiences that invest his writing with an unparalleled and compelling authenticity. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this man has been raised up by God at this time to warn us of the danger not only at our gates, but already all around us.

—GERARD O’SHEA, author of Educating in Christ

Those who were charmed by Roger Buck’s previous books—well, prepare to be charmed again, but also warned and given plenty of food for thought. This book strikes a more somber note, but one tuned to the timbre of our times. Read it and tune in.

—THOMAS STORCK, author of An Economics of Justice and Charity

The Gentle Traditionalist Returns is a welcome visit from an old friend. Not burdened by the mean-spiritedness of much of what poses as Catholic Traditionalism, Roger Buck’s delightful narrative—as the title assures us—gently leads the reader into a new perspective on the Catholic Mystery. An absolutely refreshing read!

—MICHAEL MARTIN, author of Transfiguration: Notes Toward a Radical Catholic Reimagination of Everything

The

Gentle

Traditionalist

Returns

First published in the USA and UK

by Angelico Press

© Roger Buck 2019

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, without permission

For information, address:

Angelico Press

169 Monitor St.

Brooklyn, NY 11222

angelicopress.com

isbn 978-1-62138-502-8 (ebook)

Cover Design: Michael Schrauzer

This book bears a dual dedication

First to the countless future babies in Ireland who will be killed in their mothers’ wombs, owing to the decision in the Irish Referendum of May 25th, 2018 to repeal anti-abortion legislation, the last significant legacy of Catholic law in Ireland.

And second to that great soul who counted the immense human cost of theological, social and economic liberalism, with a heart in pain. Hilaire Belloc, I never knew you, but you nonetheless remain the beloved mentor to whom these pages owe more than words can possibly express.

C O N T E N T S

A Cautionary Set of Acknowledgments…

I – Do Not Despair

II – Anna

III – Ireland

IV – Brigid

V – A World Turning Mad?

VI – Belloc

VII – LightShadow

VIII – A Love Revolution?

IX – The Gold Exchange

X – Thunder

XI – “A Divisive Omniphobic Religious Ritual”

XII – “I Guess I Found Something Better”

XIII – A Prayer Answered

XIV – A Zebra Meets a Dinosaur

XV – The Inclusiveness Illusion

XVI – On Human Suffering

XVII – The Real Ultimate Sacrament

XVIII – “Deprived of the Universal Remedy”

XIX – The Anglosphere and Eastern Esotericism

XX – A New Provincial Spirituality?

XXI – Economic Liberalism and the New Age

XXII – It Takes Two…

XXIII – Tragedy and Hope

XXIV – A Voice from the Past

XXV – The Unravelling

XXVI – “Keep your Head in Hell”

XXVII – The Sword of the Emperor

XXVIII – Making Catholicism Visible

XXIX – Angels, Saints and Knights

XXX – Donegal Postscript

Afterword Occultism and the Easternization of the Anglosphere

A Cautionary Set

of Acknowledgments…

I COMMENCE with an ambiguous debt. The following novel features two New Age characters—one good-natured and naive, the other decidedly less so—that I could never have penned, had I not known countless folk like them, during four decades of experience with the “holistic” scene. (As I explain in the afterword, I was for many years a New Age activist, spending also nearly three years at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, which can lay a claim to being the seminal centre for the New Age movement.)

This means I have engaged untold people the likes of whom most Catholics never encounter. As I hope this book makes clear, sincere observant Catholics and New Agers are often like “ships in the night” who scarcely register each others’ actuality. And even if they do, they may barely be able to believe that people with such different views exist (“How can you possibly believe all that jazz?!”).

An Irish reader of this manuscript brought this problem home to me: my friend had trouble conceiving the New Age characters’ comportment in these pages. Alas, for me, such reactions evidence a frightening lack of awareness among Catholics about the things New Agers truly are saying, doing and thinking everywhere—with vast consequence for the Christian culture of the West.

Indeed, as these words are written, Marianne Williamson is an official candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary elections for US president. Marianne Williamson is also a number-one New York Times bestselling author of books inspired by A Course in Miracles, a key New Age text allegedly dictated by “Jesus,” in which “Jesus” appears to undermine the entire edifice of Christianity. Whilst no one need lose sleep at the prospect of a “president from Aquarius,” the phenomenon surely demonstrates just how large this massive “tanker in the night” has grown in recent times. It goes without saying that, not so long ago, most Americans could scarcely imagine such a presidential candidate, let alone watch her in nationally televised debates!

In a sense, then, this book is likewise indebted not only to countless New Agers I have known in real life, but also to New Age authors like Williamson and “Jesus” whom I once esteemed.[1]

That being said, I would stress that most New Agers are not consciously out to subvert Christianity. The vast majority are like my good-natured, gullible character: sincere, idealistic, but swept up in modernity and not carefully thinking things through. The more sinister New Ager in this novel is truly a rarity, something of a composite of all the worst New Age features rolled into one. Few, if any, New Agers embody all these at once, and it is not without regret that I depict this figure in this manner.

Now to move on to more conventional—and happier!— acknowledgments. First, I thank my beloved Kim, my light, my love, my joy—and a great editor! My other joy, my beautiful daughter Mary, also contributed to this book in an unexpected fashion.

Great love and critical challenges over decades from Georg Nicolaus helped shape this book, as they have all my other writing. Apparently endless kindness from Mark Anderson, likewise over decades, has supported me more than words can say.

Thanks go to my friend Tracy Tucciarone, a fighter for Catholic Tradition at FishEaters on the web (http://fisheaters.com). Her large heart and tireless effort over years are never appreciated enough.

I thank John Riess and James Wetmore of Angelico Press for believing in me. Far more important, though, is their intense commitment to Christ, which has made Angelico such an extraordinary beacon of hope in this darkened time. Similarly, my copy-editor and fellow Angelico author Peter Kwasniewski radiates a clarity that graced this book, as his own books carry luminous graces to many more.

Yet another shining, though very different, Angelico author, Michael Martin, is owed thanks. His influence may not be obvious, but it is profound, working in my depths, giving me hope and élan.

Then, there is my friend Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh, an Irish author whose first book was recently published by Angelico. Not only did he offer invaluable advice and encouragement, his profound love and understanding of Ireland carry a special torch for this country. Long may it flame!

Stephen and Nikita Tyrrell have provided me with inspiration for Ireland of a different sort, as well as illumining comments on my manuscript.

Also Charles A. Coulombe’s joyous celebration of the miracles of Christendom, penetrating insight into enduring American Puritanism, and unfailing kindness have blessed me beyond measure.

Another tribute is owed to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. Their sacred Latin liturgy and Salesian charity have uplifted me, whilst living in four different countries, France, Spain, England, and Ireland.

I also honour Ireland, especially the rural Ireland I have witnessed whilst inhabiting Counties Clare, Wicklow and Tyrone. I have dwelt amidst nine different peoples in my life, but none have ever touched me as profoundly as the Irish. Of course, the Irish are not without their faults (as neither is any fallen people in this world). But never have I found such kindness, warmth, generosity and piety as in my eight years living here. What I write about the mysterious, Christic Irish in this novel is closely based on real experience that has sometimes left me gaping in astonishment.

And, in alphabetical order, I express my warm gratitude to Manuela Andolina, Nathan Banks, Chris Buck, John and Romany Buck, Kelly Calegar, Michael and Eva Frensch, David House, whilst noting other old friends in the silent appreciation of the heart.

When I am weak, then I am strong.

St Paul to the Corinthians

I

Do Not Despair

WHEN I came to my senses, everything was dim. Outside, wind howled. Heavy rain pelted down on a roof far, far above me. I was lying on a hard, wood floor and my head throbbed. Had someone hit me when my back was turned? I was too groggy to say.

And where was I? It seemed to be the cellar of a once-grand palatial residence. Whatever it was, the wind and rain battered the edifice harder now. I had the sense of shutters and tiles being ripped off, as though everything were being swept away. Far in the distance, thunder pealed. But closer by came whimpering. I could just about discern a small dog cowering beneath a nightstand. Poor, terrified creature, I thought.

Then, above me, further sounds—but more like human whimpering. In the faint light, I scried a spiral staircase. Pushing my aching body up, I staggered towards it and started my ascent.

Then, halfway up the stairs, a door. Behind it, quiet weeping. Should I knock? But sudden anxiety gripped my heart and I trembled. Instead, I stooped, peering through the large keyhole into a room, dimly lit. The elegant figure of a woman in a nightgown was visible, her head bent in sorrow. Between her hands, she fingered a Rosary. Its silver crucifix glinted in the pale light. Words, faltering, came to her lips:

Ave Maria, gratia plena,

Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus,

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

Then, overcome by grief, she broke down. But clutching the Rosary tighter, she continued:

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

Amen.

Did I dare disturb her grief or interrupt her sacred intercourse? Hesitating, I heard still more human sounds, further up the stairway. Once more, I spiralled upwards. The thunder was distinctly closer now.

At the top of the stairs, heavy folds of velvet blocked my way. Inching the curtains open, I saw three men in shadows. Someone struck a match and lit a candle. A small halo of light fell across a low table in their midst. On it stood an antique telephone with a separate handset and receiver. Piles of papers surrounded it. I could even make out the words on one document. Large capital letters said: DANGER—PLAN B REQUIRED.

One man said, “I told you, Gilbert, the situation is worse than you realise.”

The second said, “Another intervention below?”

The third said, “Yes, the danger to the women and all the little ones demands it.”

My eyes grew ever more accustomed to the dim light. I could almost make out the first two figures now. I stared in disbelief. For they very much resembled Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Both men appeared in their mid-sixties, as they were in the 1930s, when they spearheaded a Catholic revival in England. And both appeared serious, grim even, which jarred with the mirthful image we have of Chesterton today. But how could they be here in the twenty-first century?! Or was I peering through a portal to the past? Certainly, the antiquated telephone suggested that possibility.

Then, that antique rang! For a brief instant, the third man’s hand flashed through the small circle of light, seizing the receiver. In that moment, I saw it clearly. It was large and fleshy, and the middle finger bore a golden ring with an enormous red stone. I had seen that hand before…

“Do not despair,” the third man said. “I am coming.”

Then, he put the receiver down hard.

Suddenly, a deafening clap of thunder and lighting! For a split-second, the entire room lit up. In that instant, I saw the tall, rotund form of the third man, his hair and beard white as snow. I saw the faded tweed jacket. It was the Gentle Traditionalist.

With a start, I woke up.

II

Anna

IT was 5 a.m. I rose from my bed and stared out the window. Rosy dawn crept through the Limerick streets, slowly transforming their shadows into pale, tentative colour. Limerick, of course, is in Ireland. And it was my new home after moving there from London. Then, I looked at Anna, asleep in her nightgown. Anna is my wife. She’s English like me, except in her heart. Anna’s heart has always been Irish.

Was she the woman in my dream? Anna suffered, I knew. Maybe, though, I didn’t see how much. Was the dream a warning? I brushed the thought aside. Back then, I still couldn’t face the truth.

We were happily married, I told myself, blissful newlyweds. Moreover, moving to Ireland was Anna’s dream come true. Her father had been Irish, and even as a child, she wanted to leave England for a country she found magical. But Ireland was no longer the magical land of her far-away childhood holidays. Its Catholic culture was being destroyed. Even I could see that. But my heart didn’t bleed, like Anna’s did.

It took me so long to wake up. I’d loved Anna for the longest time, you see, since I was twenty. That’s twelve years ago now. Back then, we were madly in love. Later, she abandoned me. I didn’t realise it, but Anna couldn’t bear my cynical, over-analytical nature. I was utterly irreligious, then. She felt suffocated by scepticism.

And so she left me for its polar opposite: the strange world of New Age spirituality. She still thirsted for magic but, by then, she’d forgotten Catholic Ireland and sought New Age magic instead. First, she went to a Scottish community called Findhorn. Then, she travelled the world, from India to California, hopping from one New Age hotspot to the next.

Then, to my astonishment, she embraced something even stranger to me: Roman Catholicism. At last, she remembered the original, true magic of her ancestral land. She even entered a French convent with the Latin Mass, meaning to be a nun!

I thought I’d lost her forever. But I never stopped loving Anna. And I knew, deep down, she still loved me, too. We kept in close contact all those years. First, she wrote me emails filled with New Age mumbo-jumbo. Apparently, we were entering a “holistic epoch,” where “new energies” would “initiate a planetary shift of consciousness.” Aargh. That stuff always drove me nuts. But years later, her insufferable jargon changed. Instead, the “awesome power of the Mass” transformed the human heart.

To me, it all sounded like the same nutty stuff. What was her problem with me? I really did not get it. We loved each other. I knew it! But she preferred this New Age rubbish to me and then—so I thought—this Catholic “rubbish.” How blind I was.

But Anna gave up the convent and came at last to Ireland. I visited her and the mysterious power of Ireland started changing things between us. Or changing me. That—along with this ancient Irish geezer who finally showed me what was under my nose the entire time. “Anna may not admit it—even to herself,” he said. “But she longs to marry you. I am sure of it. It isn’t you she can’t bear. It’s your world.”

Then he added: “Your secular world with its new religion. Your world that claims to stand for equality and rights, but crushes anyone who dares to stand for Christian principles. This is how she sees it, I’m afraid. Her world has meaning, grace, beauty—life. It feeds her soul. Your world leaves her empty, hungry, cold… Her world—the world of Christendom—built Chartres Cathedral, the Sistine chapel and the Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. Your world builds tower blocks and suburbs and billboards and monotonous offices with cramped little cubicles. Not to mention pornographic television networks. Your world is dedicated to power, profit, a purely materialist metaphysic. Her world is dedicated to HIM…”

HIM, of course, was Jesus Christ. My mind screamed. The old guy was ridiculous, I told myself. Round the bend barking mad. Still, certain things he said made sense. Anna yearned for something my secularism couldn’t offer. At first, her only outlet was the New Age. Later, she discovered “the Catholic Mystery” (as she came to call it).

Slowly, I started to listen to the old man, really listen. And, in the course of a single mind-bending day, he turned my thinking—indeed my entire life—upside-down.

That man was the man in my dream. The guy with the ring: Gilbert Tracey, the Gentle Traditionalist. (“Just call me GT,” he said.) But almost as soon as he appeared, he mysteriously vanished. I never saw him again. Yet meeting him changed everything. It was so extraordinary I wrote an entire book about it!

Anyway, GT not only reconciled me to my lost love, he also helped me peer beyond my rationalist blinkers. It’s funny, really. I was Cambridge-educated and considered myself cosmopolitan and sophisticated. I was smugly Left-wing, proud of just how “inclusive” I was. But my liberal education never included the greatest force in Western history: the Catholic Church.

GT, then, opened my eyes to a new world, never glimpsed before: a culture completely marginalised by my “multiculturalism.” As Tracey made clear, all I really had was a restrictive ideology trapped in time (“post-1960s,” GT called it) and culture (English), which unconsciously factored out most of humanity.

Preposterous, I said! But, piece by piece, GT deconstructed my culture-bound views. Partly, he achieved this by traditional arguments, arguments my supposedly brilliant education never prepared me for. But he also used other, more mysterious, means, with that ring of his and its strange red stone. Then, bizarre visitors arrived. One of them even said the ring had relics of “the True Cross, the Holy Blood and fifteen Roman martyrs.” Anna now says GT is a saint and a priest returned to earth to rescue us. But before the Gentle Traditionalist returned, that seemed highly unlikely to me…

Still, I can’t deny downright weird stuff happened that day. And things didn’t stop there. No, Anna agreed to marry me! All these years I’d waited for her… Now, thanks to GT, she not only became my fiancé, but also my teacher. Before, I thought her a religious nut. And sometimes, I still thought she went too far, over-reacting to things. Yet now, in many ways, she seemed wiser and older than me.

With Anna’s help, I began questioning my progressive paradigm. Increasingly, I realised religious conservatives were not as ridiculous as I thought. Whereas I was concerned with social justice, they were awake to other issues—issues I was sound asleep to. For instance, they saw how our supposedly tolerant, multicultural society wasn’t really tolerant or multicultural. More like a monoculture, really.

This is what this book is about—how I came to see things differently. How Political Correctness tyrannises people. Or how the media is dominated by a progressive narrative that crushes anything anyone like Anna has to say. Yet my old liberal paradigm wasn’t completely false. The Left had won important victories, for example, against things like racist segregation or the capitalist excess of giant corporations and banks. In the past, that led me to embrace Socialism. Then I discovered Catholic thinkers like Belloc and Chesterton, who likewise figured in my strange dream. And they pointed me to Distributism, which resolved that false binary: Capitalism/Socialism.

All this theory may seem unnecessary. I warn you: there’ll be more digressions like this. They’re relevant to my story. But there’s more to it. Because this book ISN’T JUST A STORY. It’s also analysis and commentary: an examination of why the Gentle Traditionalist returned. It also concerns my continuing intellectual and spiritual journey: from Left-wing Progressive to Catholic Knight. Yes, really. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Hardly a year after meeting GT, I did the unthinkable: I became Catholic. Three weeks later, Anna and I married in the Church. In just a few short weeks, then, I experienced five sacraments! Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Confession, Marriage. That was an intense blast, at least for someone who never experienced the sacraments before.

At least, that’s what Anna said. She always talked about the sacraments like that: powerful, potent, mysterious. Since she’d started “absorbing the sacramental graces” (as she put it), her entire psyche, even her body, was changing.

Whoa! Claims like that were too much. Weren’t they a tad grandiose? But, as time passed, my doubts receded. Anna encouraged me to attend Mass with her every day, and I noticed something strange: an interior difference if I missed Communion. (Once, I had a terrible flu and didn’t commune for a week. The difference inside was palpable—as though something precious was subtracted from my life: noticeably missing.)

Also, we went to a Latin Mass, offered by a French institute dedicated to Christ the King. Unlike my wife, I had hardly experienced the new English Mass initiated after Vatican II. I went straight from my old secular life to Tridentine liturgy. Anna called that “a rare privilege” for a convert in this day and age. And day after day, the Latin Mass worked on me, shaping my soul.

Now, in Anna’s view, the loss of that Latin Mass carried tragic consequences for the Church. Yes, she admitted, certain priests could and did celebrate the new liturgy with dignity. But they were a minority. Across the world, millions were subjected to a morass of muzak and mediocrity that obscured the Miracle at the Altar. In Anna’s view this was slowly, insidiously destroying the Church.

Groan. Surely, it wasn’t that big a deal was it? Surely, she was over-reacting again! Didn’t the Church teach that the Body and Blood of Christ were truly present in the new Mass? Wasn’t it a contradiction, then, to consider the old Mass objectively superior to the new?

But Anna responded with an unusual analogy. She likened the new vernacular liturgy to a sieve. This strange image reconciled two apparently conflicting claims. For, on the one hand, the Church maintained that Christ was equally present in both Masses. Anna accepted that. But, on the other hand, the New Mass clearly lacked something. That was plain to her. Heck, it was even plain to me! People behaved differently at the new Mass. Their attention wandered all over the place. That was perfectly clear from the few times I went to it. Even the priests sometimes appeared absent-minded and sloppy, at least by comparison to the palpable reverence at the old Mass.

Anna’s analogy of the sieve resolved this tension between the two Masses. Yes, Jesus Christ became fully present in every valid Mass, new or old. But the traditional Mass provided something further, a crucial addition: a container that aided and HELD His Presence. That container was created through the sacred language of ecclesiastical Latin and the rubrics, prayers and gestures omitted in the new Mass. The fact that the Tridentine liturgy instilled reverence, naturally directing people’s attention to the Mystery, amplified its effect. That old container was missing in the new Mass, replaced by something else—something that did not hold or facilitate the proper attention, piety and receptivity to the Mystery at the Altar. Something that leaked like a sieve. All the omissions acted as HOLES. That was why the new Mass often, if not always, degenerated into a slovenly affair.

At any rate, it is three years since the Gentle Traditionalist upended my life. At times, I still struggle with scepticism, but I am a changed man. Thanks to His Body and Blood. And Anna. Because all this time, she prayed for me. And, by now, I know enough not to doubt prayer. (There’s one more factor too—the uncanny, mysterious power of Ireland. But we’ll get to that later.)

Still, not everything was roses. It’s a cliché, but that old Dickens line sums it up: it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

That dream was a warning. There was another side to our newlywed bliss. Anna really suffered. She anguished about the world in ways that startled me. This was new! The old Anna was always harping on about “global transformation.” The Age of Aquarius was a-dawning and no one would ever be the same again. Crazy stuff.

But I see it now as a defense mechanism: papering over pain. Anna, like most New Agers, was highly sensitive. Aquarius offered an easy escape. It helped people like Anna deny life’s harsher realities. “New Agers,” she would say, “need their fantasies—because they don’t have the sacraments. The sacraments give you strength to face the darkness inside yourself. Without that strength, you crave fantasy, magical positive thinking: ‘You create your own reality.’ ‘You can heal your life.’ You can do anything—all by yourself…”

Anna was beyond that now. But she was still vulnerable. When things hit her, they hit hard. And shortly after we moved to Limerick, something unexpected hit very hard indeed. Back in England, her Irish father collapsed with a heart attack—and died. Even though their relationship was never easy, Anna was devastated.

Anna’s Irish father was raised Catholic in rural County Cork. But he moved to Liverpool as a young man. And promptly lost the Faith. Anna was born there in 1983 and her childhood was not happy. Her father, often drunk, beat her mother, who eventually ran away with Anna.

Yes, that childhood was grim—but for one major respite: holidays with her paternal grandmother in the lush, green mountains of County Cork. This was another universe to Liverpool—a magical one! Outwardly, her grandmother’s windswept, hillside village, drenched in the never-ending Irish rain, appeared bleak and uninviting. Inwardly, it felt different. Rich warmth suffused the place. The Irish were astonishingly friendly—and pious. Because back in the 1980s, Ireland, especially rural Ireland, remained steeped in Catholicism—a far cry from today’s globalised, secular Ireland which, in little over thirty years, has almost entirely replaced the old Catholic culture.

But when Anna had to return to Liverpool, everything was “Godless” again, she said. “I didn’t use that word then, of course, but even as a child, I saw how different Ireland was. My grandmother took me to Mass—every day. Half the village was there! After Mass, they’d prayed the Rosary together. Every house had a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with a red lamp beside it. And the people were unbelievable. There was nothing like that in England! I was ten when mum left my dad. She never took me to Ireland. I never saw my grandmother again…”

Thus, Anna forgot mysterious Ireland, with the Mass, the Rosary and the Heart of Jesus bleeding for the world. Her teenage years were cold and grey. And that, many years later, explained her attraction to the New Age. Her grandmother had awoken deep spiritual hunger inside her. But the Church was forgotten, indeed obscured, denied and denounced by British culture. Nothing in England ever suggested the Catholic Mystery could quench her thirst. And so she turned to lesser “mysteries.”

All this, I thought, gave Anna something of an animus towards English society. To my mind, she criticised England excessively in favour of Catholic Ireland—or what remained of it. That always rankled me. But I started to understand now.

At any rate, her thing about England surfaced after her father’s funeral. Anna felt the horror of his boozy, wife-beating life like never before. Obviously, her father had free will. But, to her mind, the faith-destroying English culture couldn’t be exonerated from this tragedy.

Something else, too, sliced into her heart: the sight of her extended family, en masse, at a dreary, purely secular funeral. “It was all so Godless,” she wailed. And her family, she said—brothers, nephews, nieces, cousins, etc.—seemed lost. “Their lives have no meaning,” she cried. “All they have are material things. Good movies, good food, good clothes, a good laugh. All that matters is finding pleasure—avoiding pain. That’s it! Nothing else.”

And so the old theme of soulless England versus Catholic Ireland rose up. Except this time she added: “And now Ireland’s going the same way—copying the English…” This bugged me. I knew Anna’s family from way back. I couldn’t attend the funeral, but I’d met them again at our wedding. They were kind, decent people. “Aren’t you being harsh?” I said. “Your family aren’t that bad! They’re nice people. Maybe you’re forgetting to see the positive side sometimes.”

How our roles had reversed! Before, I was the grumbling cynic and Anna the upbeat New Ager, forever extolling “positive thinking,” however unreal it might be. Anna appeared chastened by my reprimand. “Maybe, maybe you’re right,” she said. But next day, she corrected herself. And me, too. “I’ve been asking myself if you were right. Was I over the top? I don’t think so. You’re right, of course—there’s real kindness in my family. There’s human goodness everywhere. And, nowadays, we’re told that’s enough. That people are nice. But people are weak, too. Weak and broken. I saw my nephews and nieces. They’re just like I was, growing up. They have nothing meaningful! Some of them may get addicted to alcohol like my father. Or porn. Or drugs. Or just trapped in lost, empty lives. Yes, some may turn out better. Still, they could have so much MORE than this.”

Something about the way she said “more” unnerved me. Maybe Anna wasn’t over-reacting, after all. Maybe, unlike me, her eye was always fixed on greater horizons of human possibility.

“But nobody is allowed to say this more even exists!” Anna said. “This is what modernity does to people. Denies them hope.”

I felt torn listening to Anna. On the one hand, I respected her like never before. Yet I worried that she demonised things. Demonised the modern world, demonised England—even demonised the Church. Because, inevitably, the modern Church came into this too.

Indeed, the dire state of the Church positively tortured Anna. Baptisms, vocations, faith in the Real Presence of Christ were in free-fall, she lamented. Much had changed for the worse since the shocking resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 led to the new papacy of Pope Francis. That new papacy created a new ecclesiastical climate, a more “progressive” one that empowered liberal voices. It also led to what looked like civil war. Utter chaos reigned in the Church. The Church was divided and thereby crippled, Anna said.

“We have to do something…”

“But what can we do?” I said.

“Anything and everything we can!”

Do something. It hit me, when she said that. Was Anna right? Were things worse than I realised? Was I just dithering on the fence? Something else hit me too. My wife’s face. There was something there that I hadn’t seen before. Something that evoked the memory of the Gentle Traditionalist. I had watched, staggered, as that old man wept, openly wept. And not for his own lot, but humanity’s lot. “The world is turning insane,” he said. There was gravitas to his stricken expression, when he said those words: a solemn, suffering beauty. And now, in my wife’s eyes, I saw the same thing…

III

Ireland

HAMLET: I’ve always related to that doubting prince of Denmark. “To be or not to be”—that’s a big one for me. Anna seemed so sure of herself. Like so many people. But the world, with all its conflicting claims, confused me. However did people achieve such clear certainties, which often seemed so pat and simple?

Now, I was listening to Anna. Belloc and Chesterton, too. I assented to the fundamentals of the Faith. But that’s not the same as crusading for Christ. And it’s tough to be a crusader—or a Catholic Knight, if you will—when you aren’t convinced. The way the Chesterbelloc was convinced. But I am getting ahead of myself…

At any rate, something else now entered the picture. And it started speaking to me. It was Ireland.

Yes, Ireland speaks. For 1,600 years, this island has been continuously steeped in the sacraments. Neither the Dark Ages nor the Reformation ever destroyed the Irish sacramental life. Anna says it’s like nowhere else on earth. Maybe there, she’s not far wrong.

Because something blew me away: our visits to a vanishing world. Anna’s ancestral home in rural County Cork is scarcely an hour from Limerick and we visited her extended family there— all sorts of cousins, uncles, aunts. There we witnessed a world virtually extinguished, but not forgotten. Indeed, that world could still be glimpsed, talking to the elderly and very elderly. For they remembered all that Ireland had been…

“Today, everybody’s just out for themselves,” they would say. And clearly, they recalled a time when Ireland was different. Different from anything I had ever known. “If your cow wasn’t giving milk, you could always ask your neighbour,” one man told me. “Or you’d run out of something else. You’d just go next door! We had nothing back then—but we were happy.”

These things jolted me. All my liberal life, I dreamed of a communitarian order, regulated by the State. But these people recalled a rich, communal life—the likes of which I could never imagine!—that didn’t need state control. It arose organically from their Catholic culture. And they grieved its passing. Now, they witnessed egocentric attitudes that were obviously new to them. I protested—because the Irish still seemed extraordinarily warm and generous compared to England. “Ah, but it’s not like it used to be,” they said. They all said that.

Moreover, they were genuinely shocked by media reports of violence, crime and drugs. Once, such things were extremely rare in Ireland. No more! My old faith in unlimited cultural progress was shaken.

Their faith, too, startled me. The old folk recalled working the fields. When the Angelus rang, everyone stopped to pray. Passing by the church, they crossed themselves and doffed their caps. One time, we took Anna’s ninety-four-year-old great aunt Mary out for a spin. The first thing she did was to pray for our protection. Then, she started the Rosary. But she was hardly unique. In church cemeteries, one saw frail old men clutching beads in gnarled hands and praying by the graves of their “mammy” and “pappy,” long departed from this world.

Inevitably, we ended up talking about our own country, England. These old Irish folk couldn’t understand my descriptions of the English as largely atheist or agnostic.

“Atheist, what exactly do you mean?” one old farmer asked me.

“They don’t believe in God,” I said.

The old man couldn’t believe his ears. “But how, how do they explain all this?” he said, his hand sweeping across the emerald expanse beyond, sheep grazing in the fields and mountains rising in the distance.

“Science, the Big Bang,” I said. “Apparently, it’s just a gigantic accident. Atoms came together to form molecules, molecules— somehow—formed living cells. It’s like that idea of monkeys on typewriters.”

“Monkeys on typewriters?”

“Well, some people think if you handed a million monkeys a million typewriters, for a million years, one of them would eventually produce a Shakespeare play. Genius isn’t required—only chance. Given all the possible configurations of letters and symbols, something complex and meaningful eventually would emerge. Creation is simply a gigantic accident, something that just happened without any purpose or intelligence at all.”

His jaw dropped open. “It’s easier to believe,” I added, “that the entire universe results from a one in a million, trillion chance rather than intelligence.”

“But what about their dead? What about their graves?” he stammered.

“They don’t have graves.” I told him about Anna’s father’s secular funeral, without a Mass, without a prayer. I’ll never forget that poor man’s bewilderment.

Then, Anna’s great aunt Mary died. We attended the wake, held in her little cottage. I almost choked, seeing the old lady in her coffin. An awful memory surfaced: the sight of my dead grandmother—the only corpse I’d ever seen. I was visiting my gran in her care home. An awful place, where she was bitter and miserable. A young nurse let me into her room, but gran was snoring away in her chair. Then, she started to make strange noises. Before I could call anyone, she convulsed, jolted forward and collapsed on the floor.

I cried for help. The next two minutes were the longest two minutes of my life. I was stuck, helpless, looking into the tortured face of my grandmother. When help eventually came, I ran to the bathroom and threw up. That face, twisted in pain…

How different this old Irish lady was to my poor, miserable gran. Lying there, her features emanated serenity, while her hands lightly clasped a tattered Rosary. Undoubtedly, those hands had fingered thousands of mysteries. I noticed other things around the room. Two candles burned at either side of a large crucifix. Beneath was a wooden box, filled with cards. Expressions of condolence, I thought. But Anna read my mind. “They’re Mass cards,” she corrected me. “The Irish are very serious about praying for their dead.” The box was stuffed full. Unlike my departed grandmother, this woman would have untold Masses said for her soul.

“We’re not in England any more, are we, Anna?”

“No, we’re not.”

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The village priest arrived and the Rosary began. Everyone joined in. But I slipped out, needing to digest all I had seen. I was hungry, too, and copious sandwiches were offered in the kitchen.

A sombre man greeted me there. He turned out to be great aunt Mary’s son-in-law. His obvious grief surprised me. Clearly, he cherished his wife’s mother. Indeed, he built the cottage we were standing in—a small place for her just beside his own. That was ten years ago, when she lost her husband. Situations like this remain common in Ireland. And nothing like what I knew from England, where nursing homes are the norm.

All this, of course, relates to rural Ireland. The Irish cities are different, more globalised. Still, even there, an unusual communitarian spirit persists. In Limerick, the sheer friendliness of the people bowled me over. I was surprised, too, by charitable drives to help the needy, very different to anything I knew in England.

Limerick even had real piety! A church near our house has a permanent chapel for Eucharistic Adoration (as so many Irish churches do). Anna visited it daily, “drinking His Presence,” as she put it. Now, I couldn’t feel that Presence as she could. I didn’t swoon, as she did. Still, I went. And, besides the quiet stillness in the room, something else hit me: the sheer number of pious city dwellers arriving day in, day out, genuflecting before the monstrance, praying hours on end. Definitely not in England any more…

Some say the new, liberal, globalised Ireland is hardly different from liberal England next door. Not me. The longer I lived in Ireland, the more I realised how unfathomably different Ireland truly was. Not only was there a kind, communitarian spirit to the Irish, not only was there piety, there was something else, too. Something harder to name, ultimately mysterious. Anna suggested words like “soul” and “sensitivity.” The English, she pointed out, spent centuries ridiculing the Irish as superstitious, even stupid. But Anna asked: “What if the Irish mind were every bit as intelligent as the English and it just lacked that British bent for pragmatism? What if the Irish sensibility were informed by something more profound and poetic that the more rationalistic English just couldn’t see? What if the steady, uninterrupted currents of the Catholic Mystery, working over centuries, transformed the minds and hearts of these people in a way beyond all English comprehension?”

Hamlet-like, I vacillated when she said things like that. One day, I’d be sceptical and say, “I know the sacraments are important, Anna. But how can you be so sure they’re that important— enough to alter an entire country’s nature?”

Next day, I changed completely. “Good Lord, Anna! I see it now. Catholicism did everything for this country! Now it’s being systematically destroyed by secular values.” (Usually, on those days, I’d been reading the great Chesterbelloc. But we’ll return to that duo later.) Then, the day after, doubt returned.

Still, the new globalised culture is making powerful inroads, particularly with the young. Even on my more vacillating days, it bothered me. By contrast, it afflicted Anna. What happened to Ireland stabbed at her heart. The younger generations of Ireland, bombarded by global media culture, had no idea what their grandparents cherished. How many of them would never know the wisdom of tradition, the solace of prayer, the sheer power of the sacraments, Anna asked. How many would never know the Catholic Mystery?

Moreover, the young were regularly told their ancestors were idiots. This was the media. It appalled Anna. All you ever heard was how backwards, hidebound, small-minded Catholic Ireland was. Yet Anna was clear that “narrow” Catholic Ireland possessed a breadth of heart and mind and vision that was utterly beyond the tunnel-visioned media.

Really, I couldn’t disagree. Of course, the old Ireland, like any country, had problems. Utopia never existed anywhere. Some of these problems were serious. There was sick clerical abuse of children, which afflicted a small, terrible portion of the priesthood. Disgustingly, certain clerics covered up the abuse. At the same time, the small numbers involved were comparable to the numbers found among caring professions in secular countries. Yet the media painted this sickness as something specific to Catholicism, while it denied all the other good in Irish Catholic culture.[2] Increasingly, the sheer injustice revolted me.

Anna was right. Catholic Ireland did have something special, very special. Moreover, Ireland was remarkably free from other problems in the West. And all the while I listened to Anna, the Gentle Traditionalist’s words kept ringing in my ears. Like the old folk in Cork, GT, too, remembered Ireland from long ago. His memories, too, opposed all the media said.

“I’ve been watching all this for a long, long time. Longer than you think,” the old man said. “The ever-increasing murder and suicide rates in de-traditionalised Ireland, for example. Or drugs, prostitution, domestic violence, homelessness… These things would have shocked previous generations. But we accept them as ‘normal’ now. And it’s not stopping, but growing…”

“There’s more,” he said. “The growth curves of mental illness. And the growth curves of children taking drugs to combat mental illness… What about other forms of illness? We see an explosion of sexual perversity, sadomasochism for example. It’s pathological. But you’re no longer allowed to say that, of course. In the past, these things were seen as sicknesses of the soul. Now they’re normalised and accepted as an ‘alternative lifestyle’! It’s politically incorrect to call them ‘sick.’ Soon it may be illegal to do so—what with legislation against ‘hate crimes’ and the like… Moreover, the power of technology is boosting the secular meta-physic like never before. Never before has humanity been bombarded like this—round the clock. Television. Advertising. Pop songs. Jingles. Internet. iPods. And it’s going to get worse. Virtual reality is coming, no doubt virtual pornography…”

When GT said that, it was too much for me. Way over the top, I thought. Increasingly, though, I no longer felt sure. Hamlet, vacillating, confused, conflicted…

Because GT’s words planted a potent seed in my mind. Like never before, I noticed the pernicious effects of media. It was clear to me now, as it was to Anna, that the media lied about Ireland, lied to millions of people—as GT said: around the clock. These old folk weren’t fools. They were some of the best people I ever met in my life! And the Ireland they remembered wasn’t a lie.

Well, I digress. Once again, there’ll be more digressions like this. Because there’s more to this story than just story. Madness and media are key to this book. They’re key to understanding why the Gentle Traditionalist returned. And they’re key to understanding my impending knighthood.

Likewise, they’re relevant to something else: Brigid’s predicament.

IV

Brigid

BRIGID was another of Anna’s relatives from Cork. A cousin— pretty, petite and just turned twenty. She and Anna shared the same grandmother who, long ago, offered my wife a childhood taste of Catholic Ireland.

But Brigid was fifteen years younger than Anna and had never known their grandmother, who died not long after she was born. Meanwhile, by the time Brigid was growing up in the 2000s, Ireland was far more secular than the country Anna remembered from the 1980’s. Still, Brigid’s youth remained somewhat Catholic, at least. Perfunctorily, her family heard Mass each Sunday. But she heard other things too—including all the media mendacity against Ireland’s past.

At any rate, we both liked Brigid. The three of us started hanging out. We went down to Cork; she came up to Limerick. But Anna was appalled at how little Brigid understood the Church, even if she identified as Catholic. When Brigid and Anna discussed the Faith, it was like two different religions.

Brigid adored Pope Francis. His famous injunction, “Who am I to judge?,” referring to gays, stunned the world—and she loved it. Pope Francis, Anna pointed out, never endorsed gay sex—let alone gay marriage! But that, Brigid insisted, was because “the forces of intolerance” remained too strong in the Church. Pope Francis had to move slowly, but “everyone knew” he was “cool with love”—whatever form it took. He was just beleaguered by “rigid right-wing Cardinals” and so on.

“Everyone knew… cool with love… rigid right-wing Cardinals.” Where did Brigid get these interpretations? Had she studied the matter—carefully comparing different Cardinals to arrive at her own independent conclusion? Evidently not. And the all-too-obvious answer hit Anna in the guts. Me, too, actually. Ultimately, it boiled down to the media: the see-all, know-all, tell-all media, the new Super-Pope of the modern age.

One time, Anna challenged Brigid on “gay marriage.” “Doesn’t a child need a mother and a father?,” Anna asked. But her cousin gave a pat answer about two lesbians she knew who were “great mothers.”

Anna and I looked at each other. How well we understood Brigid! Not long ago, we would have said the same thing ourselves. Any who disagreed with us would be damned as heartless homophobes. It would never have occurred to us that anyone opposing “gay marriage” could be anything else.

“Brigid,” Anna said, “I don’t doubt these women are good, kind people. I also know there are terrible ‘straight’ parents. My father beat my mother. He was awful to me too. My mother ran away. I’m sure there are many gay couples who are better than that. But—”

“I don’t see what your problem is, then. Why discriminate against good, loving people? Just because they aren’t sexually fulfilled by the opposite gender.”

This was painful. To Brigid, our thinking obviously sounded rigid, bigoted, cruel. I understood just how “sensible” her position sounded. Why shouldn’t two homosexual people who cared about each other be sexually gratified?

Only now, I saw the problem here: just how utilitarian that argument was. And nothing else. For millennia, the wisest people in every religion saw that sodomy, mutual masturbation, and the like were wrong because contrary to the natural order that came from God. And there is more: the wise also knew that the world is not simply rational, it is also trans-rational. God encompasses human reason. But, likewise, He transcends human reason. What if sex involved a mystery far beyond anything materialistic logic could account for? What if sex meant more than simply pleasuring genitalia? What if, throughout the ages, Catholics always knew these things—until their knowledge was shattered by modern pundits, pop stars and politicians? Could it be the great saints and philosophers of antiquity knew something we didn’t?

“Brigid,” Anna continued, “this isn’t about individuals. It’s about a principle that transcends that, a religious principle.”

But how the heck would Anna explain a transcendent, religious principle? When a lifetime’s media conditioning, which endlessly mocked religious reality, filled Brigid’s mind to the brim…?

I interjected. I couldn’t explain something precluded by Brigid’s life-long brainwashing. But I could do something else, instead. I could point to people Brigid respected, who held the same views we did. Alas, these couldn’t be Catholics. The media rendered anybody but the most progressive Catholics automatically suspicious. But Eastern figures were “legit.” The media always painted them as “cool.”

So I invoked the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi. The first spoke out against gay sex and the latter was appalled by any sex at all outside of procreative purposes.

Brigid was taken aback. How could such “cool” people be so stupid?

“Geoffrey is right,” Anna said. “For millennia, people from all religions—Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic— always saw something distinctly problematic in decoupling sex from procreation in the context of committed marriage.”

Anna was being gentle. I was more sarcastic: “But now we’re supposed to believe they were all idiots or homophobes, filled with hate!”

“All I want to say,” Anna said, “is when you have people in all traditions for thousands of years, seeing, sensing, feeling the same thing, when you have sages, saints, mystics agreeing, perhaps there IS something to consider here. That’s why it’s dangerous dispensing with tradition. People get so trapped in the Zeitgeist.”

“Zeitgeist?”

“It’s German. Literally: time-spirit. Basically, it means the spirit of the age. But this age doesn’t have a monopoly on truth! That’s why tradition is important—so people don’t get trapped in time. Geoffrey was a bit blunt. But he’s right. Not everyone who came before you and me was blind or stupid.”

Anna paused, before adding, “Sex entails profound transcendent mysteries. The greatest souls of all ages always knew this. And not just religious souls. Many non-religious psychologists and philosophers still maintain that the male and female archetypes are important. Especially for a child growing up, needing both mother and father.”

Brigid had no idea what to say. Anna took this as a hopeful sign. Maybe she was getting through, even a little. Still, my wife had no illusions. Brigid’s mind, she knew, was bolted shut to the truth—that male and female represented sacred realities and that the more those realities were blurred, bent, distorted, the more suffering was bound to happen.

Seeing the sheer hopelessness of explaining true, sacred sexuality, Anna stuck to her original question: was it right to foster a climate of gay adoption, where millions of children would grow up never knowing who their father or mother was? Was it not possible growing children needed both the male and the female?

“B-but,” Brigid said, “don’t gay people deserve the joy of children too?”

“Your compassion for gays and lesbians is important,” Anna said. “But a child deserves compassion, too—above all, the child. The child is the most vulnerable person here! There’s a risk of commodifying children…”

“Commodifying?”

“I mean a child is not a commodity. You can argue people have a right to own things—a house or a car, whatever. They may even have a right to destroy them if they like. A little boy or girl is something different. There’s no right to mess with a child’s psyche!”

Brigid looked bewildered. Anna was actually getting through. Brigid said she’d never heard anything like this in her life before. And no, it didn’t quite make sense that today’s world was all right and yesterday all wrong.

Brigid left. Anna had been magnificent, I thought: kind, considerate, but passionate and intelligent. But my wife was distraught. Why were we the only people who ever said such things to her? What on earth were her priests telling her? And why was the media her sole source of authority, without reference to the Church?

Exchanges like this helped me see just what had happened to Irish Catholicism. Like never before, they forced me to confront the awesome power of government, business and media elites. The power to destroy an entire culture like Catholic Ireland…

And so I decided to study the situation, to look at Irish history. Researching this, I learned that television only arrived in 1961 via a single channel (followed by a second one in 1978). Before the ’60s then, people, obviously, didn’t watch television in their homes. No, they prayed the Rosary daily. Frequently, they heard Mass daily as well. Confession was a serious thing, too. As late as the early 1970s, a quarter of the Irish population still confessed weekly and many, many more went monthly.[3] By the time Brigid turned teenager, there weren’t just one or two television stations, but plenty. The new media acted as a powerful, corrosive solvent. Like battery acid…

Indeed, when television arrived in 1961, a certain visionary already saw what would happen. During the very first Irish television broadcast, Éamon de Valera, then-president of Ireland, issued a prophetic warning:

Like atomic energy, [television] can be used for incalculable good, but it can also do irreparable harm. Never before was there in the hands of men an instrument so powerful to influence the thoughts and actions of the multitude.… It can lead through demoralization to decadence and disillusion.[4]

It was strange. Éamon de Valera had been not only president of Ireland, but a founding father of the Irish Republic. As an Irish nationalist, he fought in the 1916 Easter Rising that led to Irish independence. And Brigid’s family identified strongly with Irish nationalism. They even sent her to an Irish-language school. Yet hardly any Irish culture existed in her home. It was nearly all English and American. British pop music, British soap operas, Hollywood blockbusters, Amazon, Facebook, Google and all the rest. And the little Irish media that did exist aped the Anglo-American culture. De Valera must be turning in his grave, Anna said. But that hardly bothered Brigid’s family.

At any rate, I came to agree with Anna: the Irish elites had no idea what Catholic Ireland had been. They bought into the same secular myths of “progress.” They repudiated the principles of 1916. But as Anna pointed out, these elites were raised in the “Anglo-American sandwich” of 1960s and 70s television and pop culture. Which is to say, Ireland was wedged between mighty forces from either side, England to the East and America to the West.

And now the “progressive” tide appears unstoppable. Year after year, it gets worse. In 2015, the new secular Ireland became the first country in the world to approve “same-sex marriage” in a referendum. Maybe nothing else better illustrates the change in Ireland from the 1980s that Anna still remembered. Back then, divorce was illegal in Ireland! That blew my mind when I first heard it. The idea that Ireland could be so different from Britain was staggering. (Indeed, in 1986, not even 30 years prior to the “gay marriage” referendum, there had been another referendum—for divorce. But the pro-divorce side lost.)

Such an astonishing change in less than thirty years! The media had a lot to answer for. Anna, I realised, was not as extreme as I thought. Brigid changed me. I saw she’d been brainwashed. Bombarded from her earliest days. Round the clock. Like GT said. She never stood a chance.

Still, it wasn’t just the media. It was hard not to imagine that Pope Francis’s famous “Who am I to judge” played its part in the referendum. Certainly, it was quoted everywhere in Ireland at the time. There were also reports of millions of dollars pouring in from progressive groups in America to ensure the Irish voted the way they “should.” Moreover, the same sort of thing happened years later with an abortion referendum. But, again, I am getting ahead of myself…

V

A World Turning Mad?

THE day after Brigid left, I found Anna weeping. She pointed to an email from Bobbie-Jo, a conservative Christian friend—Protestant, in fact—from Alabama.

In the past, I rolled my eyes at Bobbie-Jo’s beliefs. Her fundamentalism was way too much for me. Today, my mind was more open. Her email talked about Political Correctness. Apparently, it was running riot in America. There were Americans who actually believed that saying “God bless you” when someone sneezed was an act of violence. They called it a microaggression. Shop assistants, too, risked their jobs saying “Merry Christmas,” instead of “Happy Holidays.” And terms like “hate speech” were applied to people who didn’t hate at all. They just refused to be flattened by our “open, tolerant, multicultural” society.

But was this why Anna cried? No. I kept reading. The letter grew ever more disturbing. Bobbie-Jo quoted snippets from the internet. One concerned a young boy—under ten—performing shows as a “drag queen,” while his mother looked on proudly. Another young boy, likewise under ten, was given “puberty blockers”—powerful drugs to delay the onset of adolescence—by his lesbian mother so that he could “choose to be a girl” (as Bobbie-Jo put it). “It’s terrifying,” Anna said. “‘Male and female he created them.’ This is what happens when you throw that truth away. Children are driven into hell, hell on earth.”

Anna got up, saying she needed to pray. I was at a loss for words. By now, you’d think I was completely on-board with her. Yet still my “inner Hamlet” vacillated. I remained conflicted about her dark view of humanity. Was she not too fearful, too despairing, too black and white?

But then, the other side rose up in me. I felt like giving Hamlet a boot in the rear. Maybe my problem was that I just didn’t care enough. Anna cared. She cared deeply. Maybe my heart wasn’t as big as hers. Or it was numb, de-sensitised to the madness we both saw around us? Or was I addicted to sitting on the fence? All that’s true, I think—looking back now.

Of course, no two are the same. We all experience the world in different ways. Lord knows Anna and I were very different! For a start, I was more gregarious, craving stimulation. Also, I’m a news junkie. I need the internet. Anna got that, just like she got so much else. But she herself avoided media. It seemed toxic to her. To an extent, then, we inhabited separate spheres. I meant to engage society. But painfully sensitised in ways I couldn’t imagine, Anna was turning inwards. She was a contemplative, praying for the world, but needing retreat from that world, a world which, increasingly, hurt her…

And here is the place to say how, just four weeks after we were married, the world changed. Future generations may not remember how this astounded people of our time—but on 23rd June 2016, Britain voted for Brexit, withdrawal from the European Union. Months later, Donald John Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the American election. It was widely described as the greatest political upset in American history! There was a palpable sense, “this wasn’t supposed to happen.” Indeed, Newsweek even prepared a special edition in advance, with Clinton’s beaming face on the cover, beneath the legend “Madam President.” 125,000 copies were actually bound and printed—until someone must have made a terrified, frantic phone call: “Stop the presses! Something’s happening that’s not supposed to happen…”

Like everyone else, I was stunned. And to my shock, I realised I was not disappointed that Clinton lost—as I would have been before. Which is not to say I liked Trump! Clearly, though, my thinking was evolving.

Here I digress again. This book is a record of my journey, a meditation on why the Gentle Traditionalist led me to the Emperor of Christendom. And all this, including my digressions, entails what GT saw so clearly: the world turning insane, becoming ever more polarised, ever more hysterical, ever more abstract and unreal…

The last is something conservatives appreciate better than progressives. And before GT entered my life, I had been extremely progressive. You’ll get the idea, if I tell you Noam Chomsky was my hero. But now I was starting to see how much the annihilation of Irish Catholicism owed to the Left.

Obviously, it wasn’t just Ireland. The Left opposed the Church from the start. That start had been 1789, the French Revolution. The Left was born when the revolutionaries lined up on the left side of the French parliamentary chamber. Not long after, they seized control of the Church. Soon, they were executing priests and massacring Catholic laity. Yes, the Left has a long history of crushing the Church at every turn. There’s been genocide, including abortion, and now the “right” to give children puberty drugs and have their genitals chopped off.

At first, all this was a tough pill to swallow. I valued the Left’s call for economic justice. As far as I could see, gigantic banks and corporations menaced humanity, indeed, the entire biosphere. And Chomsky’s critique of this perversity still spoke to me, even if his socialist solutions didn’t. (And Chomsky’s calling an unborn child “an organ” now revolted me.)

All this, in time, led me to the great Chesterbelloc. Now, Chesterton and Belloc criticised Socialism and Capitalism equally. Indeed, they considered Socialism as the bastard child of Capitalism. After all, Socialism only rose in protest to the new capitalist order pioneered by Britain (and Holland) after the Reformation. Capitalism and Socialism, then, were byproducts of Protestantism. But the Chesterbelloc proposed a Catholic alternative: Distributism—a system where wealth would be concentrated neither in the state (Socialism) nor in gigantic banks and corporations (Capitalism).

We can’t go into Distributism now. But you’ll see something else was changing for me: my reading. Before, I was your archetypal “Guardian reader.” (That’s a British term. It’s even in the Collins English Dictionary: “a reader of the Guardian newspaper, seen as being typically left-wing, liberal, and politically correct.”) Indeed, The Guardian was the only paper I read. I abhorred most other English papers, like The Daily Telegraph, as “fascist rags.” ( Just like I automatically rejected conservative evangelicals from Alabama with names like Bobbie-Jo.)

Now, I tried something new: reading both sides! I subscribed to both Guardian and Telegraph. And I read more on both the radical Left, beyond the mainstream Guardian (e.g., Chomsky), and the radical Right, beyond the mainstream Telegraph (e.g., the Alt-Right that emerged at this time). Just as Chomsky had some terrible ideas, so, too, did the Alt-Right. It carried with it an ugly new racism, which also reared its head in the new, changed world of 2016. But I meant to listen to everyone, including abortionists and racists.

This was a revelation. My long-trusted liberal narrative began to collapse. The liberals, I saw, weren’t listening to the other side. They suffered from kneejerk reactions, just like mine with Bobbie-Jo. Of course, the conservatives were frequently not listening either. Politics began, then, to look quite different to me. For one, I was astonished how my old Leftist colleagues lionised Clinton. Even a little wider reading made it clear how corrupt a candidate she was: a pawn to the Wall Street banks. But my old friends on the Left couldn’t see that. And the very fact I criticised Clinton meant they no longer heard a word I said. For them, all light was concentrated in Clinton, all darkness in Trump. Any sense of perspective was obliterated. A charged binary fever took hold of people. Yes, 2016 seems to me, at any rate, a landmark: the year the world changed. Sheer hysteria reigned like I’d never seen before.

Something else made an impact on Anna and me during this time. Brigid went to London for some temporary work. Or so she said, because she never came back. Weeks turned into months and all Anna received were a few strange emails—with phrases like “consciousness shift” and “holistic paradigm.” Anna recognised the jargon instantly. She feared Brigid was taking the same New Age route she had done, years ago, at much the same age.

Anna tried ringing, to no avail. When she finally got through, Brigid was mysteriously vague and evasive. However, she perked up when Anna mentioned one thing: Findhorn, the New Age community where Anna once lived. Findhorn—now that was something interesting!

“Brigid,” Anna said, “I thought Findhorn was great at the time. I would never have moved there if I didn’t! But it never gave me anything, anything like the Mass.”

“But why can’t you have both?” Brigid said, “be Catholic and holistic, too?”

Anna sunk. As though Catholicism were not already holistic, and needed supplementing! What to say? Quoting Scripture or the Catechism would be meaningless to Brigid. She was replete with the New Age ideology Anna knew so well—where all religions were the same and it didn’t matter what you were: Catholic, Buddhist, Wiccan, Voodoo. Whatever floats your boat.

Anna tried a personal tack. “I thought that once too. But the more I went to Mass, the more I saw that the Church offered something completely different from ‘holistic spirituality.’ I had to choose which spirituality to follow. Christianity—or that other one.”

This made no sense whatsoever to Brigid. Anna knew why. After the phone call, she explained it to me. According to the New Age, there was only one timeless, universal “spiritual path.” In every era and culture, it always amounted to the exact same thing (at least in essence).

“That’s why it doesn’t matter to New Agers what religion you have or whether you have any religion at all,” Anna said. “It’s inconceivable to them that the Church offers anything different to what they already have!”

“I get it,” I said. “If you already have direct access to ‘universal spirituality’—why bother with anything else?”

“Yes, Geoffrey. But it’s not just that! New Agers can’t see that anything else even exists!”

“I’m not with you. Nothing else exists…?”

“No OTHER form of spirituality. My old New Age friends think their spirituality is just the same as mine—I’ve just added some useless baggage to it. Catholic baggage.”

Only now did it sink in. “I see. Catholicism and New Age-ism must share the same ‘universal’ essence. Because, according to the New Age, there can’t be any other essence—only the ‘one timeless path.’”

“Yes. They think they’re just the same as me—except I’m bogged down by ‘Old Age’ dogma.” Anna was horrified. “She wants to go to Findhorn! Throw away the Church for that.”

This bothered me too. In the past, I hated Anna’s New Age-ism. It seemed so superficial, anti-rational, filled with facile answers to everything. By now, I realised there was nothing glib to Catholic tradition. Unlike the New Age, it was intellectually and existentially serious. It wasn’t anti-science, anti-“left-brain,” and it didn’t say human suffering would soon be washed away by an Age of Aquarius.

This time, I truly understood my wife’s pain, I knew what Brigid was losing. And I knew the reasons too. Ireland’s new progressive culture paved the way for New Age-ism. Brigid grew up hearing a constant mantra: how bad, bad, bad the Church was. Yet, like so many Irish, she experienced a spiritual thirst. Now a brand new “cool spirituality” came along which would never offend secular values.

Irish progressivism was preparing for something else, too: abortion. In 2017, a new Irish prime minister promised a referendum next year to repeal Ireland’s long-standing legislation against abortion. This referendum stood a chance of success. Irish twenty and thirty-somethings like Brigid were especially likely to vote for a horror their forebears could never have imagined.

So much was coming together now, hitting me at once. And it all turned on just what GT said: the world turning insane. There was the binary madness around Brexit and the American election. There was the madness that children didn’t need a mother and a father. Or children becoming drag queens. There was New Age madness that all religions that ever existed were “just the same thing, really.” Or that we were all about to experience a “planetary awakening to higher consciousness.” Man, people must be truly desperate in order to believe this stuff.

By now, it was clear something was very, very wrong with my old progressive paradigm. Yet I remained uncertain what the answers were. And I worried that traditionalists like Anna went too far. Maybe that was the problem: I worried too much. Hamlet, indeed.

VI

Belloc

THE music was exquisite, sublime even.

And it was my music. I was playing Mozart on my violin.

It sounded incredible. I’d never played music like that before. Indeed, I’d never played any music before. I’m tone deaf and can’t sing a note—let alone play an instrument.

Yet now I was a soloist in a vast auditorium. And everyone was enraptured by my virtuoso performance.

The hall, however, was getting mysteriously warm. Too warm. I put the violin down to take off my tuxedo and loosened my bow-tie. The audience didn’t seem to mind. I was a maestro, after all. What did a little interruption matter?

Again my magnificent music filled the hall. Yet still the hall grew hotter. Suddenly, a stout old man stood up in the audience and screamed “FIRE!”

But no one seemed to care. My rich, resonant refrains were all that mattered.

Then, that stout man bounded onto the stage. He seized my violin! And with a mighty blow, he smashed it over my head!

You’d think that would be painful. Oddly, though, it wasn’t. The violin near broke in half. But, apparently, I was impervious to pain. “That’s one thick skull you have,” the stout man said, handing my ruined instrument back to me. “Sorry about the violin, Nero. But it’s time you woke up! The whole house will go up in flames if you don’t!”

I stared at the man in disbelief. Only then did I recognise him: it was Belloc! And now, the floorboards beneath my feet buckled and gave way. They were on fire…

Then, I really did wake up.

Nero, he called me, the Roman Emperor who proverbially fiddled while Rome burned. Most dreams are cryptic. This time, the symbolism was hard to miss. Was I fiddling like Nero while the West was on fire? While everything that protected human sanity went up in blazes…?

After that dream, I really had to ask myself that. And before continuing my story of Brigid, Anna and Ireland, I digress one more time about media, madness and Mr Belloc. For Belloc, you see, not only featured in my dreams, he figures later in this tale, the tale of how I became a Catholic Knight…

For Belloc—unlike me—confronted reality head-on. A century ago, he faced the stuff people still can’t see today—including the scandalous power of the media. Also, Belloc remembered the time before the media assumed its awesome might of today. Because when Belloc was born in 1870, the only regular media was the Press. Even that was relatively new, back then! There was no radio or cinema, much less television. But, during his own life-time, Belloc witnessed developments that deeply troubled him:

There had appeared in connection with this new institution [my italics], “The Press,” a certain factor of the utmost importance. Capitalist . . . in origin and therefore exhibiting all the poisonous vices of Capitalism as its effect flourished from more to more. This factor was subsidy through advertisement. . . .

Long before the last third of the nineteenth century a newspaper, if it was of large circulation, was everywhere a venture . . . dependent wholly upon its advertisers. It had ceased to consider its public save as a bait for the advertiser. . . .

In the first place, if advertisement had come to be the stand-by of a newspaper, the Capitalist owning the sheet would necessarily consider his revenue from advertisement before anything else. He was indeed compelled to do so unless he had enormous revenues from other sources. . . . For in this industry the rule is either very great profits or very great and rapid losses. . . . He was compelled then to respect his advertisers as his paymasters. To that extent, therefore, his power of giving true news and of printing sound opinion was limited…[5]

I still recall when I first read that. It knocked the wind out of me! Which was funny—because, at one level, it was patently obvious. Yet, at another level, no one seemed to notice. Everyone, including myself, was sleepwalking through the scandal that giant business elites owned the media, and news inimical to their interests was easily suppressed in favour of

the news which its owners desire to print and the opinions which they desire to propagate. . . . The strength of a newspaper owner lies in his power . . . to withhold or to publish at will hidden things. . . . The power of the Press is not a direct or open power.[6]

We see the growth of the Press marked by these characteristics. (1) It falls into the hands of a very few rich men… (2) It is, in their hands, a mere commercial enterprise. (3) It is economically supported by advertisers who can in part control it, but these are of the same Capitalist kind.[7]

The big daily papers . . . have become essentially “official,” that is, insincere and corrupt in their interested support of that plutocratic complex which . . . governs England. [They] are not independent where Power is concerned. They do not really criticise. They serve a clique whom they should expose, and denounce and betray the generality. . . . The result is that the mass of Englishmen have ceased to obtain, or even to expect, information upon the way they are governed.[8]

These words were written back in 1918. But if you substitute “Western world” for “England” and “media” for “press” you have, I think, insight even more relevant today than it was then, because today’s situation is the above writ large, beyond Belloc’s worst nightmares. Since his time, media has become concentrated into even fewer hands than before. Only a few giant corporations now control the major means of communication. Moreover, today’s media is a hundred times more insistent, invasive, blaring, than anything Belloc could ever imagine. It has transformed into an all-encompassing, all-consuming “surround sound” presence—bombarding people’s minds from multiple directions at once. “This Capitalist Press has come at last to warp all judgment,”[9] he said a hundred years ago. But in terms of humanity becoming warped, Belloc had seen nothing yet…

All this helped me understand the schizophrenia I started to see from 2016 on. It also explained a strange new term that emerged about this time—as though a new, sinister force had suddenly entered society: “fake news.” Reading history, though, convinced me that “fake news” was nothing novel.

Example: In 1916, America needed British propaganda in order to enter the First World War. That requirement was met when the English press reported fake news of “massive” loss of American lives in the German sinking of the Lusitania. There was also the constant media drumbeat as to how bad, bad, bad the Germans were. Which is not that different from the Irish drumbeat today: how bad, bad, bad Catholic Ireland was. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Slowly, I developed ever more respect for Belloc—a respect Chesterton obviously shared. The latter joined the former’s crusade against the plutocratic media. But what was I doing about these things? Nothing… nothing but fiddling!

Let me return to my marriage. Anna and I both felt the dark clouds gathering over Ireland, particularly as 2017 turned to 2018 and the ominous abortion referendum was set for May that year.

Anna, then, prayed ever more intensely that the unborn might be spared. But she also encouraged my quest to understand history. Indeed, she coaxed me to take writing classes and record my insights. Tentatively, I began to blog. Frequently, though, I suffered writer’s block. I still wasn’t sure of myself.

Maybe, reader, you think that’s crazy! After all that happened to me with GT, Anna and Ireland, and now Belloc and these dreams! But if you’ve been radically Left-wing all your life, you don’t turn into a Catholic crusader overnight. You don’t get to meet the Emperor either—not without a special dispensation. No, more would be needed to penetrate “Nero’s thick skull.” And it came in the form of a very different kind of crusader that Brigid met…

VII

LightShadow

“BRIGID spilled the beans,” Anna said, one cold winter morning. It was February, three months before the 2018 referendum. And now, the mystery of Brigid’s extended stay in London was explained: her “heart chakra had opened.”

She had met a man with a strange name, Gareth LightShadow. That’s how he spelled it, both parts capitalised. LightShadow, it turned out, was a rising star in England’s New Age scene. And Brigid was besotted with him.

And there was more. Brigid was visiting Ireland—with her beau! LightShadow was touring the country, talking in all the major towns. Brigid wanted us to hear him next Saturday night in Limerick. Then, she suggested they visit us the Sunday after-noon.

“What’s he speaking on?” I asked.

“Apparently,” Anna said, “the talk is called: A Love Revolution: Holistic Spirituality for the New Millennium.”

I groaned. “Do we have to go—can’t we just see him Sunday?”

Anna looked glum. “I need to, Geoffrey. I want the best possible sense of this guy. I wish you would come, too. Brigid says they’re really serious. She thinks they’re getting married. She also has something big to tell us.”

“What could be bigger than getting married? Unless it’s a ‘love revolution’…?”

“I don’t know. It’s all so mysterious. Brigid says LightShadow was a Labour Party activist in London. Then, he moved to San Francisco where a ‘peak experience led to an astonishing spiritual transformation.’”

“Oh?”

“Apparently, he was head-butted by a wild zebra on the rampage—”

“A wild zebra…?” I said, reeling. “Rampaging through San Francisco?!”

“Er, there seems to be a Safari park just outside. Anyway, he was knocked unconscious for three days. But not before he saw the zebra’s black and white stripes charging toward him. When he came to, in the hospital, he saw the stripes as ‘nature’s perfect, seamless integration of darkness and the light.’ And so he ‘learned to love both sides of reality.’ I guess that’s why he calls himself LightShadow. Now he teaches ‘Zebra consciousness’…”

“Wonderful. I can’t wait.”

“You’ll come then?”

“Wild zebras couldn’t hold me back.”

And so that weekend, I made my way to meet LightShadow. (Anna was arriving separately, after an appointment elsewhere.) To our disquiet, his talk was hosted on ecclesiastical property—St Columba’s Hall, next door to the church. That sent a clear signal that the church was fine with LightShadow’s revolution. And when I entered the hall, it hardly felt Catholic. Temporarily, at least, the surroundings were transformed. Crystals were laid in every corner of the room, while a CD played mellow sounds of ocean waves, gently lapping on the shore. Candles burned, and the hall was filled with the scent of incense and aromatherapy oils.

Brigid ran over and gave me a big hug. Then, she took me to meet her man. He was not at all what I imagined. I expected a goofy-looking guy, even a clown in a zebra suit. Maybe my misapprehension holds a lesson—that people like me aren’t prepared to see what the New Age truly is. They expect non-stop silliness, without realising New Agers can be seriously ambitious, determined, steely.

LightShadow, it turned out, was all these things. He was also tall and handsome, with piercing blue eyes. The minute I saw him, I didn’t like him. He dressed expensively, entirely in black. From the top of his head—black hair pulled back into a neat ponytail—to his shining black Gucci shoes, the guy looked slick. And strange. For he wore a jet black cape and a purple amethyst ring. Another amethyst featured in a silver earring. Finally, silver buttons stood out prominently against his black shirt, like little stars in the night, complementing a black and silver Yin-Yang medallion dangling from his neck. The man exuded power, charisma, magnetism.

I was surprised, too, by his age—fifteen years older than Brigid, as it turned out. The petite Brigid seemed young and naive next to his commanding presence. I couldn’t help thinking she looked like a little elf captured by a great magician.

LightShadow greeted me with a condescending grin, which I soon saw was a trademark feature of his mien. At last, my wife arrived. “Anna, meet Gareth,” Brigid said. But Anna blushed when she saw him. I didn’t understand why till she explained later—she’d met this man before. What was more, she’d kissed him. It happened at a Findhorn workshop, long before we met. Anna was only eighteen at the time.

One evening, they walked out to the beach by the Findhorn bay. Moonlight glittered on ocean waves. Suddenly, he made a pass at her. Anna didn’t resist. She was young and insecure about her looks, even though she was always stunning. Still, she felt fat and this charismatic man flattered her. He was obviously a “kindred spirit” too—a romantic, a New Age dreamer, hardly like the other young men she knew from Liverpool. They lay down on the dunes. He continued his advances…

Nothing like this had ever happened to Anna. Fortunately, she broke it off, saying she wasn’t ready. The next day, LightShadow was involved with another woman. But days later, he was after her again, intensely flirtatious, trying to charm her at every angle. But Anna was wary now and nothing came of it. After a fortnight, the workshop finished. They both left and never saw each other again.

“We’ve met before,” Anna said.

LightShadow looked at her quizzically. “Really?”

“Findhorn, 2001. We did the holistic transformation workshop together. We… also went to the beach one night.”

“Oh man,” Gareth said. “I remember! Hey, you were great at that workshop. I liked what you said there—a lot! What happened after that—did you ever go back to Findhorn?”

“Well, actually, I went to live there for a few years.”

“You actually lived there—cool!”

Anna felt dazed. She didn’t know what to say. She saw how he looked at her. Was it her imagination or was he drawn to her all over again, as the memory of their moonlit passion surfaced in his mind?

“What are you doing in Ireland?”

“Well, I’m married now, to Geoffrey here.”

“Oh, cool,” he said. But Anna couldn’t help thinking he sounded disappointed. “Hey, Bridge” (it was clearly an affectionate nickname) “and I sometimes talk about getting married. I’m not sure we’re ready. But maybe someday, we’ll be related.”

“Maybe,” Anna said, struggling to recall something. He had a different name back then. A name that disturbed her. But she couldn’t remember…

“You changed your name.”

“Yeah, I liked the old one—but it creeps some people out.”

“Really? I don’t remember.”

“Crowley. Yes—as in Aleister. Actually, I’m distantly related to him. My father’s second cousin or something. Personally, I don’t have a problem with the name. But occasionally I got flak for it. I don’t need that. Better to claim my own identity.”

“So Gareth Crowley transformed himself into Gareth LightShadow,” I said.

“Yeah—but Crowley wasn’t as bad as people think. Some things he did were amazing. That Tarot deck he designed is sublime.”

“Yes, I remember those cards,” Anna said and shuddered. But LightShadow didn’t notice. He was relaxed, clearly imagining himself amongst fellow-travellers.

“Of course, Crowley had a shadow. Who doesn’t? No light without darkness—we all have to embrace our shadow. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

“By your name, you mean.”

“Yeah, my name is a symbol. Symbols are important. But there’s more, like this cape…” He opened out the black mantle. Inside, it shimmered a silvery white.

“You see, light on the inside, shadow on the outside. Both one. Both parts of the same whole. You have to surrender to the darkness and the light. Enlightenment. Endarkenment. It’s all the same thing, really.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, “Like Jesus and Hitler, I suppose.” LightShadow gave me an odd look, but said nothing. He was more interested in Anna, I think. At any rate, LightShadow’s weird out-fit made sense to me now. The prominent silver buttons on the black shirt. The Yin-Yang medallion. Even his jet black hair had a thin white streak down the centre.

“Really, Crowley wasn’t that bad.” LightShadow said. “He had an inner light, for sure. And he had to walk his own path.”

I felt like screaming. Right now, though, wasn’t the time. His talk was just about to start. And I wasn’t going to start something I couldn’t finish. Still, I didn’t like the guy and I especially didn’t like how he kept staring at Anna.

“So, Anna, what’s your path these days?”

“Well, I’m a Catholic now,” Anna simply said.

“Oh. Wow. How did that happen?” LightShadow was taken aback. His brain could not compute how someone could go from Findhorn and the Tarot to Catholicism.

“It’s a long story…” Anna was also struggling, uncomfortable with his gaze.

“Well, that’s cool. There are some great Catholics too. Bridge was raised Catholic.”

“This isn’t England,” I said. “Most people here are.”

“Yeah, it’s true! You can’t escape it over here!” he laughed. “Still, it’s cool if you want to be a conscious Catholic. That’s what’s needed today, conscious people in every religion. The Church needs consciousness! It needs healing—people to shake things up. I mean, Pope Francis has made a start. But there’s a way to go. A long way,” he laughed, before adding: “I’ll catch you later. My talk’s starting now.”

With that he was off. He interpreted Anna the only way he knew how. No way could Anna be a real Catholic, he must have thought. She just meant to “heal” the Church: help it to achieve “higher consciousness.”

VIII

A Love Revolution?

BRIGID, Anna and I sat down in the front row. Suddenly, a blast of music startled us: the opening notes of the Marseillaise, the French National Anthem—originally the marching song of the 1789 revolution. Except it wasn’t the Marseillaise. Only the first few seconds were. After that, English lyrics started in: “Love, love, love.” It was, of course, All You Need is Love: the Beatles’ smash hit from the so-called 1967 “Summer of Love,” which co-opted the first chords of the revolutionary anthem. Was it merely coincidence, I wondered, that this theme song of the 1960s cultural revolution began with the bloody battle hymn of that earlier revolution, which shattered Christendom? At any rate, LightShadow clearly felt that the tune suited his new twenty-first century “Love Revolution.”

Moreover, listening to the lyrics, I saw why. Inane lyrics, when you stopped to consider them. “Nothing you can do that can’t be done.” What on earth was that supposed to mean? Also: “Nowhere you can be, that isn’t where you’re meant to be.” I wondered what John Lennon, who wrote the song, would have said to the Jews in Auschwitz? But, “it’s easy. All you need is love, love, love is all you need.” I’d never thought much about pop music or its social impact before. But, increasingly, I questioned the effects for humanity bombarded night and day by catchy tunes spouting meaningless words. Or worse than meaningless. I thought of Belloc, who recalled a world before anything like this existed. What would he make of today’s civilisation, inundated by the trivial and absurd? A silly question…

The song receded into the background, while a young Irish woman introduced LightShadow. Or Crowley. Or whoever he was. She lavished praise on him as a new, upcoming “spiritual teacher,” who we would all remember in days to come. Her implication was clear. LightShadow might not be the next New Age superstar like Eckhart Tolle or Deepak Chopra yet—but someday, perhaps someday soon, he could be. She also announced an upcoming three-day workshop in Dublin with a “rare opportunity to work with him directly, in a personal setting.” Better snap up the opportunity, while you can, she said—places were going fast. Price: 300 Euros. Finally, she plugged his book—On Becoming a Zebra: Lessons from the Borderland of Consciousness. Copies were for sale, which the “spiritual expert” was “happy to autograph.”

Grinning, LightShadow began explaining how “all the old barriers to love” were breaking down. In the past, we had elitism, racism, sexism, age-ism, fascism, homophobia and religious fanaticism. Now, everyone was joining hands together in a new “multicultural, multifaceted spiritual reality,” which “totally transcended” all bigotry and prejudice. This was the “love revolution”—the dawning Age of Aquarius. From now on, evolution would proceed faster and faster. Everything was “turbo-charged” onwards and upwards.

All this entailed a new “holistic spirituality,” which superseded “all dogmas.” According to this “New Paradigm Spirituality,” all religions expressed the same timeless essence that was always the same in every time and culture. Only externals changed. Hence, religious differences were mostly accidents of culture, relating to “surface stuff ”: Hindus didn’t eat beef, Muslims didn’t eat pork. Catholics once avoided meat on Fridays. None of that mattered, according to LightShadow. The key thing was the central points every religion agreed on, “beyond the illusory veil of separation.” Things like peace, love, oneness, mindfulness. That, he asserted, was what “the Christ” taught. Moreover, “the Christ consciousness” embraced every perspective. And so all religions, all beliefs, were equally valid. Only “cultural dinosaurs and neanderthals” didn’t get that. But not to fear, because today’s “holistic revolution” was “conquering minds and hearts everywhere.”

Yet all this sounded relatively normal, compared to what followed. For LightShadow increasingly inserted that strange, incomprehensible New Age jargon: things like “gracefully, gently proceeding to a higher matrix of ascending consciousness,” or “people’s heart chakras beginning to open and rotate in fourth dimensional order.”

Now, that’s the gist of his talk above, except he also told the story of his “spiritual transformation”—how his “consciousness was first flattened, then profoundly altered by the zebra.” (I couldn’t help thinking it was the other way round.)

But to make my story perfectly clear, it’s necessary, unfortunately, to quote the guy at more length. (Not difficult, as it appeared on YouTube weeks later, rapidly accumulating thousands of views.)

“What the new paradigm is about,” LightShadow said, “is essential spirituality. What is the true, pure, eternal essence behind every religion?”

“Exterior things change with time,” he continued. “Only the timeless ‘Now’ doesn’t change. That’s why religions always get stuck in the past. For example, society used to be patriarchal. Naturally, then, you had to be male to get ahead in the religion game. Doesn’t matter if you were Buddhist, Muslim or Catholic—the hierarchy was always male. Today, we’re transcending that cultural baggage. On higher planes of consciousness, it doesn’t matter if priests are women, gay, trans—whatever! Unfortunately, the old mainline religions aren’t ready to surrender their control.” Then, he looked directly at Anna and said: “Not yet, anyway. They’re going to need a big push.”

Anna grimaced. She recognised this ideology all too well. Once she had said the same herself. In our own way, we both did. I was an agnostic liberal, she was a New Ager—but we talked about religion just like LightShadow: “cultural baggage,” “stuck in the past,” “outmoded,” “archaic.” We didn’t realise it then, but Anna’s New Age-ism and my Liberalism were cousins. Estranged cousins maybe, but with more in common than either cared to admit. Listening to LightShadow was payback.

“Neither Jesus, nor Buddha, nor Moses was into that junk,” the man was saying. “All the great spiritual teachers opposed injustice! They didn’t tolerate the status quo! Because every religion always begins with a universal vision. Later on, the authentic inspiration gets warped. The original messenger gets replaced by lesser men every time. (Historically, they’re always men.) Religion wouldn’t be such a mess, if they only allowed women in. What if we had Oprah for pope?” (Roars of laughter from the audience.) “Really, they should let her have a bash. She certainly couldn’t do any worse than your average male hierarch. After all, it’s men who usually do the head-tripping, I mean, hair-splitting theology. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? All that left-brain garbage.”

Had LightShadow read a single word of theology in his life? From the evidence on hand, it seemed highly unlikely.

“What’s more,” he continued, “all those male hierarchs just love a good war! How soon they forget that Confucius, Buddha, Jesus were messengers of peace. Not fundamentalists who traded in violence! That’s why you got the Crusades, the Jihads, the Nazis. Don’t forget most Nazis considered themselves good Christians. Hitler was actually a Catholic. Undoubtedly, his anti-Semitism came from his own Christian roots. That’s why we need ‘New Paradigm Spirituality’—something not controlled by theologians and maniacs. (Because that’s what happened in the old paradigm. Priests always controlled everything.)”

Horrible. Hardly anyone noticed, I think, the sleight of hand by which LightShadow seamlessly blended priests, fundamentalists, maniacs, Nazis—as though they were all the same thing. Or at least cut from the same cloth.

“But the Middle Ages are over! Free spirits can explore life’s magic for themselves,” LightShadow said. “The change over the last centuries is mind-blowing! Remember, information was so limited before our multicultural society! Or mass media. Or the internet. Spiritual seekers couldn’t check out holistic stuff the way they can today! In the past, you had only one option: Your local religion—rigidly controlled by your parish priest, pastor, imam or whoever. Now, there’s a vast cafeteria of spiritual options, every one valid for each individual’s needs. Cool, huh?”

All this, I guess, sounded convincing. Unfortunately, I doubt any of the audience ever read anything by men like Belloc. Belloc, who recalled a time before media manipulated people—with a power more insistent and invasive than anything ever imagined in the Middle Ages… But nothing LightShadow said suggested the mass media might have any negative sides at all. I doubt the idea ever crossed his mind. It appeared an unambiguously positive phenomenon to him and he peppered his talk with pop references.

“We are Spirits in the Material World,” he declared at one point, invoking a song by The Police. “Sting gets the big picture! And he’s not alone. There’s a sensational new world of movies, games and music all working together to break down the old rigid certainties!”

Did it ever occur to LightShadow that the media encouraged new rigid certainties, such as the ones he parroted? Evidently not. For him, pop culture, no matter how crass, was a natural ally, breaking down the bad. For me, it was breaking down a more wholesome, moral and traditional world—in Ireland as elsewhere—which it thoroughly disparaged.

Unsurprisingly, then, LightShadow’s ridicule of orthodox religion continued unabated. “In the new era of higher consciousness, we won’t have all this moronic competition. Or asinine in-fighting between different religions. Instead, we can warmly embrace every religion—or none. Atheists, agnostics, Christians, Buddhists—whoever you are, doesn’t matter. New Paradigm Spirituality is all about love and diversity. How can we welcome everyone? That’s what we always ask in the New Paradigm.”

Warmly embrace all religions! My mind reeled. How could he say that with a straight face? I looked around in despair. The speaker was dynamic, good-looking, unusually self-assured. His audience lapped up every word he said. Adoring smiles, nods and chuckles filled the hall. Did no one register the sheer pompousness of the implicit claim here? Namely, that he, LightShadow, understood the true, pure core of all religion—which just happened to be missed for thousands of years by all the “hidebound male theologians and philosophers” who came before him. Little or nothing was ever said to back this up. Mostly, his talk was a string of mere assertions.

“Now some of you may ask: How do we tell what the New Paradigm is? Actually, it’s easy. All you need is love! Anything else is extraneous. Plus, Old Paradigm Spirituality has serious flaws. But they’re easily identified. If you see any of these things, be suspicious.”

“If it’s patriarchal—be suspicious.”

“If it’s homophobic—be suspicious.”

“If it’s not environmentally friendly—be suspicious.”

“If it’s against diversity—be suspicious.”

Incredible. All he did was wheel out trendy progressive ideology. That was his mark of whether something constituted “the real, true core of every religion.” I recalled the old canard that the Church of England was the Conservative party at prayer. Maybe the New Age was like that: Progressivism at prayer?

Then, without the least hint of irony, LightShadow finished his litany by actually saying:

“If it’s critical of other spiritual paths—be suspicious.”

“If it’s arrogant—be suspicious.”

“If it’s shallow—be suspicious.”

Mercifully, the talk ended. But not without a climax. Now, I’ll never know how he did it. But somehow he managed to pack more New Age nuttiness into his final sentence than the rest of the talk put together: “After all, we are all LightShadows together on an effortlessly unfolding journey through the harmonising quantum matrix, which elegantly, ceaselessly and seamlessly integrates light and darkness, creation and negation, fullness and emptiness, selflessness and selfishness, while wholly respecting the right of every individual entity, real or imaginary, to evolve towards his or her own creative, holistic potential, without regard to race, colour, creed or sexual orientation!”

Thunderous applause. LightShadow basked in it, looking supremely satisfied with himself. The floor opened for questions. An American asked about Trump and Brexit. Didn’t such things suggest that not everything was bright and rosy, as LightShadow claimed?

“When things are evolving fast, like today, there’s always conservative backlash,” LightShadow replied. “That’s par for the course. Some people can’t handle change. Or love. They cling to rigid certainties of the past. Sometimes it’s necessary to drag them, kicking and screaming, into the future. But those things are the last hurrah for intolerance, everything opposed to love. People will finally see through the fascists. It’s like bursting a boil— they’re the puss that needs to come out into the open, before love wins. Wait till 2020, we’ll have a woman in the White House yet. Patriarchy is already dead! The fundamentalists, the Nazis—they just don’t know it yet.”

Amidst all this, one—if only one—faint affirmation of the Church emerged from the audience. One Irishwoman still had a shred of Catholicism left in her. She thought LightShadow went “a bit far” with his crack about Oprah as pope. But LightShadow only warmed to his theme. “Hey, Oprah’s not only a great spiritual teacher,” he said, “she’s also a shrewd manager. She built a media empire—she’s the richest woman in America. She proves you can get the bucks and get a positive message across. She’d be fantastic as pope or president!” More laughter.

At long last, the torture finished. I chatted with Brigid, while LightShadow autographed copies of his masterpiece. Meanwhile, Anna flipped through its pages. Finally, the man himself joined us, wanting “feedback.”

“Well, like Anna, I’m Catholic too—and you just managed to rubbish nearly every Catholic theologian for the last two thousand years as hopelessly male, misogynist, patriarchal, and stuck in the past,” I growled. “But, hey, let’s embrace diversity. Your perspective is undoubtedly every bit as valid as mine!”

“Wow! You really are Catholic, aren’t you?” he grinned. “There’s no need to get so uptight, man! We can continue this tomorrow. I need to crash now. But I always enjoy dialoguing with people of different perspectives.” He gave Brigid an affectionate squeeze and off they went into the night.

My head was starting to hurt. Meanwhile, Anna met someone she recognised—a middle-aged Limerick nun dressed in modern clothes. Anna asked what she was doing there. “Well, I like to keep up with the times,” the nun said. “It’s important to be open-minded about these things. Ecumenism means learning from everyone. The Church doesn’t have the whole truth, you know. That’s what Vatican II teaches!”

“Well, I’m not sure any of the actual documents said that…” Anna retorted.

“Oh, the documents, they don’t matter! They’re just old paper. It’s the spirit of the thing that counts—the Spirit of Vatican II!”

“But how can you know what the spirit is if you don’t see the record? Then anyone can say whatever they like about the spirit.”

“Well, the spirit was openness and freedom—like that young man said up there just now.”

“But can’t you see,” Anna said, “his talk was a non-stop attack on Catholic tradition?”

“Tradition isn’t everything, dear.” The nun smiled. “It’s the spirit that matters. I wonder what Pope Francis would say? I don’t think he’d have any problem with it. Who are we to judge, anyway?”

IX

The Gold Exchange

IT was drizzling when we left the hall. By the time we reached home, the drizzle turned to a downpour. Scurrying inside, we sat down in our kitchen. Anna told me of her moonlit tryst with LightShadow and how he still seemed drawn to her, despite Brigid, despite our marriage. My head hurt even more.

“It’s incredible,” I ranted. “He claims to warmly embrace all perspectives, but ends up slandering every religion except his own! God help us.”

“Yes, God help us. That’s also what he can’t see. We don’t need God. All we need is tolerance and mindfulness.”

“I wonder why no one ever thought of that before New Agers did? Idiot!”

“Yes, Geoffrey—but your rage won’t help…” This was something relatively new in Anna. In the past, she would have shared my fury. But the Catholic Mystery was changing her. And tonight, I saw once more that same stricken beauty in her features. Again, I was reminded of GT weeping for the world.

“I’m sorry. This guy’s beyond belief! Absolute certainty he knows everything—his way is best.”

“He would say the same about Christians like us.”

“Sure. But Christians—even the dumb ones—are grounded in thousands of years of tradition. What’s LightShadow got? Zebra-consciousness? Thirty, forty years of New Age crackpots?! People who call themselves ‘spiritual teachers’—for no other reason than that’s what they call themselves!”

“Try not to rant, Geoffrey. I mean you’re right. He doesn’t understand much about Christianity, but…”

“He doesn’t understand anything about Christianity! All he seems to know are dumbed-down media clichés and pop songs. The Beatles, The Police, Oprah Winfrey—that’s who we should listen to. Not Plato, Aristotle or Aquinas—much less Jesus Christ. It’s like three thousand years of Western civilisation mean nothing to him. Nothing at all.”

Again, our roles reversed. Anna sounded more moderate than me! She aspired to a calmness and charity that was beyond me by that point. Something about this guy riled me! “It’s like he’s living in this weird bubble of pop-philosophy and pop-culture. And he thinks nobody outside his own bubble knows anything. But New Agers are like that. You were like that…”

“I know. When you’re in the bubble, as you put it, it’s all very odd. You can’t see outside. You’re sure everything New Age is good and everything ‘Old Age’ is bad…”

“Yes, it’s just like Liberalism. Progressives have the same contempt for the past.”

“But it’s an unconscious contempt,” Anna said. “They don’t even realise they’re contemptuous.”

“Obviously, I was like that too,” I said. “But there’s something different, more bizarre about this New Age bubble…”

I stared out into the rain, lost in thought. That bit about a bubble wasn’t bad, I thought. Still, it didn’t go far enough. The edges of a soap bubble were too soft, too clear, too normal to describe the sheer oddness of the New Age. No, another image was needed, something more rigid, opaque—most definitely not normal. Something outlandish. I turned it all over in my mind. And, as I did, the round image of the bubble transformed into a round flying saucer in my mind.

It was almost as if some strange alien craft had landed in the West, filled with beings who cared absolutely nothing for the culture beyond. Outlandish indeed.

“No, not a bubble,” I exclaimed, “it’s like this freakish UFO filled with ideas completely alien to Western civilisation. And not only do the aliens reject everything the West has to offer, whether it’s Christianity or rational thought—it’s all ‘left-brain’ head-tripping to them—they turn around and say they universally embrace every perspective. What’s more, they actually believe it!”

“Yes,” Anna said, “they honestly, truly believe it—Brigid believes it! She wants to marry him… and it’s not just Brigid. It’s millions like her. That’s the tragedy here. Forget LightShadow, Geoffrey—think about the audience. All those young people completely sucked into THIS.”

“Well, I can’t forget about him. He’s coming here tomorrow!”

“Try not to be angry, Geoffrey. You see him as a perpetrator. Really, he’s a victim. Really, he has no idea. No idea how impoverished he is.”

I grunted. The rain outside was heavier now, pelting the roof. A major storm was brewing. Anna continued, “If you’ve never tasted the Catholic sacraments, you can easily think what he does—all religions are the same. I once believed that was all there was to it, too. Just this basic core spirituality. Be mindful. Be kind. Be tolerant. Listen to your soul. Not much more. Of course, the Church doesn’t know anything we don’t know. Of course, the Church is just stupid.”

“Of course, aren’t we just wonderful!”

“That’s how it looks on the outside, gazing in. And that’s what New Agers are: Outsiders gazing in. By definition, they’re not religious practitioners. Gareth’s a victim to that mentality. He has a little biography in his book. I read it. He’s never practiced any religion—much less Catholicism!”

“Yet he thinks he knows everything about religion! It’s unbelievable.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Anna repeated. “I need to pray—to get a handle on what just happened.” Anna retired to our bedroom to pray. Afterwards, she recorded her thoughts in her journal:

24th February 2018

The talk was horrendous. Geoffrey is livid. I’m angry too. But I can’t help feeling we’re both missing the real point here. There’s something deeper here.

What is it? It’s the POVERTY—utter, total destitution. The man has no idea. NO idea.

He could never say these things, if he ever tasted anything else beyond the bubble—as Geoffrey puts it. But he hasn’t. Like the materialists, his views of Christianity are all reductionist. Christianity is reduced to human things like sexism or authoritarianism. Nothing else. Obviously, the Church has always had its defects. But he claims the Church is nothing BUT those defects. He can’t see that there is anything else to it. And if he could see anything—anything significant—he would just say it was the same thing as the “universal essence” of every religion. It’s INCONCEIVABLE to him Catholicism could offer anything more than his “universal vision.” Something OTHER.

Of course, that idea is very threatening to him. His whole world would break down, if there WERE something else beyond his “universalism.” Just like my world broke down when I finally saw the Church offered something different.

Because I finally tried it. That’s the problem: Gareth refuses the only thing that would allow him to see—to actually TRY it. But millions and millions of people won’t try it. There’s a wall of propaganda: You don’t need the Church. You don’t need anything else. You just need to be mindful, tolerant, nice.

People are being ripped-off. The New Age started in Protestant England and America. But now the Irish are being robbed too, robbed blind.

If Gareth gave this lecture in Ireland in 1960, no one would have listened. Back then, Irish people knew what they had—treasure. Now they’re utterly impoverished.

The Irish once had GOLD. Today, they’re trading it for plastic.

X

Thunder

ANNA kissed me good night. I wanted to come to bed, too. But I’d never sleep. I’d just writhe around, keeping her awake. Instead, I collapsed on the sofa. Next to the sofa is an oval mirror and a bookcase. And something very strange was about to happen in that spot…

By now, my mental state matched the weather outside, with howling wind, heavy rain, rolling thunder in the distance. Thoughts jolted me like lightning. I couldn’t shake LightShadow from my mind. For all I knew, the presenter was right: he was the next New Age megastar, like Eckhart Tolle or Deepak Chopra, selling millions of books. The New Age was big business—much bigger than many Catholics appreciate. Indeed, all kinds of people, Catholic or not, seem completely unaware of this massive phenomenon. This kooky “UFO” doesn’t interest them so they easily ignore it. I was just the same.

It was only thanks to Anna that the New Age was even on my radar screen. When she went to Findhorn, I realised she was not a solitary eccentric, but part of something gigantic. Still, Anna apart, New Age-ism never bothered me then. It was progressive like I was. New Agers were just a wacky “side-show.” Ridiculous, but harmless.

But now, as a Catholic, things looked very different. How asleep I was! But, then, the Church is asleep, too. Indeed, Catholics and New Agers are like ships in the night. For people like LightShadow, we Catholics are irrelevant, “dinosaurs” from a past “Age of Pisces,” whom they rarely—if ever—encounter. Yet if, by chance, they do run into us, they can scarcely believe we exist. We are “neanderthals” who actually consider Western civilisation worth preserving! On the other hand, Catholics scarcely see New Agers, at least not in all their untold hordes. Nor do we realize the powerful influence of New Age ideas. Because countless people may not consider themselves New Agers, but are nonetheless deeply affected by New Age thinking, as it ripples out through movies, music, internet and other media.

Anna tried to tell me this, repeatedly. “This New Age stuff is changing the world,” she said. Yet, until tonight, I remained asleep. Previously I’d just nod my head, with non-committal comments like, “maybe you’re right,” or “it’s not good, is it?”

But tonight, it was in my face. Tonight, I saw Brigid adoring this dope. Tonight, I saw the Irish going gaga. Tonight, I saw this weird alien spirituality REPLACING the spirituality of the West.

This was Ireland, of all places! Not California. Not New York. Not England. Yet Catholicism in Ireland was dying. This was what many Irish preferred instead: slick New Age presenters offering a permissive, liberal spirituality. Even—à la Oprah Winfrey—with the bucks as well! The memory of GT flashed into my mind. He called the New Age “Minimum Commitment Spirituality.” Tonight, his words appeared more apt than ever.

Belloc’s book The Great Heresies on the shelf next to me caught my eye. Now, my head was hurting. Still, as yet, it wasn’t too bad. And reading calms me at times like this. Not this time though. Because I opened to a long passage that hit me in guts. I won’t quote it all, but here are the most relevant bits:

The Faith is now in the presence not of a particular heresy as in the past—the Arian, the Manichaean, the Albigensian . . . nor is it in the presence of a sort of generalized heresy as it was when it had to meet the Protestant revolution from three to four hundred years ago. The enemy which the Faith now has to meet, and which may be called “The Modern Attack,” is a wholesale assault upon the fundamentals of the Faith—upon the very existence of the Faith. And the enemy now advancing against us is increasingly conscious of the fact that there can be no question of neutrality. The forces now opposed to the Faith design to destroy. The battle is henceforward engaged upon a definite line of cleavage, involving the survival or destruction of the Catholic Church. And all—not a portion—of its philosophy.

We know, of course, that the Catholic Church cannot be destroyed. But what we do not know is the extent of the area over which it will survive; its power of revival or the power of the enemy to push it further and further back on to its last defences until it may seem as though the Anti-Christ had come and the final issue was about to be decided. Of such moment is the struggle immediately before the world. . . .

The truth is becoming every day so much more obvious that within a few years it will be universally admitted. I do not entitle the modern attack “anti-Christ”—though in my heart I believe that to be the true term for it: No, I do not give it that name because it would seem for the moment exaggerated. But the name doesn’t matter. Whether we call it “The Modern Attack” or “anti-Christ” it is all one; there is a clear issue now joined between the retention of Catholic morals, tradition, and authority on the one side, and the active effort to destroy them on the other. The modern attack will not tolerate us. It will attempt to destroy us. Nor can we tolerate it. . . .

Either the Catholic Church (now rapidly becoming the only place wherein the traditions of civilization are understood and defended) will be reduced by her modern enemies to political impotence, to numerical insignificance, and, so far as public appreciation goes, to silence; or the Catholic Church will, in this case as throughout the past . . . recover and extend her authority, and will rise once more to the leadership of civilization which she made.

I put the book down. Passages like that once struck me as over-blown, paranoid even. No longer. Because Belloc wrote that back in 1938. What I saw tonight told me: the man was a prophet. When Belloc wrote those words eighty years ago, his claims did seem exaggerated, even extremist. Catholicism remained vibrant, not just in Ireland, but in Southern Europe too—not to mention much of central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and many more places across the planet. But three or four generations later, the “Modern Attack” had decimated Catholic tradition everywhere.

Suddenly it was all coming together. The dreadful state of Ireland. The Irish people abandoning their faith for a “UFO from Aquarius.” And what is more, the only way that UFO could land in Ireland was the fact it was not alone. No. It was part and parcel of something bigger. What Belloc called “the Modern Attack.”

The red carpet had been rolled out long ago for the alien ship to land.

There was the “Spirit of Vatican II.” There was the new liberal anti-Catholic Irish media. (Although so much of that media wasn’t even Irish.) And there was liberal economics. Liberated banks and corporations actively promoted the globalist media destroying the faith.

Another image surfaced in my mind: a multi-headed hydra. One serpent head was materialistic consumerism. Another was the banking that fed on that consumerism and the vast debts it created. Another head was the media the banks supported, with all its politically correct prejudice. Another head involved progressive politicians like Clinton in America or the anti-Catholic politicians Ireland now had—pawns, all, to the banks. And yet another serpent head was LightShadow’s New Age spirituality which, implicitly or explicitly, supported all the above. Each head connected to the others. Each head, though separate, reinforced what the other heads were saying. Belloc saw this hydra a century ago when it remained hidden to most eyes. But I could only see it now in 2018!

Outside and inside my mind, the tempest raged. I recalled my dream of Belloc and Chesterton talking together on just a night like this. Belloc had gently admonished his friend about the gravity of the situation. And in real life, Chesterton had been sunnier than Belloc, with a sweeter disposition. Thus, some people thought him softer than Belloc, less radical.

Once I believed that myself. Now, I wasn’t so sure. For back in the 1920s and 30s, the great Chesterton poured his lifeblood into his own ever-struggling newspaper G. K.’s Weekly. He also poured his personal money into it, refusing subsidy through advertisement. Because, like Belloc, he knew the world desperately needed an alternative to corporate media—just as it desperately needed Distributism as an alternative to Socialism or Capitalism. I had seen old copies of G. K.’s Weekly, which suggested GKC was every bit as radical as Belloc, every bit as determined to combat the hydra. His passion leapt from every page of that paper—even if his language was usually not as forceful as Belloc’s. (Occasionally, though, it was. In one old issue,[10] Chesterton made his vision quite explicit: “Our purpose is revolution. We do not want to tinker with the capitalist system, we want to destroy it.”)

Everything came crashing in on me—the UFO, the hydra, the dreams, Belloc, GKC… How different to LightShadow they were. LightShadow celebrated crass mediocrity, the Chesterbelloc championed culture. LightShadow crusaded for liberal modernity, thinking it offered freedom. The Chesterbelloc combated liberal modernity because they saw its tyranny.

And so GKC toiled at his little newspaper—a solitary source of alternative news to the great corporate press. Today, of course, LightShadow would surely say those alternatives were no longer solitary. Indeed, they appeared plentiful on copious sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest. Information was free, free, free, he would claim.

And, in a certain, limited sense, LightShadow was right, of course. In the last few years, there was a great burst of alternative media. Social media, blogs, forums and the like did mean people could air things publicly like never before. Air them across the entire planet! And some of these did fly against the tightly-controlled media.

There was hope there! Still, the notion of a new free, independent media appears over-hyped. Dissenting voices are easily overwhelmed by behemoths like Hollywood, Google, Facebook, the major news networks and so on. And this new “free flow of information” hardly stopped LightShadow being a poor parrot of the media himself! That media was more powerful than he ever realized. Moreover, I feared this much-vaunted window of new opportunity might be short-lived. Indeed, in just the last few months, Google’s YouTube threatened potentially draconian moves to stamp out anything that deviated from accepted liberal orthodoxy. As someone remarked, YouTube was becoming ThemTube.

That a vast plurality of perspectives was now available to all was a sorry joke. Disinformation was everywhere on the internet. Government and corporate surveillance meant people were watched in ways beyond anything George Orwell ever imagined. People hid under anonymous aliases on the internet, scared for their jobs and livelihood…

Meanwhile, the monster of Political Correctness marginalised everything that didn’t fit the liberal, capitalist mainstream. I thought of poor Pope Benedict. Unless you were an ardent, practicing Catholic, you were likely to have no idea what he really stood for. He was the idiot, Pope Francis the great, enlightened one… Millions thought like that. Or rather, they didn’t think. They parroted what their masters told them.

All this, too, led me to see something unpleasant in myself. Because I still wasn’t serious. Not like Belloc and Chesterton were serious—as indeed my Anna was. For there they all shared something I did not: an intensity of conviction that refused vacillation and scepticism.

I thought of that dream where Belloc smashed that fiddle over my head. And my head didn’t hurt. But my head hurt now.

But maybe that was good! Because only now I finally, fully got what Anna got. Only now, I felt stabbed to the core, just like she did. I wasn’t just nodding my head, mildly agreeing. Or mildly disagreeing. I was no longer numb.

I was in pain, real pain. But I was alive. Not dulled, not deadened.

Now, and only now, I grokked Anna’s stricken, wounded heart. Not only did I see what she saw—I FELT it.

Then, it hit me! Scepticism had been my defence mechanism. I retreated into safe, analytical distance from the world trauma. And so I never put myself on the line. Belloc’s talk of the Anti-Christ, an all-out attack on the Church…Wasn’t Belloc over-the-top? I could still hear my inner sceptic scream, like a thousand other sceptics who denounced the man for being polarised, paranoid, erecting “bogeymen” who, they confidently claimed, weren’t really there…

But I noticed something. Those same sceptics didn’t really care what happened to the Church. Not really. Not deeply. Not like the Chesterbelloc cared. Not like Anna cared. What happened to places like Catholic Ireland didn’t HURT them. What Capitalism did to the poor as well as culture didn’t pierce their hearts, the way it clearly pierced the men behind G. K.’s Weekly.

But Chesterton and Belloc put themselves on the line. They fought ceaselessly for the downtrodden, for fairness, for a world ordered to truth rather than lies. This is to say: the truth of Christ. And the mercy of Christ… Compared to them, I was just an armchair dilettante sitting on the fence.

A mighty thunderclap startled me, as if from a trance. Indeed, I almost jumped out of my skin. Then a voice boomed out: “I told you so, Nero. The situation is far worse than you realise.”

Nero! The name Belloc called me in my dream! But I wasn’t dreaming—I was sure of it! I swivelled around. No one was there. Then, the oval mirror caught my eye. For a split-second, someone appeared in the mirror. It was not my own reflection. Belloc stared down at me. His eyes were grim and blazed with fire… Then, he vanished!

That’s really how it was. But immediately, I began to feel sceptical. Perhaps I was dreaming. Possibly, without realising, I drifted off for a few seconds, before the thunderclap woke me. Maybe my mind conjured up his image from his book on my lap. (“Hello, doubt, my old friend. I’ve come to talk to you again.”)

Whatever the explanation, I’ll never forget the intensity in Belloc’s eyes. There was fire there and fire is life. I couldn’t help thinking Belloc lived his life far more intensely than I ever do. He was intensely awake to the world, while, comparatively, I remain fast, fast asleep.

I stood up in a daze. My mind reeled. My head split. Overwhelmed, fatigued, I could take no more. I stumbled off to bed and fell fast asleep next to my sad, beautiful wife.

XI

“A Divisive Omniphobic Religious Ritual”

“EVERYBODY’S happy, everybody’s laughing…”

Anna recognised the dreamlike Beatles’ song from Abbey Road, as it echoed round the grand hall. That hall was so immense, it seemed to stretch for miles. Hordes of smiling people thronged around her. Anna stood out distinctly from them. For one thing, she wore her sheer nightgown, which—oddly—did not embarrass her. Yet whatever Anna wore, she could hardly be more different to these people. For Anna invariably dressed in distinctly feminine, albeit modest, attire. Yet no one here wore anything remotely feminine.

Everyone, in fact, men and women, dressed in identical white jumpsuits. Moreover, their height never varied from one person to the next. All appeared an identical five foot six. Their hairstyles were likewise identical—a short pageboy-style cut mid-length at the ear. The effect was distinctly unisex, paradoxically all the more so because the one-piece outfits were tight-fitting. In normal circumstances, then, sexual differentiation would be stark. But circumstances were not normal. For any sexual difference was hardly noticeable at all. Every one, male and female, had the same slight, boyish build—like a horse jockey’s.

To her surprise, Anna felt safe in this strange milieu, because her figure was hardly slight or boyish. Normally, she would draw male attention, dressed like this. But no hint of such existed. The men, the women, seemed utterly passionless. Their smiling faces appeared perfectly nice, perfectly bland. To call them “laid back” would be an understatement.

Somehow the vapid, unthreatening environs reminded Anna of a “New Age gospel” by Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. Tolle claimed the present moment—freed from every concern for past or future—offered peace beyond all suffering. Beyond passion, too. Tolle even understood Christianity in those terms! Like LightShadow, he claimed you didn’t need the Church. You could simply come to him, instead. But having left the New Age, Anna saw just how little the man comprehended Christ. Christ had infinitely embraced human suffering, rather than circumventing it. Not only had Tolle understood nothing about Christ, but Anna wondered whether he understood much about being human.

All this, the languid drones in white evoked for her. They were so serene, detached, aloof, beyond all ardour, vivacity and charm. Undeniably, though, she was safe here! No one would ever raise a hand against her. She could strip off her nightgown and no one would raise an eyebrow! Perhaps for Tolle this would be the perfect world of peace: a completely non-violent society. (The fact it was also non-human might escape his attention entirely.)[11]

Moreover, the auditorium remained as anodyne as the people. Walls and furnishings were all the same sheet-white. And that same Beatles’ song dreamily reverberated in a loop that never seemed to end: “Everybody’s happy, everybody’s laughing. Here comes the Sun King…”

At last, relief! Eternal monotony punctured. “Are you here to see the Sun King?” a white clone asked Anna. Desperate to see something different—anything different!—Anna nodded eagerly and was beckoned to a narrow door.

The small room she now entered was different. Yet its dim, claustrophobic confines offered no respite. Seated on a black throne was a man in a black cape, grinning. He, at least, did not appear “laid back”—but vital and enormously satisfied with himself.

It was LightShadow. “The Universal Awakening has happened, my pet, as we always knew it would. Everything we worked for. Everything we dreamed of has come to pass—exactly as we planned it. Come, shall we dance?”

No, LightShadow was not in the least passionless. His gaze bore into Anna. For a moment, she stood there frozen, speechless. Then she turned and bolted. Out the door she sprinted, through that immense long hall, through the great crowds, running for her life. No one blinked an eye.

Finally, Anna reached another door. Anna burst through it— into an endless maze of identical corridors. The doors, Anna sensed, led to living quarters, no doubt identical too. The people here dwelt in an enormity of sameness. For the corridors were as sterile, as featureless as the people in the hall. White walls, white doors, white floors, white ceilings, studded with intense white lights. Breathless, Anna ran through endless rivers of neutral, unobjectionable white. No trace of colour would ever disturb these people’s lives.

But finally, after running for miles, Anna reached the end of a corridor. There was not another corridor! There was only a locked door, which differed from all the others. A sign on it said: “No Exit.” Not knowing what to do, she hurled herself against it. To her astonishment, the door broke open.

Anna was outside! Warm sunlight hit her sweat-soaked body. Stunning colour flooded her starved senses. And beauty! Tall green trees, grasses, flowers and mountains dazzled her at once.

An old track stretched out before her. It led to the ruins of a small medieval English village. And there she found a crumbling edifice that had once been a small gothic Catholic church. But the door was barred by wire fencing. A plaque read:

Anna did not understand the date system. But, just as she woke, the final initials’ meaning came clearly to her mind: Aquarian Era.

She shuddered. What was this dream, which had been so intensely vivid? Could it point to something real? Or even symbolise the English future—at least a potential future?

Like Belloc, Anna knew the Church could never be destroyed. That was Christ’s promise to His people. Nonetheless, the Church had almost been extinguished in England before, as it had in other European regions (Scandinavia, for example, now one of the most liberal and atheistic corners of former Christendom). Yes, generation after generation of English people were denied the power of the Mass. Even after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, Catholicism never really recovered in English society. And England’s thoroughly Protestant nature steadily degenerated into secularism. (Indeed, what small Catholic presence now existed in Britain was mainly due to massive Irish immigration after the 1840s famine.)

On the whole, the spirit of England had been thoroughly de-Catholicised. Did this dream depict Albion’s final destination? Such a fate would hardly be inconsistent with the trajectory of the last centuries.

Eventually, Anna fell back to sleep and was fast asleep, when I awoke—in agony, needing to vomit. My headache had progressed to a full-blown migraine. I don’t get those very often. But when I do, they’re bad. Like iron rods through my skull. Intense nausea. Vision out of focus. Crawling to the toilet to vomit was hell.

Now, it was Saturday and, normally, Saturday mornings Anna and I attend the Latin Mass near our home. Today, though, I had no choice. Anna had to go alone. And she would have to entertain Brigid and her beau alone, too. There’s nothing to do but lie in complete darkness at times like these, move as little as possible and wait it out—sometimes two or three days, even.

And so Anna set out for Mass, deeply disquieted by her dream, by LightShadow and the thought of dealing with the man by herself for an entire afternoon. As ever, the Mass brought solace and strength. Still, Anna knew she faced a trial.

XII

“I Guess I Found Something Better”

WHEN LightShadow and Brigid called that afternoon, I heard the doorbell and a few muffled voices. Little else, however, penetrated the blackness of the room and the pounding in my head. Anna, as she later recounted to me, welcomed our visitors into the lounge, explaining I couldn’t join them. She also thought Brigid looked less than well.

After the usual pleasantries, Anna cut straight to the point. “You said you had big news for us, Brigid?”

“Oh that,” Brigid fumbled, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I thought I did. But, well, I need to think a bit more first. Talk to Gareth, too.”

“Something private between us, I’m afraid.” LightShadow looked slightly annoyed. Changing the subject, he, too, cut to the point: “What exactly is it with you and the Church, Anna?”

“I’m not sure I could ever explain it to you.”

“Try me! I’m all ears—genuinely interested!”

“Gareth is cool with Christianity,” Brigid interjected, trying to help. “I mean, I’m a Christian myself—but a holistic Christian,” she added, “Not everybody has to transcend religion! That’s what you teach, right, Gareth?”

“Absolutely,” LightShadow grinned, “There’s nothing wrong with religion if people approach it consciously—with a more universal perspective. In the future, there’ll be more and more people like that: holistic Christians, holistic Muslims, holistic Jews, etc. It’s a perfectly valid way forward, I think.”

“I’m like that, a holistic Catholic,” Brigid said. “I still go to Mass sometimes, if it feels appropriate to my needs.”

“Right on!” LightShadow said.

But Anna simply said, “I see.” Finding words after Brigid’s “holistic confession” was hard. Inside her heart was breaking. Ireland had always been so different from England. Its sheer spirituality stood in marked contrast to the materialistic society she grew up in. But now Brigid showed her what Ireland might become. Not as agnostic and utilitarian as England—but “holistic” instead. Its Christianity could be transformed into the substance of her New Age nightmare. Everybody happy, languid, “laid back,” complacent…

“Whatever you’re doing in the Church, Anna, I’m sure it’s great,” LightShadow said, coaxing her to speak. “It’s brilliant you want to do something to heal the Church. That’s what Pope Francis wants. What do you think about him?”

Still, the words would not come. In truth, Anna hardly knew how to talk to anybody about Pope Francis—let alone LightShadow! She believed in loyalty to the Holy Father and refused to reveal her true feelings regarding him to anyone except me. A limp answer was all she managed, “He’s done a few good things, I guess.”

“A few good things?! Oh, man. That guy’s the best thing the Church has had for two thousand years. Okay, he’s still stuck and rigid in certain ways. But compared to everyone else, he’s a revolution!”

Brigid looked increasingly uncomfortable. She excused herself for a moment, saying she needed the bathroom. Alone with LightShadow, Anna felt more unnerved than ever. Something about the man made her feel devoured. And without Brigid, his smiling sweetness all but disappeared.

“What’s going on, Anna? I really need to know—what’s with this Catholic gig?”

“The gig,” Anna said slowly, “is real. I lived at Findhorn, as you know. Then, I went to Auroville in India. Like you, I lived in California for a while. I spent years in therapy. I was initiated into Reiki. I practiced astrology. I’ve been to hundreds of New Age workshops, meetings and gatherings. But I never found anything like the Catholic Church.”

LightShadow exploded in expletives I won’t repeat here.

“In everything I’ve experienced, nothing—absolutely nothing!—reaches the core of our being like the Catholic sacraments. No healing, no meditation, no rituals, no exercises, no therapy— I never found anything even remotely like this.”

“Oh man. That guy you married has gone to your head!”

“I’m afraid not. I converted him. I would never have married him if he hadn’t converted. The Church is the most precious thing I ever found in this world.”

LightShadow stared at her, aghast. Only now, the full reality began to dawn on him. Anna was not Catholic because of me. She was not Catholic because she meant “to do something to heal the Church.” No, she was Catholic because she actually believed Catholic teaching. And experienced its truth. Incredible!

“I don’t know what to say…” He was still at a loss, still protesting reality. “You, you of all people ought to know better. You were at Findhorn, man… you even lived there.”

“I guess I found something better.”

“What on earth is better about this? It’s completely out of date! It’s two thousand years old, for God’s sake! Maybe three thousand, with all that Old Testament garbage. It’s completely patriarchal, filled with hypocrisy and hate. It’s totally morbid. I mean actually celebrating some dude being tortured on a cross? How sadistic is that?”

“You really have no idea what you’re talking about,” was all Anna could say.

“Okay, okay, maybe that’s harsh. Normally, I don’t talk like that, especially around Bridge. When you’ve been saddled with that stuff as a child, it’s tough to break free. You need to go easy with people like that. But you’re different. You lived at Findhorn!” he said, still incredulous. “You have no excuse—you weren’t raised Catholic! Or were you?”

“No, I chose it consciously. You could say I had a spiritual transformation.” Anna mimicked New Age jargon, managing a sad little smile. “It was like a quantum shift in my awareness…”

“Un–bloody–believable! I mean, I understand less-evolved people still need religion as a security-blanket. But not you! You’re more advanced! This is the twenty-first century! How is all that dogma meant to speak to the modern world? It’s time to let go of all your precious little doctrines and Rosary beads. It’s juvenile. We’ve moved beyond all your closed-minded fundamentalism now! Grow up, will you? Get a life!”

Anna reeled. This was the man her young cousin hoped to marry…?! But Brigid returned, looking brighter. Instantly, LightShadow dropped the tirade and resumed his trademark grin. Brigid snuggled into him. Yet still his gaze penetrated Anna.

Her heart pounded. She could hardly catch her breath properly. It was all too much. That eerie, terrifying dream last night. Brigid’s conversion to English New Age-ism. This grinning, supercilious blackguard Brigid loved. Then, that nun who couldn’t care less about Catholic tradition. Along with millions of Catholics just like her. A Vatican that hardly seemed any different. Everything came crashing down on Anna at once. She struggled to fight back tears.

“Kyrie eleison,” she cried out in her heart.

Then the doorbell rang.

XIII

A Prayer Answered

“I’LL get that!” Anna said, rushing to the door, swinging it open. There on the porch stood a tall, rotund man, holding an umbrella in the Irish rain. His hair and beard were white as snow and he wore a tie and hat with a faded tweed jacket. He appeared old, very old—as though he might have lived a hundred years or more. Despite his age, there was no fatigue about him. Nor was he the least stooped like old men often are. Rather, he brimmed with vitality.

Anna recognised him at once. It was Gilbert Tracey, the Gentle Traditionalist.

“Wh–what are you doing here?”

“Well, we can’t take too much more of this nonsense, can we? Not you, nor Brigid either. Your husband lying there like the pro-verbial wreck of the Hesperus.” Tenderly, he stretched out his hand to wipe a tear from her eye. “I’m here to help, of course,” he said, handing Anna his hat as he shook the rain from his umbrella, and stepped inside.

I heard that second doorbell ring, but had no idea what was happening. Then, abruptly, the door to my darkened cell opened. Light flooded the room and pain pounded my brain. Instantly, I shut my eyes. But for a split second, I glimpsed the large figure in the doorway next to Anna, a figure I could not make out.

“Geoffrey, I’m sorry—but there’s someone to see you.”

“Anna, Geoffrey and I need a moment alone,” a voice seemed to say. A warm, familiar voice…but I could barely make it out amidst the throbbing, pulsing agony. “We’ll both join you shortly. Why don’t you make a place for us?”

“Okay,” Anna spoke in a daze. “How do I explain who you are—?”

“Oh, just say your dear Uncle Gilbert dropped by for an unexpected visit! You can say I’m a little batty, if you like, but you have to humour the poor chap.”

Only then, I recognised that cheery Irish lilt that thoroughly transformed my life! Still, I felt too sick to say a word. Anna mercifully shut the door behind her. Everything was dark again. Only that voice was left beside me, a kind, soothing voice, almost infinitely kind…

“Well, well, well, my good man. Whatever happened to you? We can’t have this, can we? Not when your wife needs you more than ever. That fellow out there is no pushover, you know.”

“Can’t see straight, can’t even think,” was all I could utter.

“Yes, you were overloaded in a short space of time—over-loaded by reality. That creates all kinds of complications, dislocation, even despair. But we can’t have that, can we? Too much is at stake. Your wife, her cousin. There’s someone else in this equation, too. And millions more like them. We can’t have you like this! All hands are needed on deck!”

“But—”

“No protest, my dear fellow. Trust me. Open your eyes!” I obeyed and found myself staring straight into a blazing jewel of fiery red. GT’s right arm was extended towards me. And the ring on the middle finger of that enormous fleshy hand pointed directly between my eyes. Was I really staring into the Blood of Christ…a relic of the True Cross…and those of fifteen Roman martyrs…?

“Jesus Christ heals you. Get up from your bed!”

At that instant, all pain, all nausea vanished. I stood up, utterly refreshed, as though nothing had happened at all. Or rather as though something had happened, something sweet as honey. As though I had woken from the sweetest night’s sleep of my life. I felt not only restored, but rejuvenated.

XIV

A Zebra Meets a Dinosaur

“GEOFFREY’S here—he’s feeling better!” Anna said, showing us into the lounge. “And we have an unexpected visitor. Do come in, Uncle Gilbert.”

“Yes, Uncle Gilbert,” I said. “Meet Brigid and her boyfriend, Gareth LightShadow!”

“Ah yes. Gilbert Tracey at your service. But just call me GT!”

When GT spoke, Brigid was perplexed. She never heard of an “Uncle Gilbert” before. Did GT stem from Anna’s English family? Yet the big guy was decidedly not English. There was an unmistakeable Irish lilt to his genteel voice and his relaxed, genial manner didn’t seem very English either. Still, something about him unsettled her. She snuggled closer into LightShadow, oddly clutching LightShadow’s book in her lap.

“That was certainly an interesting talk last night, Mr LightShadow,” GT said, settling into a chair.

“You were there? I never saw you!” I exclaimed.

“Well, I was hidden away,” the old man smiled. “I had my own little perch there, so to speak. My own way of looking in.”

Here a lengthy conversation began, much of it between Gareth LightShadow and the Gentle Traditionalist. It was not unlike my own uncanny conversation with GT three years ago, even if it turned out LightShadow was nowhere near as interested in dialogue as he claimed. Indeed, his input was mildly mocking, peppered with put-downs, even while he remained affable and jocular, grinning like that famous cat from Cheshire.

At any rate, I record it in dialogue form, just as I did in my first book about GT.

GT: Your New Age religion certainly has striking beliefs…

GLS: Whoa! My religion? Dude, in case you didn’t notice, I don’t have a religion!

Brigid: That’s right! Gareth is spiritual, but not religious. That’s what you teach, isn’t it, darling?

GLS: Exactly! And whoever said I was a New Ager? I never even mentioned the term “New Age”!

GT: Well, you evoke a glorious new era, where all sorts of human problems—problems plaguing humanity since the Fall—will suddenly vanish. Or at least be vastly reduced.

GLS: Well, that’s progress. That’s being an optimist. I happen to believe in human potential. Not like some people!

GT: Indeed. So much so that you subscribe to “an epochal paradigm shift of awesome proportions” wherein “human consciousness will be liberated, expanded and transformed, forever freed from its fixation on morbid patterns of guilt no longer appropriate for a new era.” That’s from your book. (Page 101, if I recall correctly.)

For a moment, the room fell silent, although Brigid quickly thumbed through the copy on her lap. “He’s right!” she gasped.

GT: Alas, to my mind that reads like a thousand other books belonging to… well, I won’t say religion—at least for the moment. Maybe we could talk about a New Age Movement, instead?

GLS: Frankly, I’ve got a problem with that, too. You’re jumping to conclusions! I’m not into any movement, much less New Age. Personally, “New Age” sounds flaky to me.

My mind reeled, hearing that. But it hardly surprised me. Many New Agers were embarrassed by the expression “New Age.” At least, that’s what Anna said. Once the term was widely—and proudly—embraced. But somewhere along the line, roundabout the 1980s, it became associated with self-indulgent silliness in the public eye. New Agers abandoned it in droves. Suddenly, Anna said, everyone in the New Age was scrambling to say: “I am not a New Ager!”

“Flaky?” I said.

GLS: Well, yeah, a lot of those books are over the top. I don’t deny I’ve read some—

GT: Or plenty?

GLS: Whatever—that still doesn’t mean I signed up for a movement. Give me a break! I believe in freedom—not movements, not categories. People like us are free spirits. We don’t need labels like “New Age.”

LightShadow smiled, secure in himself. He was too sure of himself to take GT seriously for an instant. Perhaps, though, he was curious to meet this old “dinosaur” who could quote his book verbatim, even if he was too unenlightened to grasp the message.

“Brigid, Gareth,” Anna said, “I’m sure you mean that. But I used to say exactly the same thing. I never wanted to be a New Ager either! But I read New Age books; I listened to New Age music; I went to New Age workshops and festivals. I lived in a New Age community. Most of my friends were similar. And we all said what you say: “Don’t categorise us. We aren’t New Agers…”

GT: Yes, Anna. There do seem to be people sharing similar features here—reading the same literature, going to the same seminars, thinking the same thoughts. Like they’ve transcended religion or belong to an “evolutionary shift of consciousness” that will usher in a new age (even if it’s not always called that). All that looks like a definite sort of movement to me—people moving together in the same direction.

GLS: Okay, okay. Maybe there’s a loose kind of movement. Very loose. Big deal. You still don’t need to call it “New Age.”

Brigid: These days, people prefer other names—like “holistic.”

GLS: That’s better, for sure!

GT: Alas, we have a little problem here. Christianity is holistic too! Christians see God’s creation as a whole: the work of a single loving hand. I can’t call your philosophy “holistic”— as if mine weren’t! Then there’s “Mind-Body-Spirit”—as though Christianity did not honour the mind, did not honour the body, did not honour the spirit. I am sorry; these names are implicitly condescending.

I’ll tell you what… You believe in freedom. Would you grant me freedom to talk about a New Age Movement— one that appears quite definite in my mind? At least for the purposes of our little discussion today?

GLS: Call it whatever you want! It’s a free country. Nobody’s legislating your delusions.

GT: No… at least, not yet. Moreover, I believe you celebrate diversity. We all have a right to our different perspectives. For you, New Agers are just free, independent spirits. To me, they’re enmeshed in a distinct religious system they can’t even seem to see. Our viewpoints here are wildly diverse. I hope you can tolerate mine.

GLS: Can do, dude. Diversity is where it’s at today. I’m sure you have a perfectly valid perspective to offer.

GT: Why, thank you, my dear fellow. Anyway, my own perspective is that nobody ever gets away from religion. In fact, your belief in diversity seems a defining tenet of your own religious system. Dare I say dogma?

GLS: Oh, man! You know what your problem is? Your need for all this “belief ” and “dogma” stuff! Religion is so attached to all that garbage. I mean, why even talk about it—unless you need to shove it down people’s throats? We don’t need your beliefs, anymore.

GT: “We don’t need?” Who is this “we,” I wonder? Could it be your movement—the one I call “New Age”? I mean, your “we” does seem rather different to my “we.” “Your” movement doesn’t need “our” beliefs…

GLS: Call it what you like! I just say there’s a new freedom of the spirit, freedom from belief. We don’t need absolute truth. All that arrogant junk!

GT: So, am I hearing right? Religious belief is a problem for you. Because it inhibits spiritual freedom?

GLS: Right on!

GT: Well, freedom is tremendously important. You know, friend, we’re actually agreed on that one.

GLS: Oh man, is that rich! How can people be free with all your legalistic dogma?! Nobody needs that now. People want something universal—something everyone can relate to. Spirituality is dead simple when you boil it down. Be kind. Be tolerant. Treat people as you’d like to be treated. Even Christians have a name for it—the Golden Rule. What’s important is what’s in your heart. Beliefs only get in the way.

GT: Oh, really?

GLS: Yeah—it’s like religion. It’s just a means to control people.

GT: “Just?” That’s all it is?

GLS: Look at history! You see the same thing in every time and culture. It’s all so rigid. And not only that. Beliefs are so divisive, man. It’s time to get away from that—get out of your head.

GT: I’m sorry, I rather like my head. Vacating it has never particularly appealed to me.

GLS: You should try meditation then. Just enter the silence. You’ll find a place beyond all this head-stuff.

GT: Like that Beatles’ song, you mean: “Turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.”

GLS: Now you’re talking! Try it—there’s a deep, still place within, where we’re all one. No beliefs. No concepts. No division.

“Sure,” I grumbled, “Silence thinking—then you have no more concepts. If we have no more concepts, everyone can agree with each other. Great.”

“Well,” GT countered my irritation, “contemplative silence is something of tremendous beauty. But that’s not to negate thinking. In fact, true silence enhances thinking. Still, we have a problem, Mr LightShadow. You advocate a silent space of ‘Oneness’ beyond all beliefs. But I counted at least five, just right there. There may be even ten or fifteen, if we carefully considered everything you just said.”

GLS: Ten—fifteen what?

GT: Why, beliefs of course. I can number them, if you like. First, religion is “just” about control. Second, religious beliefs make people rigid. Third, they’re obsolete now. Fourth, it’s best to “get out of your head.” All this carries, fifth, the evident belief you’ve found something superior to religion. Before that, you indicated your belief that simplicity is better than complexity. And there are still more beliefs, I’m sure. Even dogmas. Like there’s no need for priests or hierarchy…

GLS: Get real, dude. These aren’t dogmas! Any ordinary, modern person can see these things! But I’m not sure you know much about ordinary, modern people…

LightShadow smiled smugly. I was getting riled. The guy obviously hadn’t heard a word GT said. And last night’s lecture with all its non-stop sureties still rankled me. “Will you, please, for once in your life listen?” I roared. “GT’s right, you’ve just listed one belief after another. Your talk last night was loaded with plenty more!”

For an instant, LightShadow was caught off guard. GT took advantage of the moment, saying “My friend Geoffrey may be hotheaded, but he has a point. Both explicitly and implicitly, there’s a far more developed set of beliefs here than you may realise. Please, I think I could manage a little summary. Could you indulge an old man for a few minutes?”

“Go on, then. I’m dying to hear this one!” LightShadow grinned.

“Well, thank you, my dear chap,” GT said. “This may take a moment…” With that, he took a breath, winced and started to recite a strange credo:

GT: I believe in One, Timeless, Universal Spiritual Reality, which is always fully accessible in every time and culture.

I believe religions are human-made reflections of that Universal Spirit, which necessarily obscure and deflect spiritual seekers from the truth.

I believe in equally embracing the shadow and the light, yin and yang and every other duality which, on closer inspection, dissolves into transcendent Oneness. No true division exists. Beyond the illusory veil of separation, no true, meaningful differences exist. The Inner is the Outer; the Outer is the Inner. Male is female; female is male. I am you. You are Me. And we are all together.

I believe in eternal evolution. We are all just “spirits in the material world,” ever reincarnating in different forms, even different planes of existence, to achieve our fullest, highest potential.

I believe in ascended masters who have evolved more highly than us and light the way ahead.

I believe, therefore, in inevitable progress. Today’s modern age of Aquarius is more evolved than the preceding Age of Pisces. The epoch of prejudice, patriarchy, authority and hierarchy is past. We are all moving onwards and upwards in ever ascending spirals of radiant possibility.

I affirm creativity, optimism and positive thinking over needless guilt, morbid thinking and anxiety for the future. “Don’t worry. Be Happy.”

I believe in Gnosis: my own personal intuition. I proudly claim my own reality and my own truth. Likewise, I empower everybody else to do the same, forgetting all doctrines, dogmas and head-trips.

I believe in love, tolerance and understanding. With an open heart and mind, I warmly affirm the right of all individuals to freely choose their own spiritual path. No perspective is ever any more real or valid than any other.

In summation, I believe in “whatever works” to achieve health, happiness and personal power, with liberty and justice for all.

“Wow,” Brigid gasped. “You really did read Gareth’s book, didn’t you?”

“Indeed, I have. And many more like it,” GT sighed.

“That is what you teach, isn’t it, Gareth?” Brigid ventured, a little nervously.

“You know,” LightShadow grinned, “That’s not too shabby! I probably do believe some of those things, like you say.”

GT: Only some?

GLS: Okay—most. Maybe even all. Whatever. But here’s the thing. I don’t need to define them like that! That’s one thing I’ll never understand about you religionists: why explain everything in set doctrines? There’s no need for that. You’re better off without fixed creeds!

GT: Well, my friend, there’s another belief there—that it’s better to avoid clear religious definition. Why do you believe people are “better off” without creeds?

GLS: Isn’t it obvious? It’s impossible. You can’t cage infinity! The spirit is beyond all human concepts. All those theological definitions are just head-tripping, man. Mental masturbation. Follow your heart—not your head. People need some room to breathe, for God’s sake.

GT: Perhaps it is more for your sake. Of course, no human words can ever fully capture the Infinite Mysteries of God…

GLS: Right on!

GT: Still, that hardly means people should remain mute— refusing to address spiritual reality. Indeed, refusing to think about it! Language is always imperfect, but we can’t renounce it. Not unless we’d rather return to being apes— or vegetables.

GT nailed it. I was always irritated by New Age nebulousness. A corollary to GT’s credo popped into my mind: “I believe in switching off my mind and making every statement as neutral, vague, fuzzy and empty of meaning as humanly possible…” Then, something Chesterton said wandered into my thoughts— except I couldn’t quite recall the words.

“Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas,” GT said, as if out of nowhere.

“That’s Chesterton!” I exclaimed. “I was thinking the very same thing! But there’s more to the quote—if only I could remember.”

“I can help you there,” GT smiled. “He goes on to say that when man

declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.

Anna and I burst out laughing. LightShadow looked at GT as though he were mad. I doubt he had ever encountered people like us before in his life: Christians who valued thinking.

XV

The Inclusiveness Illusion

“MAN, you are something else,” LightShadow said. “Look, no one’s talking about giving up language. I just said people need a little breathing room. That’s all.”

“Or maybe a lot… even an excess,” GT mused.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, we occupy a finite world of limited domains. Sometimes, one sector demands too much space. Inevitably, then, another one gets shortchanged. Given humanity’s fallen condition, the potential for tyranny is never absent. Too often, it’s disguised as a demand for greater liberty: a cunning conceit. Our contemporary corporate libertarianism professes liberty…

“Corporate libertarianism?” I said, interrupting him.

“I mean our present philosophy of liberating giant banks and corporations as much as humanly possible. That liberation becomes license to crush the little guy. But that’s just one example. Hitler’s Lebensraum would be another. Certainly, the same trajectory appears elsewhere, as well.”

For a brief instant, LightShadow seemed lost for words. GT, I think, presented a genuine puzzle to him. He obviously considered religious people simply as idiots. Clearly, though, GT was no idiot. The old man glided articulately from one topic to the next, employing terms and concepts foreign to LightShadow.

GLS: You’re going too far. Exaggerating things! You’re right: I have beliefs. Everyone does. I just don’t codify them in rigid rule books. Once you define everything like that, it marginalises people. It’s like an exclusive club. Either you agree—or you’re out. We live in a multicultural society today. Whether you like it or not, inclusiveness is not an option any more.

GT: Hmm… another belief: Inclusiveness is mandatory now. That certainly sounds like a main tenet here (whether “codified” or not). How did inclusiveness become obligatory, I wonder? And which progressive “pope” decreed it?

GLS: I can’t believe it—you’re not actually saying you’re against inclusiveness?

GT: Indeed I am! At least the way that idea is defined today. To me, it seems a nascent totalitarianism, bent on reducing all differences to manageable dimensions.

GLS: Manageable dimensions?

GT: Well, by our new corporate and capitalist oligarchy, I mean.

GLS: Oh my God. You… are… completely unreal.

GT: I’m not God, my friend. But I assure you I am quite real. People who don’t subscribe to your ideology can be real too, you know! Let me be frank. That’s what I think we have here: an ideology tantamount to religion. And it has two different wings—a secular wing (which is materialistic) and a New Age wing (which aspires to be spiritual).

I could see where the old man was headed. All along, GT pointed out precisely what LightShadow meant to deny: that he possessed a clear system of belief. That system made distinct, definite claims about the spiritual nature of reality. In that, it was “tantamount to religion.”

On the other hand, secularists had something comparable. I recalled the first time I met GT. I was a committed secularist then. Like LightShadow, I also denied possessing beliefs—in my case secular beliefs. GT called this the “New Secular Religion.” Because like the “New Age Religion,” it, too, made distinct, definite claims about the nature of reality (although the claims were materialistic rather than spiritual).

Here, then, were the two “wings” GT now referred to: spiritual and materialistic versions of much the same thing. Kissing cousins, you could say.

Like LightShadow, I had resisted everything the old man said. But GT rendered conscious the materialistic beliefs that lurked in my unconsciousness. For example, I affirmed euthanasia, like nearly everyone else of a progressive persuasion. But that, GT pointed out, was either because they believed there was no after-life or else, they believed it didn’t matter. Whichever way you sliced it, there were beliefs here, beliefs that were either explicitly materialistic (“there is no afterlife”) or implicitly so (“it doesn’t matter if there’s an afterlife or not; only the present material world matters”).

Moreover, GT pointed out something else: This dismissal of life beyond death generated its own ethics. Only thus did one arrive at assisting suicide. A similar situation pertained to abortion. A “right to abort” depended on a belief about the nature of the foetus.

Thus, little by little, GT revealed the “New Secular Religion” to which I unconsciously adhered. Because all the ethical injunctions of secular society rested on a definite system of belief. Yet secularism, like the New Age, denied this. It always claimed to be neutral, open and tolerant. That, GT said, was “why secularism gets away with murder” (and speaking of things like assisted suicide and abortion, it was obvious he meant that quite literally).

Just as GT prodded me to admit that secularism manifested as a materialistic creed with its own moral judgments, he now tried something similar with LightShadow. But LightShadow was not a materialistic sceptic like I had been. So GT went after the other wing instead: the “New Age Religion.”

GT: The New Age Religion features all those elements in the creed I recited—oneness, evolution, reincarnation, etc. But there’s more. It also adopts secular beliefs. So we need to factor them in, too. Abortion, “gay marriage” and of course so-called multiculturalism. Or, like you just said, there is no other option, except inclusiveness. That seems to me another New Age dogma: that a diversity of views is always and everywhere a good thing…

GLS: Let me get this straight: Are you actually saying diversity is NOT a good thing?

GT: Well, not in the sense you mean it. Indeed, I am staunchly opposed to it! A culture committed to complete diversity would be a sorry thing indeed. Completely insane, in fact.

GLS: Un–be–liev–able!

GT: You know, I was in a society like that once. We had a strange debate. The speaker maintained that, according to the latest quantum research, the old Newtonian paradigm was all wrong. Apparently, the true value of two plus two was not four, but actually 4.0000000001. And then this other fellow—he was a skinhead—claimed that was wrong. It was 5.6! And finally a little old lady with blue hair and a koala bear chimed in and said it was 132 …

GLS: You said this was a debating society?!

GT: Well, not exactly. It was more like an asylum, actually. The SDSII it was called—St Dymphna’s Society for the Incurably Insane. Anyway, finally, I had to object and say that quantum mechanics was absolutely irrelevant here! And in fact, two plus two really was truly four. I’m afraid the other three didn’t take to that very kindly. I’m not sure about the koala bear…

GLS: I see. Tell me, old man—precisely what have you been smoking?

GT: Why nothing, of course (apart from some beautiful frankincense I might have inhaled at Mass). At any rate, you take my point: that little society—even if insane—was positively filled with diversity! One might even call it multicultural. The four of us couldn’t agree on the simplest thing! Pluralism isn’t always a good thing, you know.

GLS: You’re talking about a nuthouse!

GT: Well, some of us feel modern society is more like that than people realise. Alas, there’s plenty of evidence to back that up. Mental illness rates in the modern West are off the scale. The number of people taking medication to control anxiety or depression: it’s enough to break an old man’s heart. It was nothing like that when I was young… you don’t hear much about that in “progressive” narratives. That’s just an aside. My real point is that diversity of views isn’t always a good thing. Any form of society needs common standards. That’s necessary for freedom.

GLS: Freedom? I think “control” is the word you’re looking for…

GT: Well, it’s a paradox. But think of traffic lights in a big city. No one could move anywhere unless everyone agrees that green means go and red means stop. Diversity there would mean gridlock—or complete chaos.

GLS: Give me a break! You’re just talking about practical necessities of everyday life.

GT: Well, admittedly, that’s an extremely superficial example. Red and green are arbitrary and shallow. It might just as easily be blue and orange. Of course, the most profound order isn’t founded on human conventions—but immutable divine TRUTH. But that’s a very major topic. More than we can manage at this time, I think. For now, I’m only suggesting freedom without order is impossible. Law is indispensable, even if it’s only traffic law…

And so GT stepped back from the brink of his “very major topic” sensing—correctly, I think—he would lose LightShadow completely. Personally, I wish he could have developed his argument further. For, by now, I was clear that any culture—whether secular, Catholic, New Age, whatever—is inevitably organised around certain propositions—propositions it holds as sacrosanct.

Yet such propositions are moral only to the extent they reflect divine truth. For example, a society can have laws allowing abortion, based on the lie “a foetus is not a person,” or laws forbidding abortion based on the truth. Two vastly different societies result from the truth or not of the matter. And the same goes for other laws, whether those permitting euthanasia, usury, pornography or what have you. Law based on lies leads to slavery. Law based on truth leads to freedom.

But I digress. For now, I must return to the argument GT was developing—that enforcing diversity as an idol leads to no diversity whatsoever.

GLS: Okay. Common standards are necessary sometimes. That’s not religion! That’s not the same as claiming spiritual dominion over people’s lives with all your legalistic rules. “Thou shalt not this; thou shalt not that.” I believe in diversity, man—not religion!

GT: But didn’t you just tell me I had no other option, except to believe what you believe?

GLS: Only fascists like you would disagree with inclusiveness.

GT: Well, there you go. We have three distinct stages: First, a formulated belief: diversity is necessarily a good thing (always and everywhere). That leads to the second, an ethical injunction—or a commandment: “thou shalt be inclusive.” Third, exclusion: if I don’t agree, I’m excluded as a fascist. Or a dinosaur. Or a neanderthal.

I am sorry, my dear fellow, but whether you “codify” them in formal creeds or not, you still have copious beliefs— yes, even commandments. And those who agree are “in” and those who disagree are “out.” That’s one reason I can’t sign up for the Inclusiveness Regime. It’s based on illusion.

GLS: I suppose you’d rather return to a rigid, robotic society where everyone has to conform, backed up by the Inquisition?

GT: That’s an interesting response. I express my view about current claims to diversity, and all I get is sarcasm. Am I allowed a divergent opinion about diversity in our supposedly diversified society? In other words: do I get any “breathing room?”

GLS: Of course, you’re perfectly free to believe whatever garbage you like!

GT: Well, thank you. I do believe you mean that, Mr LightShadow. (Unfortunately, I’m not so sure about others in the Inclusiveness Regime.) To my mind, the only diversity that regime tolerates is the most superficial kind imaginable. Like cuisine. Certainly, the modern world has a fantastic “pluralism” of things to eat. Go into any big city now and you can order Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Lebanese food— whatever. (You’re even allowed to prefer one cuisine to another!) But real, substantial differences aren’t allowed to matter. Truly disagree with the Inclusiveness Regime and you get stomped on pretty quick.

GLS: You cannot be serious. I cannot believe what I’m hearing.

GT: Well, you’re not alone, friend. I can’t believe the things I’m hearing either. People forced into a flattened, standard-ised, one-size-fits-all Political Correctness—then told our society is multicultural! People pressured to abandon the religious and ethical beliefs of millennia—or get labelled as “haters”… It’s just like that asylum I visited. You know, that New Ager who told me two plus two was 5.6 became pretty violent when I challenged him…

GLS: New Ager? You said he was a skinhead!

GT: Well, yes, it’s all a bit confusing, I know. He claimed to be an “anarchoholist” and called himself “Schrödinger’s Rottweiler.” Then, he said he’d thump me one when I questioned his new quantum paradigm…

GLS: There you go again with that nuthouse of yours! Can we talk about the real world, please?

GT: Yes, forgive me. I do digress. Things aren’t quite as bad as that yet. Still, that “nuthouse” seems a sure sign of where our de-traditionalised “real” world is headed… At least, that’s how it looks to me. When I couldn’t accept Mr. Rottweiler’s “paradigm shift,” his explicit hostility only revealed the implicit hostility behind our brave, new multicultural society. That’s why I don’t believe in inclusiveness. It’s illusory because it never includes all sorts of people. Scratch the surface of the illusion, you find rage underneath…

GLS: Gee. No wonder. People today get angry about fascism…

“Well, even there we share a mutual concern,” GT said. “Multiculturalism as a new form of fascism—that’s precisely what troubles me.”

A mischievous twinkle appeared in the old man’s eye. “Of course, not everything about multiculturalism is bad. I mean, our new expanded cuisine means you can now get root beer in Ireland! Yum, yum,” he said and smacked his lips.

“Root beer…?” LightShadow said.

“Yes, I used to drink it back at the Alamo! Or was it the O.K. Corral? I can’t remember now. I do get muddled sometimes. Anyway, Billy the Kid introduced me to it. Or maybe it was Butch Cassidy…”

Brigid and LightShadow stared at each other in disbelief. (Of course, I felt just the same when I first met GT. Back then, the old man likewise carried on about odd historical characters he could never have met. And he extolled that same sickly sweet fizzy drink, whose mysterious appeal to Americans completely eluded me—and, GT aside, pretty much every other European I ever met.)

“At any rate,” GT continued, “until recently, I could never find it this side of the pond. I say it’s time for a round! Who would like a glass?”

“But GT, we don’t have any root beer!” Anna said.

“Never mind. I always carry a case with me wherever I go!”

“But you didn’t arrive with a case—”

“Oh, don’t let that bother you! Go to your fridge. You’ll find a six pack there, I believe.”

Anna went to the refrigerator. To her astonishment, six cans of root beer were there.

“You’re right,” she called back from the kitchen.

“Like I said—I never leave home without it! That makes one for each of us. And an extra one for me!”

“Er, not me,” LightShadow said. “I can’t stand the stuff!”

“Nor me either.” I said.

GT looked around at our faces, but none of us appeared keen. “Ah, well, I suppose that means they’re all for me, then! Pour me a double, would you, Anna?”

Anna returned to the lounge with a big mug of the stuff.

“Ah, delectable!” GT exclaimed and glugged it back. Then, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, he added: “My tastes may seem a bit strange, I know. At least, in this case, though, I trust our new multicultural society can tolerate me. Alas, it’s everything else I’m worried about.”

“You are a complete trip,” LightShadow said. “Look, I don’t say everything’s perfect. Maybe some people go too far with Political Correctness. Me, I always stand by Voltaire. There’s a famous saying attributed to him. I don’t suppose you’d know it, though…”

“Ah yes,” GT said. “You mean: ‘I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it.’”

“Hey, I’m impressed.” LightShadow looked surprised. Throughout everything, the man’s conceit had been palpable—as though he were a titan who’d stumbled into a den of hopelessly reactionary pygmies. The fact GT recognised Enlightenment thought took him aback.

GT: Funny that, when you think about what happened after Voltaire?

GLS: What’s that supposed to mean?

GT: Well, Voltaire’s philosophy was, par excellence, the inspiration for 1789—the French Revolution, which ended up killing everyone in sight who didn’t share its vision of a free, tolerant open society. To this day, people still speak of Voltaire in hushed tones—as though he pioneered freedom. But it rings a bit hollow to me. Maybe, though, you regard the French Revolution as a great point in human evolution? Even an early herald of the new Aquarian consciousness…

GLS: Sure, everyone knows it liberated the people from the Church’s power.

“Great,” I grunted, “the inclusive French Revolution couldn’t include the Church, so it was forced to eliminate Her…”

XVI

On Human Suffering

“1789,” GT said, “truly astonishes me. Rather, I should say the cult of 1789…”

“The cult?” Brigid said.

“Well, I don’t mean a sect, but rather the ritual celebration— year in, year out. People commemorating this unimaginable orgy of cruelty, barbarism, genocide. I mean, the Inclusiveness Regime is more understandable. It’s highly repressive, but not so nakedly as the French Revolution. Mostly, the repression still happens at psychological levels (though sometimes people’s livelihood— their jobs—are threatened). Still, it’s nowhere near as blatant as the bloodshed of revolutionary France.”

GLS: Sometimes, stuff happens. Revolutions happen. Tyrants need overthrowing. People get killed—including innocent people caught in the crossfire. It’s not pretty, but it’s inevitable.

GT: Some would say that sounds callous. Have you any idea of the hundreds of thousands massacred in France alone—let alone the death tolls of the revolutionary wars across Europe in the aftermath?

GLS: I know it sounds bad. But it’s the price we pay for progress. Anyway, death may appear terrible. But really it’s nothing to fear. It’s merely transition from one plane of existence to another. The ultimate freedom is being liberated from the body.

GT: Hmm. Reminds me of a quote from a book I know: “I tell you this, at the moment of your death, you will realise the greatest freedom, the greatest peace, the greatest joy, the greatest love you have ever known.”

GLS: Yes, exactly! I have to hand it to you—you sure have a thing remembering all these quotes…

GT: Yes, I’ve been gifted with eidetic memory, commonly called photographic memory. If I see a text once, I can still see the image of the words in my mind. Unfortunately, that means I never forget things like that…

With that, GT shuddered. LightShadow looked at him quizzically. “Like what?” he asked.

“Well, the utter trivialisation of death and suffering in New Age texts. That one, by the way, was from Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Book Two, page 56. Would you like to hear what it says on page 36?”

“I would, GT,” I piped in, before LightShadow could answer.

Shuddering still, GT continued, “Purportedly, this is the voice of God. How Walsch heard ‘God’ speak to him. Apparently, ‘God’ says: ‘First, understand that death is not an end, but a beginning; not a horror, but a joy. It is not a closing down, but an opening up. The happiest moment of your life will be the moment it ends.’”

“Sounds great to me,” LightShadow grinned. “Go on.”

“Very well.” GT said, “If I must. Further down the page ‘God’ says: ‘The first thing you have to understand—as I’ve already explained to you—is that Hitler didn’t hurt anyone. In a sense, he didn’t inflict suffering, he ended it.’ And then ‘God’ adds: ‘The mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose death he caused. Those souls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterflies emerging from a cocoon.’ Elsewhere, ‘God’ tells Walsch Hitler went to Heaven, because no hell exists…”

GT looked almost stricken as he continued. “Those Walsch conversations with ‘God’—millions upon millions of people reading them in dozens of languages. Receiving it all as divine inspiration. Indeed, you even find these ‘conversations with God’ in Christian bookshops these days! People everywhere are forgetting what Christianity truly means.”

GLS: Okay, I happen to like Walsch. His channellings have done enormous good. Still, no channel is perfect. Maybe Walsch got that one wrong. I’m not saying Hitler never hurt anyone.

GT: Well, I’m glad to hear that, my dear fellow. Still, I’m not just pointing to Walsch—but a general pattern throughout New Age books. For example, A Course in Miracles discounts all human suffering as unreal. Likewise, Alice Bailey celebrates dropping the bomb on Hiroshima—as the greatest event in untold millennia (greater, apparently, than Christ’s coming).[12] Not all New Agers believe such things. And I’m genuinely grateful if you don’t. Still, there’s this strange trivialisation of human suffering throughout New Age literature. Please, I beg you: do not go down that road yourself.

GLS: Oh, man. I need a break.

GT: Well, why don’t you take one? The bathroom is upstairs and to the left, I believe…

“Thanks, I will,” LightShadow said. Was he surprised GT anticipated his bodily needs? Likewise, GT knew where our toilet was, even though he’d never been here before…

Anna, Brigid and I were left alone with the Gentle Traditionalist. Brigid was completely silent. She had never encountered anything like this before—a Catholic thinker who stood his ground, gently but firmly refusing to pander to popular clichés. A rarity indeed in the modern Church!

Anna, too, was silent, taken up with GT’s musings on New Age attitudes to human suffering. She could not help but recall her dream of a detached, passionless, “perfect” world of detached, passionless, “perfect” people who never suffered. She thought, too, of Eckhart Tolle’s gospel of transcending pain. But GT broke the silence only to echo her very thoughts…

“This so-called ‘transcending suffering’ easily leads to trivialising suffering,” he said. “That’s the problem with all this New Age emphasis on detachment, self-control, self-empowerment.”

“Or incessant non-stop positivity,” I said, “stigmatising any ‘negativity.’”

“I know,” GT said, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. “The agony of the Cross—the New Age religion will do anything, absolutely anything to avoid that. Even to the point of pretending all human suffering is unreal. There’s no time to explain it now. But look into those New Age texts carefully, then you’ll notice something.”

And GT added something barely audible, immensely sad, but filled, nonetheless, with emphatic intensity: “It’s all about AVOIDING THE CROSS.”

Turning to Brigid, he added, “Please think about that, my child, for your sake and the sake of children you will someday bear.” Brigid frowned. But the old man simply continued. “The Irish children, children everywhere, being robbed—robbed by something that pretends to be universal. If only it were universal! Instead, it’s subterfuge: deceit to achieve a goal. There’s a hidden, calculated system here to replace the Cross. Of course, most are completely unaware of the occult agenda behind all this.”

“Occult agenda?” I asked.

“Patience, my good man, patience. We’re coming to that. Right now, my point is that our poor Mr LightShadow truly believes in his ‘universal spirituality.’ Just like he truly believes in his ‘tolerant, inclusive, multicultural’ society. Without ever seeing, he’s one step away from the jackboots…”

XVII

The Real Ultimate Sacrament

THE Cheshire zebra returned to the room. Or maybe rhino. Because I couldn’t help but think the man possessed an unusually thick skin, impervious to anything beyond his own orbit. There seemed little hope, then, for any genuine debate this afternoon. That would presuppose LightShadow was genuinely interested in people with views different to his own.

“I must thank you, Mr LightShadow,” GT said.

“Oh?” LightShadow grinned, sitting down again.

GT: Well, at first, I doubted we’d achieve much in our little conversation. Because we couldn’t even agree on the simplest things—such as whether a New Age movement even exists! But you’ve been honest enough to admit some sort of movement here. Moreover, that it has definite beliefs, even if they’re not formally defined. Truly, I feel good about these things. If only more people could own up to their own belief systems—systems which necessarily exclude non-believers! My greatest difficulty isn’t so much the New Age religion itself, but the power it assumes by pretending it isn’t a religion. All this hiding away helps no one.

GLS: Hiding away? Who’s hiding away? What are you on about now?

GT: Well, only this. As a Catholic, my dogmas and doctrines are out in the open. They’re plain for everyone to see. Anyone can consult our Catechism and find them, if they want. New Age positions, on the other hand, remain elusive. People can’t easily determine where you really stand. Alas, this lack of definition renders New Agers a tremendous cultural advantage. Dare I say an unfair one?

GLS: Unfair?! Tell me another one…

GT: New Age ideology gets space in the public square— space traditional religion doesn’t get—precisely because it’s never seen as a religion. Secular ideology gets the same. Potent belief systems creep into people’s minds—because they’re never identified as belief systems. These belief systems pretend to be neutral, tolerant and inclusive, when in fact they’re anything but!

Instead, they continuously undermine the very things they claim to tolerate. Look at your talk last night. Whether you realise it or not, dear chap, you claim to be inclusive, but, in fact, you’re not. You profess to honour all religions, but you repudiate pretty much everything they stand for. You claim to accept Christianity, but you dismiss it, without perhaps ever realising.

GLS: Oh man, that’s so arrogant. You don’t even know what I think. I don’t reject Christianity! Obviously, Christianity has a shadow and I see that. Most people do these days. But I celebrate the Christ-consciousness. I celebrate diversity. Apart from a few shadow aspects, I’m totally cool with all religions. Every perspective is equally valid!

“Oh, come on,” Anna burst in. “I heard your talk. I saw your book, too. You may not like the term ‘New Ager’ but you sound just like I did. I rejected nearly everything Christianity stood for. I didn’t believe in the Devil. I didn’t believe in the Fall. I certainly didn’t believe in original sin. And when you think like that, there’s no reason to think Jesus Christ died for that sin!”

“Indeed, Anna,” GT said sombrely, “The New Age renders Christ on the Cross unnecessary. Or, rather, that is what it very much aims to do.”

“Yes,” Anna continued, “and, likewise, I rejected priests, dogma, authority. Yet I still said I respected Christianity—like every religion. But I disrespected ninety percent of what the Church stands for.”

“Well, well, well—aren’t we uptight?” LightShadow smirked. “All that is just an extremely narrow, twisted version of Christianity. The devil, hell, original sin—has it ever occurred to you those are all excellent means to frighten people? That’s what this is really about.”

“Like I say,” said Anna, “that’s what I used to think…”

GLS: Before you went over to the dark side, you mean. Sorry, Anna—I really don’t get you. You—of all people— should know there are only two types of spiritual seekers on this planet. The real ones seek love. The other lot just want power. Like the priests—they want to control people: regulate their lives, how they feel about their bodies, who they have sex with. Some people get their kicks out of that, you know… Concepts like sin and hell provide all the ammunition they need! Jesus never meant to control people! The real Jesus was all about freedom. He totally rejected the legalism of his own era. That’s why the priests had him killed! After that, they twisted his teaching into the same old dogmas.

I wanted to explode. He’d completely dodged Anna’s point about dismissing Christianity while pretending to respect it. Better: he completely confirmed her point, without even realising it. I was about to object, when GT’s solemn look silenced me.

GT: There seems to be a “real Jesus” here who doesn’t believe in dogma…

GLS: Well, obviously. He would be as bad as the Pharisees if he did.

GT: I see. Hmm. I wonder what he would say about “gay marriage”?

GLS: Obviously, he would be totally cool with that. No way Jesus was a homophobe!

GT: Yes—no way. His infinite compassion precludes all fear. What about divorce?

GLS: Well, again, Jesus came to liberate us from the law.

My mind reeled. With LightShadow, it was one cliché after another. I wanted to invoke the Gospel: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” I wanted to scream, in fact. But GT’s look held me in check.

GT: What about women priests?

GLS: I don’t know about your Jesus, but my Jesus wasn’t a misogynist!

GT: Ah, I see. “My Jesus and your Jesus.” Your Jesus presumably being the real one?

GLS: Well, it’s certainly easier to believe in a Jesus who isn’t a bigot.

GT: Yes, yes, easier. An interesting word, that. And easier to accept, as well. It does seem rather easy that the “real Jesus” just happens to believe everything you believe. Dare I say… a bit too easy?

GLS: I don’t know about you, man, but some of us live in the twenty-first century. This isn’t the Middle Ages! Today, there’s modern scholarship. Also archaeological discoveries. The Gnostic gospels were only discovered in 1945. The real Jesus can’t be covered up any longer.

GT: The real “Jesus.” The real Christianity. You’re saying it’s accessible like never before. I suppose that was the Church’s main function these last two thousand years—hiding the real truth of Christianity?

GLS: You got it in one, dude!

GT: But now people like you have finally found the real thing…

GLS: Look, it’s not rocket science. Today everyone can read the Gospels suppressed by the Church. The Gospel of Philip says Jesus kissed Mary Magdalene “on the mouth.” The Church buried that one. It couldn’t handle the idea Jesus had a lover. Jesus needed love, too!

At last, we can peel away the layers of illusion. Get to what’s real.

GT: Yes, yes. How silly of me to forget that. And, of course, there’s channelling too. The “real Christ” is still with us and he still talks to people, channelling various books—like A Course in Miracles?

GLS: Exactly, there’s all kinds of new stuff now. Not just the Gnostic Gospels—but also the great channelled texts of our time. The Christ will not be silenced any more!

GT: No, no, I see. And he talks to New Age channellers, of course. Just not people in the Church, though.

GLS: Well, no doubt he would, if they’d only listen! It’s hardly surprising he can’t get through. All that dogma is enough to close anyone’s mind.

GT: Yes, that makes sense too. The “real Jesus” only speaks to those with open minds and open hearts, ready to warmly embrace every perspective. Just not to us closed-minded dogmatists.

GLS: Well, you’re being sarcastic. But at last you’re making sense.

GT: Yes, yes. I must watch my sarcasm. It is a sin, to be sure.

GLS: Look, there’s something else you’re missing. Modern people don’t need Gnostic gospels, channelled texts—or any books. All that head stuff! Today we find our own personal truth. Have you heard of Rennesle-Château?

GT: It’s in southern France, the Pyrenees, I believe.

GLS: That’s right. Some say Jesus is buried there. I went there once to meditate—

Tears appeared in GT’s eyes and he murmured quietly: “Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris.”

GLS: Could you speak English, please?

GT: Sorry, the Latin is just so beautiful. Essentially, though, I was saying that after He was crucified, He rose again and ascended into Heaven. There was no body to bury, secundum Scripturas—according to the Scriptures.

GLS: Your scriptures, you mean, imposed on people…

GT: We imposed? Or maybe the early Christians were perfectly capable of separating the gold from the dross? Could it be these Gnostic gospels and suchlike never spoke to the early Church with the same power and authority?

GLS: “Power and authority”?! Listen to you, man. You guys need to focus on love…

GT: Well, yes. One can never love enough. I’m quite the failure there, sinner that I am… Anyway, my friend, please continue. I’d like to hear your “personal experience” at Rennes-le-Château.

GLS: Okay, so I was on this mountain in the Pyrenees. I’d been reading The Templar Revelation.

GT: Which is…?

GLS: Well, it inspired Dan Brown to write The Da Vinci Code. Anyway, I got tired of reading. So I put the book down and started to meditate. I entered a very still, silent space. All my chakras were perfectly aligned. Suddenly I felt an extraordinary wise presence before me, emitting waves of love and light. It was Jesus—and Mary Magdalene was by his side! Intuitively, I knew they were both buried on that mountain, just as they had been together in life. They were holding hands and smiling at me. They kissed, just like in the Gospel of Philip. Then they started making love…

Anna shivered. Memories of a beach long ago mingled with this outrage. I wanted to show the guy the door. LightShadow, I think, enjoyed being provocative. But GT, though plainly disgusted, merely said “Maybe, you can spare us the gory details. Still, I’d like to hear what this vision means to you.”

GLS: Absolutely! I knew in a flash—an instantaneous “peak experience”—what all the great Gnostics, all the great spiritual teachers always knew—that Jesus wasn’t against sex. The realisation penetrated every cell of my body. It just felt so right. Everything completely resonated.

GT: Yes, I see. Your own personal interpretation of the Gospel and personal experience “completely resonate.” That’s what matters in the New Age of Aquarius. Personal certitude—not priests and dogma.

GLS: Right on, man! And you know what? It also resonated with that Templar book I mentioned. I had finished Chapter Six, when I put it down. But I never noticed the title of the next chapter. When I opened the book again, it blew my mind! Do you know what Chapter Seven is called?

GT: No. Do tell…

GLS: “Sex: The Ultimate Sacrament!”[13] My mind was totally blown. All the pieces were coming together. Jesus came to establish sacred union, hieros gamos—not more patriarchy. But Peter couldn’t handle it.

I could take no more. I leaned forward in my chair, inches from LightShadow’s face. My voice trembled with rage. “Do… you… have… ANY… idea what a real sacrament is?”

“Whoa, man—no need to get so aggressive! I know about your seven sacraments, all controlled by priests. But the real sacraments are everywhere. Life is a miracle. Sex is a miracle. Everything’s a sacrament. People can get along just fine without your priests, thank you very much.”

“You have NO idea what you’re talking about,” I bellowed. “And for all your talk of dialogue, you clearly aren’t interested in anything anyone else says. Is there any point to this so-called dialogue?!”

At that moment, GT made a sudden motion with his right hand. The blood-red ring on his middle finger caught my eye, startling me. My words faltered. My mind whirled. Something distinctly odd started to happen, as I gazed into the ring…

Vertigo, almost nausea and, then, something else hit me. Something utterly uncharacteristic of me—tears welled in my eyes. Instead of rage, I wanted to sob. Strange, immense pity stabbed my heart. Poor LightShadow! Poor, poor man. Anna was right: he was, more than anything, a victim. Not only did he lack any idea of what he was talking about, he was simply one of millions like him. Millions buying books with entire chapters devoted to the “ultimate sacrament of sex.” Poor, poor humanity. Poor Gareth Crowley. Less idiot than dupe. Duped by his own culture, duped by the destruction of Catholic tradition, now entrenched in England for hundred of years.

Staring into the ring, I strangely started sensing how centuries of history shaped LightShadow. For the de-Catholicisation of Britain carried consequences that still shape people today. Britain would never have become the ultra-secular, ultra-liberal land it is now, without this de-Catholicisation. Nor, without the Reformation, would it be such a hotbed for the New Age. (Or better, seed-bed—the New Age’s ultimate seedbed, along with California.) All this contributed to LightShadow’s formation.

Then, still more of LightShadow’s formative influences were plaintively, hauntingly evoked by the ring. I sensed his early Labour Party activism, inherited from his family. And something else too: a younger Gareth Crowley. A frightened child, hiding in his room, while his Marxist father raged at his bisexual mother, whose affairs with women created constant havoc in the home.

Poor Gareth, poor man, poor boy—he never stood a chance in a house like that! Then I sensed him in San Francisco, years later, in psychotherapy. Such therapy, though, was only needed because a door had been barricaded in his youth. Just as that door was barricaded in his parents’ youth before him and his grandparents before that. I sensed a whole line of ancestors going back to the Tudor times of Henry VIII, when the door to the sacraments—the door Christ opened!—was bolted shut by the English Reformation…

At once, the prayer of St Michael the Archangel at Fatima erupted in my heart: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love You.”

I was on the verge of breaking down, when, once more, the ring caught my eye. Somehow, it steadied me. Now, something else shot through me. Not pity, but wave upon wave of gratitude, sheer gratitude. Like Anna, I had found faith. Against all odds, against all the lies entrenched in secular society. For unlike most of my British compatriots, I now knew what a real sacrament was. Something precious, precious beyond words, precious beyond anything LightShadow had ever known. It was hard for me to miss communing with Christ that morning. The Eucharist was my daily consolation and desideratum…

Of course, I appreciated lovemaking with my wife, too. But as much as I received from that, it paled into insignificance compared to consuming His Body, His Blood.

Certainly, Holy Communion with Christ lacked the physical intensity of sex. But it possessed something else far more delicate and profound. And as I stared into the ring, I saw how the Eucharist’s soft, subtle glow changed everything. It irradiated my entire existence now, cleansing me, healing me, day after day after day. This was why Anna and I could feel its absence, even after missing it for a short spell.

I saw, too, how the Eucharist strengthened me to bear suffering, rather than “transcend” it. This was why New Agers tried to circumvent life’s pain: they never knew the genuine “Ultimate Sacrament.” The authors of The Templar Revelation could only call sex “the Ultimate Sacrament” because they never experienced the life-enhancing radiance from the Body of Christ. A Body which was not buried on a French mountain, but transformed, that it might become present in a hundred thousand Masses around the world every day.

And I recalled what GT said the first time we met—that these hundred thousand Masses daily were like the beating of a Planetary Heart. Every minute of every day, the Mass was celebrated by countless priests across the planet. But books like The Templar Revelation and The Da Vinci Code robbed people of that. For long moments I sat there, rent with sheer gratitude for all that I received and real horror for all that modernity was denied.

At that point, I heard GT say, “I’m curious, Mr LightShadow. Did you ‘experience’ whether ‘your Jesus’ married the poor woman or not?”

GLS: No. That wasn’t part of the message—because it’s not important. Maybe he secretly married her; maybe he didn’t. They loved each other. That’s what matters. Love trumps hate.

GT: Love—I wonder if that’s what we’re really talking about?

GLS: Love, love, love. That’s what this is all about. The whole enchilada! At least, it is for me. I don’t know about you guys…

GT: I’m sorry—but everything seems so bound up with sex here. Love and sex are two different things—alas, sometimes completely different.

GLS: Yawn. You Christians are so repressed. People have needs, you know. Surely, Jesus had needs. He was just a man after all…

GT: Just a man?

GLS: Well, an initiate, to be sure—a very advanced man, high on the evolutionary scale.

GT: Whom “the Christ consciousness” entered…?

GLS. Well, yeah. Doesn’t mean he didn’t have needs.

GT: Jesus was not just a man.

GLS: Well, that’s what your religion says!

GT: Hmm…as opposed to your religion, which decrees he was? I realise you claim not to have a religion. Forgive me, but that claim seems increasingly problematic. Because statements like “Jesus was just a man” remain just that: statements of belief. Moreover, beliefs that carry enormous consequence. They lead to other doctrines too. Like marriage isn’t important. Fornication is fine because men need love—or sex…

GLS: Fornication?

GT: It means—

GLS: I know what the word means! I just never heard anyone use it before! Some of us don’t live in the Middle Ages…

GT: Well, my good man, I can’t say I’m surprised! Because I see how it all adds up for you. Jesus wasn’t a homophobe, so undoubtedly he’d support “gay marriage.” You believe in free love, sex without commitment. So the “real Jesus” must too. The “real truth” of Christianity is whatever resonates with your experience. It also resonates with pleasure.

Once more: isn’t it convenient how this “real Christianity” just happens to agree with everything you already believe yourself ? A bit too convenient, if you ask me. Heaven forbid the real Jesus challenge you! Heaven forbid the real Jesus stand in the way of sexual pleasure!

GLS: You know what your problem is? You’re so totally judgmental! Without the slightest understanding of human needs. Still, you’re a funny guy—in a thoroughly twisted, perverse sort of way, I mean…

GT: Well, since I amuse you, perhaps I can continue…

GLS: Sure—go right ahead! Like I said, I’m all for dialogue. Let it all hang out, man.

GT: Dare I say, then, your belief in the “real Jesus” illumines your commitment to inclusiveness? As I said, it’s easy to include a Jesus who happens to agree with you. The “real Jesus” is cool with sex without commitment. He can be included, then. Or a “New Age Jesus” imbued with the “Christ consciousness.” No problem including him, either. No doubt the “real Mohammed” was a man of peace who can be slotted into the New Age too… Forgive me, but your inclusiveness only seems restricted to a narrow fringe of religion you find acceptable. Meanwhile, the ninety-eight per cent of Christians who abominate your free-loving “real Jesus” get written off. And it’s similar with ninety-eight per cent of Muslims, etc. We don’t fit your pattern, so we’re fanatics or neanderthals. Hmm. I wonder who is more inclusive—me or you?

GLS: Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not promoting medievalism! You exclude everything the modern world has to offer!

GT: Well, not quite everything. But much of it, yes— indeed.

GLS: I’m glad you admit it!

GT: Indeed, I am highly selective and profoundly exclusive. I proudly confess it and encourage you to do the same.

GLS: What the—?

GT: What I mean, friend, is something that is true for you, me and everybody else. We all exclude the viewpoints we don’t agree with. You exclude an enormous number of views that people held in the past—up to the 1960s, say—and, indeed, that vast numbers still hold today. I exclude the modern, liberal ideology of the post-60s elites. Meanwhile, we both include the people who agree with us.

I am sorry, but your inclusiveness sounds a little too easy to me. Re-define Christianity to what you can agree with— then you can include it. Re-define Islam to what you can agree with—then you can include it. Re-define Jesus as advocating post-1960s Western liberal secular and sexual attitudes and—voilà!—you have “the Christ consciousness.”

Inclusiveness is easy if you only include that which agrees with you! Respecting, really respecting those who disagree with you, that’s where things get tough. And that means not calling them neanderthals…

Brigid shifted uncomfortably. She was shocked by this sudden hostility to the Church. LightShadow always said he was “cool with Christianity,” cool with every religion. After all, he celebrated diversity, believed in tolerance and respected every point of view as equally valid. Not once did Brigid think to question that.

Now, an unsettling memory of Father Brady surfaced in her mind. Father Brady was an elderly priest who came to her parish in Cork when she was fourteen. Only a year later, though, he died unexpectedly. Still, she never forgot that frail old man. He was definitely no idiot, but he definitely believed the very things LightShadow regarded idiotic…

Brigid was beginning to think. And, lost in thought, she only caught brief snatches of the conversation. At one point, LightShadow was saying “Your judgmentalism is just another means to control people. Get them to feel guilty—so they’ll do what you want.”

But Father Brady never struck Brigid like that. She remembered him in the confessional. Back then, she still went, every month. Certainly, Father Brady encouraged her to see herself as a sinner. But he never shamed her. She never felt judged by him. According to Father Brady, we were all in this same broken boat together. He was no better than her and probably worse, he said. He was just a fallen sinner like everyone else. And he, like her, desperately, desperately needed help.

Was this judgmentalism? Brigid didn’t think so. LightShadow might call the old priest a closed-minded dogmatist, but Brigid couldn’t imagine him dismissing other people the way Gareth did.

Then, GT’s voice startled her. “Brigid, you’ve been very quiet,” GT said, “You needn’t say anything if you don’t want, but I’m genuinely interested what you make of all this.”

Brigid fidgeted. “Well, I don’t know what to say really. You’re probably both right in a way. I think Jesus expressed the Christ consciousness, and Buddha did, too. And everybody else does— at least sometimes. But I don’t think priests are as bad as you think, Gareth. Maybe there’s a bit more to the Church than you realise. I mean, you’ve never really been to church, have you?”

Anna and I glanced at each other. We never expected this defense of the Church, half-hearted as it was. Yet, Brigid nailed it: LightShadow, like most New Agers, had never experienced a single religion in his life.

“Well, no. I haven’t. But, Bridge—” His tone was softer now, albeit condescending as ever. “You don’t need to go to church to know what the priests think. It’s obvious they believe this Hell and original sin garbage. You don’t need to hear their sermons to know that.”

And then, Brigid said something that blew me away: “But Gareth, the Church isn’t only about sermons…”

Another memory had crossed her mind. It was Father Brady at the pulpit. “I won’t tell you much today,” he was saying, “I don’t really like long sermons. Oh, they’re all right in their way—if the priest has something good to say. Which, quite often, he doesn’t. But even if he does, nothing, nothing he ever says will be as important as Our Lord, in His Body, His Blood. That’s why we come to church to receive the Body and Blood of the Risen Christ. Nothing I will ever say compares to THAT.”

“Okay, you go there, sing some hymns, maybe you say some prayers,” LightShadow objected. “But the ideas are in the sermons! That’s the key thing.”

Then Brigid made me gasp. Anna, too. “Maybe you don’t really understand the ideas, Gareth. And, anyway, you don’t go to church just to hear sermons! You go there to receive His Body and Blood…”

XVIII

“Deprived of the Universal Remedy”

“BRIGID, I really must congratulate you!” GT exclaimed, utterly delighted. “You’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head. Our friend here has entirely failed to grasp the heart of Christianity: the direct encounter with Christ in His sacraments. I am sorry to be so blunt, Mr LightShadow, but everything you’ve said plainly demonstrates your ignorance. You haven’t the slightest understanding of Christianity whatsoever.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” LightShadow said.

“Well, it’s not really your fault. I blame your culture—not you.”

“How magnanimous of you.”

GT: Forgive me. That sounds condescending, I know. But everything you say of Christianity is a stereotype. Alas, more often than not, those stereotypes proceed from Protestantism. Like assuming the sermon is the key reason for attending church! That’s a horrendous mistake. Again it’s hardly your fault. It’s quite a typical idea in Protestant countries like England or America. Although you mentioned visiting France—

GLS: Well, that was only for a few days.

GT: Ah yes. And if I’m not mistaken, you haven’t been anywhere else outside of England, except your time in America? Even Ireland is new to you…

GLS: Well, I spent time in Canada, when I lived in the States.

GT: English or French-speaking Canada?

GLS: British Colombia.

GT: Again, a region thoroughly Protestant in its cultural origins. Apart from a few days, you’ve spent your entire life in a culturally Protestant context.

GLS: Groan. Next you’ll be calling me a Protestant…

GT: Well, no. But there may be a lingering cultural Protestantism you’re not aware of. At least it’s clear to me that whatever little you’ve absorbed about Christianity is strongly coloured by the Reformation. Alas, English folk like yourself tend to forget Protestantism has always been a minority view within Christianity.

GLS: Minority view? Oh, come on. It looks pretty mainstream to me!

GT: Yes—in the Anglosphere. Beyond that, it’s maybe a third of global Christianity. The other two thirds, mainly Catholic (but also Eastern Orthodox), see things differently. For them, Protestantism remains a five-century detour within two thousand years of Christianity. Moreover, to a large extent, it’s confined to speakers of Germanic languages— mainly English and German, but also Scandinavian, etc. I don’t mean to knock Protestants. Frequently they put us Catholics to shame! However, English people often think an idea is Christian, when in fact it’s only Protestant. The majority of Christians don’t share it. That’s my point.

I couldn’t help but recall my first conversation with GT. He explained just the same to me: how much people like me held notions of Christianity that hardly represent the Faith as a whole. For example, I bristled at God “punishing his only Son”—which I took to be the Christian explanation for the Crucifixion. But that, GT explained, had more to do with Calvinism than Catholicism. And so it hardly represented a majority view! He then explained the Mystery of the Crucifixion in a way I’d never heard in my life before.[14]

That, of course, made me wonder why I never heard it before! Only then did I realise it was because, like LightShadow, I was English. Even thoroughly secular English culture remains permeated by Protestant concepts which (subtly) bar the door to Catholicism. I recalled the centuries of barricades I sensed, staring into GT’s ring. Walls erected against the Catholic Mystery. And, very strangely, words I once read from Valentin Tomberg flashed through my mind: “The impoverishment of humanity caused by Protestantism . . . consequently humanity is deprived of the effect of the Universal Remedy.”2

I shivered.

GT: All this is at the very root of the problem—everything we’ve talked about today.

GLS: Everything?! I think you’re exaggerating. Again.

GT: Absolutely everything. New Age stereotypes about Christianity remain deeply indebted to Calvinism (and the fundamentalism that proceeds from Calvinism). It’s no wonder New Agers are “turned off” by Christianity when they’re clueless about the Catholic Mystery. Honestly, nothing you are saying would be possible without the historical trajectory started by the Reformation. I could explain, but I’m not sure you have time…

GLS: Go on. Hit me with it. Time is only an illusion, anyway. Time with you doubly so.

GT: Very well, then. You’ve noted, by now, the enormous influence I attach to the Reformation.

GLS: It’s hard to miss, dude! Not that I completely disagree. Obviously, it liberated a lot…

GT: There’s a striking word: liberated. It stems, of course, from the Latin liber, meaning free. Which is also the root of our modern word liberal. Liberal philosophy today, including New Age-ism, owes a colossal debt to Protestantism. That’s why Protestant cultures liberalise more rapidly than the Catholic ones. (Generally speaking, I mean. There are exceptions.)

Still, the “liberations” you champion generally occur first in Protestant cultures. Take abortion, for example, which liberalised earlier in the non-Catholic countries. Places like Holland, Sweden, England are almost always out there in front, leading the pack. Catholic cultures generally remain more conservative. That’s why abortion is only stalking Ireland in 2018—more than fifty years since it was first legalised in Britain. And it’s still blocked in certain Catholic countries, even today.

GLS: Yeah, they’re usually more stuck in the mud. I get that. For once, you’re making sense.

GT: Well, thank you, dear chap. Anyway, I hope you see my point about the Anglosphere. Ireland apart, the key Anglo-sphere countries have not only been Protestant—they’ve been global pioneers of Liberalism. By that I mean Social Liberalism, but also Economic Liberalism.

GLS: Economic Liberalism?

GT: Well, Capitalism, I mean. People forget the Reformation liberated capitalists, as well, from things like the old restrictions on usury. Capitalism was pioneered across the planet by the Anglosphere. First, the great British empire, now the global hegemony of America. Catholic countries have never been as capitalistic as Protestant ones.

GLS: You’re calling Capitalism liberal?!

GT: According to the classical meaning of the word, yes. Liberalism is a current, born above all in the Protestant sphere (but admittedly, aided by the French Revolution, too) which strives to liberate attitudes and actions in different domains.

Luther was a theological liberal—he sought to liberate the people from Catholic tradition and the Catholic hierarchy. Abortion, the LGBT movement, and so on, are results of Social Liberalism. And Wall Street thrives on Economic Liberalism, which gives bankers the power to crush people with extortionate usury.

Theological, Social, Economic—these are the main branches of the same liberal tree.

But I’m digressing. My point here is that, apart from a few days in France and now Ireland, you’ve spent your entire life in the Protestant Anglosphere. That, I maintain, has inevitably coloured everything you know about Christianity. It also colours your so-called “New Paradigm Spirituality.”

GLS: Groan. Whatever, dude…

GT: Bear with me. Regardless what we call it, you consider this new spirituality as a universal approach that simultaneously embraces and transcends all religions. To me that’s poppycock. What appears universal to you looks highly specific to me—indeed highly particularised. There are reasons for that. A major one is that New Age-ism emerges from a highly particular setting: the Protestant Anglosphere. Above all, England and America. And it feeds on the Liberalism those countries pioneered in the world. It feeds, too, on the impoverishment of humanity caused by Protestantism…

I sat there stunned. GT employed Tomberg’s exact phrase that echoed in my mind only moments ago. If that weren’t all, he then amplified the effect!

“Excuse me,” GT said, turning from LightShadow and leaning towards me for a moment, “I must make a note for Geoffrey here. This deprivation of the Universal Remedy explains so much. Not only about abortion or Anglosphere Liberalism, but much else in de-Catholicised Europe. Just think of Locke, Hume, Bentham, Marx, Bultmann and the so-called ‘Death of God’ theology. Or Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill! How easily could their reductionist philosophies emerge in a truly sacramental culture? How likely is it that they’d take hold of society, as they have? Think about it, Geoffrey. Think about it!”

“I will.”

“Good man.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1831–1891. Russian occultist and world traveller. Claimed to receive training for mission, by Eastern Mahatmas, whilst living in Tibet. Alleged mission involved being sent to America, where she founded Theosophical Society in 1875. Later wrote The Secret Doctrine (1888).

XIX

The Anglosphere and Eastern Esotericism

“THANK you for your patience, Mr LightShadow,” GT said. “To return to you, my point is that you, dear chap, are more the product of the Protestant Anglosphere than you may realise. And your very Englishness has more to do with so-called New Age ‘universalism’ than you readily appreciate. As I said, it doesn’t look universal to me, but rather particular. Please, think about that for the moment—all the key New Age texts are in English.”

GLS: Well, so is everything else these days. It’s the world language!

GT: True, but that’s a fairly recent phenomenon. As recently as the nineteenth century, French was the international language of diplomacy. German was perhaps the premier language of science. And I don’t mention the nineteenth century for nothing—because today’s New Age thinking begins in the nineteenth century.

It’s largely due to Theosophy, which started then. And Theosophy was very much an English-language phenomenon. You know what I mean—all those esoteric books by Alice Bailey, Annie Besant and everything else drawing from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Madame Blavatsky’s the “grandmother” of today’s New Age Movement, I think.

GLS: She was a great leader—not sure about “grandmother” though…

GT: People dispute that point. Still, it’s clear to me. So much New Age dogma goes straight back to either Madame Blavatsky or her direct heir Alice Bailey. If Blavatsky’s the “grandmother” of the New Age, then I think Bailey is its “mother,” so to speak.

GLS: Yawn. Whatever. If they pioneered an open-minded, universal perspective, that’s good enough for me.

GT: Bear with me. Tell me, do you realise that back before Blavatsky, nobody, but nobody in England believed the things you do?

GLS: Nobody? Oh, get real…

Alice Bailey, 1880–1949. English Theosophist, who developed Blavatsky’s cosmology. Moved to America in 1907, where she carried out work with her husband Foster, a high degree Freemason.

GT: I assure you—I am not exaggerating. Nobody in Victorian England thought of transcending religion to achieve universal oneness. Back then, the idea of being “spiritual but not religious” would have been meaningless. Indeed, bizarre! Nor did the Victorians try to magically re-order reality through positive thinking. And nobody talked about chakras or subtle bodies or even karma and reincarnation. No one ever heard of an Age of Aquarius! Not to mention initiates or ascended masters living on the astral plane. And, most assuredly, no one thought “the Master Jesus” was just an “initiate” who bore “the Christ consciousness.” In one form or another, all that was pioneered by Theosophy. The thing is, few people these days actually read Theosophy. At least, not the original authors like Blavatsky. Or Alice Bailey. Have you?

GLS: Not really. I prefer modern stuff.

GT: Most New Agers haven’t read them. They’re not easy authors to read. Still, Theosophy gets translated into more popular, more easily digestible forms by other authors. Sometimes the Blavatsky-Bailey heritage is patent. But often the Theosophical footprint goes unnoticed…

Anna piped in. “You’re right, GT. Most New Agers don’t see their debt to Theosophy. Hardly anyone at Findhorn read Bailey and Blavatsky. But, although it was tough going, I actually did read them. To me, it’s obvious their ideas completely shaped Findhorn.”

GLS: Whatever. Like I say, I prefer new stuff. But if Blavatsky or Bailey opened things up—good on them!

GT: Well, they opened something up. That much is certain. I wouldn’t like to say what, though. Pandora’s Box doesn’t even come close.

Still, I’m losing my thread. My main point is this: all this is an Anglophone phenomenon. And—Ireland aside—the entire Anglosphere is steeped in Protestantism. So the New Age Movement stems from a specific cultural stream. It’s hardly a universal phenomenon! The early Theosophists were virtually all English or at least English speakers. People like Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater, Alice Bailey or her American husband, Foster. The same goes for Findhorn— which has wielded such enormous influence. The Findhorn pioneers were English, Canadian, American. Likewise, the authors of your “great channelled texts” like Neale Donald Walsch or Helen Schucman of A Course in Miracles—again Americans…

GLS: Aren’t you forgetting something? Blavatsky was a Russian!

GT: Yes, she’s the exception to the rule. Which proves my point.

GLS: Groan. So your scintillating point is…?

GT: I’m still getting to it. Back in the nineteenth century, Blavatsky was a Russian who spoke seven languages. But she specifically chose to write in English. Moreover, she set off for America to found her Theosophical Society specifically there! Why English? Why America?

GLS: Beats me, dude. Maybe she didn’t like freezing her butt off. Maybe all those Cossacks were a drag.

GT: That hardly explains the books written in English. Nor the fact that Blavatsky claimed she was trained in Shigatse in Tibet, by a certain Master Morya—who then sent her on a mission to America. Personally, I’m convinced there’s more to this than meets the eye…

GLS: Why does that not surprise me?

GT: Yes. Well, anyway, Blavatsky realised the de-traditionalised, once-Protestant, but increasingly secular Anglosphere offered unusual opportunities for her mission. It would be the world most receptive to her ideas—ideas which were, in fact, very, very Eastern. Hardly universal.

GLS: Oh, man, you crack me up!

GT: History has proved her right, I think. Because other cultures never embraced her Eastern Theosophy the way Anglophones did. Even today, they don’t embrace the New Age the same way either. Ask Anna, if you like. She’s travelled the world, lived in France…

Anna: That seems right. The rest of the world isn’t into New Age stuff like America and England. Ireland is turning the same now—but only recently.

GT: Yes—because Ireland speaks the same language. But, in general, Catholic cultures never took to Eastern spirituality like the Anglosphere. Just like they don’t take to liberal ideology so easily. Britain, of course, was connected to the East in a special way, because her Empire colonised so much of Asia, above all, India… But continental Europe never lapped up Theosophy like the English. Oh sure, there were a few exceptions. Rudolf Steiner in Germany, for example. He was a Theosophist—for a little while. But he recognised that Christ Crucified changed everything—the entire universe. So he rejected Theosophy. I think that’s why, even today, New Agers still tend to find Steiner’s esotericism alien. Generally speaking, they mean to AVOID THE CROSS (and, whatever his failings, Steiner didn’t do that).

GLS: Avoid the Cross? Who wouldn’t? But I guess you like medieval, masochistic torture instruments. Go figure.

GT: Christians are called to carry the Cross with Our Lord. Here is Christianity’s profound difference from your “universal spirituality.” And why it hardly seems all-embracing to me. That’s why I called it “particularised.” You might even say provincial: it emerges from the provinces of the Protestant Anglosphere. Of course, there is that original Orientalism. Blavatsky introduced an Eastern esoteric cosmology into English-speaking culture. Blavatsky was perfectly clear about this, as was Alice Bailey. They both claimed their “esoteric Buddhism” came from the same Tibetan school of masters living in the Himalayas. That’s why your universal New Age looks like an English-Eastern condominium to me.

GLS: An English-Eastern what…?!

GT: Well, of course, I don’t mean what Americans call a condo! I mean the political sense of the word: joint rulership. That’s what Blavatsky, Bailey and their masters were aiming for…

My mind reeled. Once more, my old sceptic rose up. I could hardly credit what GT was saying. “Ruling the world?!” I said.

“Well, in a cultural sense, yes,” GT said. “Blavatsky did indeed have a mission. And maybe it was given her in Shigatse, just like she claimed. Certainly, she was incredibly well-travelled, not only going to America, but also Egypt, India, the Ukraine and central Asia. She even wound up in Italy—fighting with Garibaldi’s armies against Bl. Pius IX and the Papal States. (Which tells you something of her politics…)”

“She was a very strange woman,” Anna said.

“Yes,” GT said, “and a formidable one who changed the world. At any rate, her masters meant to supplant Western notions with Eastern impulses. And they wanted to substitute a syncretistic, supposedly ‘universal’ spirituality for Christianity. Again, one that avoids the Cross. Today those impulses have succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. The Anglosphere is awash with Eastern ideas like never before.”

“Okay, but Globalisation makes that inevitable,” I said, still sceptical.

“It is more, Geoffrey! Certainly, Globalisation carries Eastern influences that can’t be pinned on Theosophy. You only have to look at the craze for things like acupuncture, ayurveda, yoga, Zen, Reiki, shiatsu, feng shui, Tai Chi—the Good Lord only knows what else. Beyond that, though, lies a prodigious, calculated agenda to negate the Cross. It stems from the Theosophical wellspring of the New Age movement. Looking at today’s Anglo-sphere, Blavatsky’s masters would be well pleased with all she accomplished for them.”

And masters! All this New Age talk of Eastern masters was just so much bunk… wasn’t it? But GT implied something more substantial, indeed sinister here. “Surely,” I said, “you’re not saying these masters are real?”

“All I’m saying is Blavatsky and Bailey were not alone,” GT replied after a long pause. “They certainly did their masters’ bidding—whoever those masters were. No, their vast, abstruse cosmology did not result from a febrile imagination. And it carries a puissant ideology that is far too worked out, too coherent, too sophisticated to write off as mere fantasy. Moreover, like Marxism, say, Theosophical ideology has proved incredibly enduring—still going strong after almost 150 years. Unfortunately, unlike Marxism, the ideology is never studied as such. Most academics wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.”

Then, winking at me, he added: “Maybe it appears like so much bunk to them.”

“Alas,” he continued, “it retains potent concrete effects on people. It deserves study like any other system of ideas that powerfully condition masses of people. I can’t easily say more. The key point is a highly Eastern alien ideology is being seeded in the West…”

LightShadow rolled his eyes. But my mouth gaped open. Yet before I could say another word, I jumped—as suddenly the telephone rang. My instinct was to ignore it. But GT said, “You better answer that. It won’t take a moment. The caller has only a thirty second ‘window.’”

Whatever GT meant by that, I had no idea. But I picked up the phone.

“Look, Nero,” a voice growled in my ear. Nero! That’s what Belloc called me! Except, of course, Belloc never called me anything! He died long before I was born!

“What—?” Vertigo almost overwhelmed me.

“Okay, I won’t call you Nero anymore. Something finally penetrated your thick skull! Anyway, I must be quick—I only have a thirty second window. But you’re on the right track. The Reformation in England felled the forest unlike almost anywhere else in Europe. That allowed Liberalism—Economic, Social, Theological, as GT says—to thrive in Britain. But not only that! It cleared the way for something else: a LANDING.”

The caller hung up. For long moments, I stood there stupefied, unable to take in anything else happening in the room. Slowly, though, I gathered our party was taking a short break. Anna stepped outside, GT was staring out the window, while LightShadow was muttering to Brigid. I couldn’t help thinking he wanted to go, but, strangely, Brigid seemed to feel differently.

What on earth just happened? Had GT just opened a thirty second window to another world—just so Hilaire Belloc could talk to me?! As he had done from the mirror last night? Was I losing my mind?

In all this, I could not help but recall my first encounter with GT. All kinds of bizarre things occurred, including interruptions from strange, eccentric visitors. At the time, it all seemed completely insane. But later it appeared as though the entire conversation had been choreographed in order to open my mind.

And now…? Whatever did the words mean? A forest felled? A landing? The first image, however, came clear to me. Apart from the small Scandinavian nations, the Reformation never affected any country as thoroughly as it did Britain. Even large tracts of Germany remained Catholic in tradition. Was that tradition the “forest felled” in Britain? That must be it!

Moreover, the voice on the phone pointed implicitly to how much the forests of tradition continued to thrive elsewhere in Europe—not only in large parts of Germany, but also Eastern and Southern Europe.

That made continental Europe different from England.

Historically, England has always been more liberal than the continent and more capitalist (economically liberal). “Liberated” from Catholicism like nowhere else, Britain forged a mix of Capitalism and Secularism like nowhere else. This she passed onto her American offspring. Certainly, that was what the real Belloc believed. And were he alive today, he would be horrified by the overwhelming growth of the English liberal tree. With all its different branches. Obscuring the sky.

But Belloc—was it really Belloc?!—spoke about a landing. Indeed, he bellowed the word down the phone! What on earth was a landing? Then GT’s words about an “alien ideology seeded in the West” started ringing in my ears. Along with how the “de-traditionalised, once-Protestant, but increasingly secular Anglo-sphere” offered Blavatsky “unusual opportunities.” And something else hit me, too! My strange image of the New Age as a weird spacecraft… Once the forests of tradition were felled in the English-speaking world, the way was cleared not only for Liberalism—but something else, something other, to land. Like a UFO? With the New Age, something utterly alien to Western culture had landed in the Anglosphere.

But it was not from outer space. It was from the East. We were being invaded by the East! Was that what Belloc meant?

What was I thinking? Belloc wasn’t saying any such thing. That couldn’t have been him on the phone. Or could it…? Was I going mad? Then, once more, I caught sight of the blood red stone on GT’s ring. Somehow, I felt assured. I was not insane and reality was stranger, far stranger, than I ever dared imagine.

XX

A New Provincial Spirituality?

“LET me get this straight,” LightShadow said, when our little group re-congregated, “You’re saying that because Americans write New Age books and some long-dead English Theosophists took on Eastern philosophy, there’s a gigantic plot to take over the world?”

“Well, the West,” GT countered.

“Right—the West,” LightShadow groaned.

“More or less,” GT smiled, “but there’s more to the plot than that! At the very core of New Age-ism is an extremely specific form of Eastern esotericism. Again: Theosophy. But I repeat: at the core. All sorts of other influences have been added to that original nucleus, since Madame Blavatsky. For example, Western Masonry, gnosticism, psychotherapy, astrology, the 1960s California counterculture that fed into Findhorn. Still, at the very core, the Piggyback globalists—”

“Piggyback globalists?!”

“Well, that’s a term Malachi Martin used for New Agers.[15] He saw they meant to rule the world. And he was right: a breathtaking agenda for a new syncretistic, decidedly non-Christian, ‘planetary culture’ is evident throughout New Age literature, going straight back to Theosophy.”

“Planetary culture, global synthesis,” Anna interjected, “those terms are used through out the New Age. And you’re right, there’s an almost political agenda there to remake the entire world.”

“Globalism by another name,” GT said, “And most definitely political, even if that fact is usually hidden. And even if, obviously, New Age leaders lack governmental power to dominate the West. That’s why they ride on the backs of those who do. Also, they focus on culture rather than politics (once more, mainly the Anglo-American culture). That way, Martin said, they run piggyback on the global elites. And because they never protest modern secular values, they remain completely unobjectionable to our globalist masters. New Age spirituality presents absolutely no threat to their corporate goals. (Unlike the Church, needless to say.) And because it masquerades as universal, tolerant and all-embracing, it’s never truly seen for what it is.”

“An above-top secret, sinister global conspiracy, no doubt,” LightShadow snorted.

“Well, again, it only rides the global conspiracy! Really, it’s more…well, provincial was the word I used earlier. But I might say your ‘New Paradigm’ is quite parochial.” Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added, “Alas, I don’t think ‘New Parochial Spirituality’ has quite the same appeal—even if it’s more accurate. I suppose you could call a book The New Parochial Spirituality Promoted by Anglosphere Liberal Elites. I doubt it would be a hot seller, though.”

“You… are… a… complete trip.”

“I daresay you’ve never met anyone quite like me, have you?” GT smiled.

GLS: You can say that again!

GT: Well, maybe you don’t get out much. That’s my point, friend. Step outside progressive circles, go beyond the Anglosphere—the world starts to look different. You claim to represent modern spirituality for the modern world. But which modern world? Modern Africa? Modern Russia? Modern Saudi Arabia? Hardly anyone in those societies would relate to a word you say!

GLS: Oh man, you’re the one that doesn’t get out. You’re totally out of touch with reality! Those people in Russia or Arabia live under repressive regimes. They’re either brain-washed or too scared to speak out.

GT: Have you ever seriously asked yourself something? Is it possible our society’s brainwashed? Or that Westerners are too scared to speak out? As I say, people are frightened for their jobs—their very livelihood—if they defy the Inclusiveness Regime. Plenty of people today won’t speak their true mind. Certainly, Brexit and Trump revealed a different reality than our elites were counting on.

GLS: Oh, you’re a Trump maniac then. Surprise, surprise!

GT: Well, no. But my real point is that even in England— one of the most progressive countries on earth—liberals were astounded when over half the voters turned out to be Brexit “bigots,” or at least “backwards.” Indeed, the number of folk who really, truly buy the progressive narrative, even in the Anglosphere, is limited. Certainly, the elites do— those running the universities, media, government offices, etc. But probably less than thirty percent of the populace are genuine true believers. The rest are either unsure or too intimidated to speak frankly. And the further you go from the Anglosphere (or northwestern Europe, which is culturally similar), that percentage of true believers gets even smaller! Southern Catholic Europe is definitely different from Protestant Northern Europe. Eastern Europe differs even more. Look at Poland or Hungary.

GLS: Ugh. No thanks!

GT: Well, maybe that’s why these places easily get forgotten. Or what about cultures further East? Kazakhstan? Iran? India? All sorts of people don’t actually like liberal secularism! They vastly prefer their traditional religious cultures to the deracinated, soulless abstractions of modernity. That’s why your “universal spirituality” remains more provincial than you realise! It’s a limited strand within humanity as a whole.

GLS: Not as limited as your thinking, dude! Or your Church.

GT: Well, Catholicism certainly represents a broader section of humanity than the Anglosphere (along with north-western Europe). It’s also informed by a far broader section. There have been great saints and theologians from Europe, North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East. You do know what the word “catholic” means, don’t you?

GLS: Oh my God. You’re not actually going to tell me it means “universal,” are you?

GT: Well, again, I’m not God. Just his bumbling fool. But yes, that’s right. That is what I’m going to tell you.

GLS: You actually have the gall to tell me your precious, rigid, narrow-minded, homophobic, misogynistic, demonising, inquisitorial church is universal! With all your atrocities?!

Brigid jumped, startled by this sudden, vehement tirade. LightShadow’s reassurances that he was “cool” with her religion sounded more hollow than ever.

“Well, in terms of its human side, our Church is terribly fallen.” GT said those words sombrely, as if filled with sorrow. “We Catholics have committed our share of atrocities. Nostra culpa. Nostra maxima culpa.”

“Thank God for some sense—at last!”

“Alas, when you know history, you see the same is true for every other great community of people, religious or non-religious,” GT said. “In our tragic, broken condition, every great human collective ends up with blood on its hands. Given what human beings are, given everything they’re capable of, given the long centuries of time—there are always tragic, terrible acts. That is the nature of the Fall. As I say, doesn’t matter whether it’s a religious collective or not. Look at the revolutionary forces in France, Russia or China. Look at the British Empire or the American Empire. You will find atrocities.”

“Yes,” I said. “Secular propaganda always glosses over that!”

“True,” GT said. “The Catholic collective is repeatedly shamed by self-righteous secular organs. It’s the same in any propaganda war. Still, that hardly excuses us from the sins Catholics have committed, including the way certain Catholic priests abused the young, above all teenage boys.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even mention that one!” LightShadow said. “I’m glad you admit it.”

“Catholicism, genuine Catholicism, is all about confession. We actively aspire to confess sin (though God knows we fail!). And there is terrible sin here. What some of these boys suffered is beyond belief!”

Tears formed in the old man’s eyes and he continued. “It’s difficult to discuss this properly. Catholics must see—better: FEEL!— what has happened here. They must feel the pain of those who underwent agony. At the same time, we cannot forget other factors. The incredible sexualisation of society since the Sixties. The Liberalism promoted by the homosexual culture. The fact that sex crimes in all sectors of the modern West are way up. The fact that all caring professions suffer this appalling thing. I discussed all this with Geoffrey, last time.”

“I remember,” I said.[16]

“Many people are very angry with the Church,” GT said. “That’s understandable. But you have to ask why, so often, the same people are not angry with OTHER cultural groups: the pornographers, the bankers, the liberalisers. Indeed, people often select one specific collective for anger. How easily many Europeans, for example, target ‘evil Americans’! How easily they forget all great communities have sin on their hands. Whether it’s Catholics, Americans, Jews, whatever…”

“They easily forget sin altogether!” Anna said.

“Indeed,” GT said, “In modern society, there’s a radical underestimate of sin, evil, the Fall. Enlightenment philosophers like Rousseau convinced people that human beings are much more innocent than they really are. If you unconsciously expect people in the Church to be free from evil—you’re bound to be disappointed. Indeed, angry! The same is true of any other great collective. If you unconsciously think Catholics, Americans, Jews, whoever, should be free from evil, you’ll be livid when they’re not! Again, evil exists in every collective. Harness millions of fallen souls to any single enterprise and the Devil notices! He will find his way in, I promise you. In the Church it started with Judas. And we’ve had countless Judases since. People who betrayed Christ.”

With that, he took out his handkerchief, drying his eyes. “Right now, though, that’s not my point. I am not saying Christians are sinless. Far from it! I merely maintain Catholicism is less provincial than your ‘universal’ New Age.”

He paused and added, “It’s also not provincial in time.”

GLS: What the [expletive deleted] is that supposed to mean?

GT: Well, it’s like what I said earlier about religious leaders of the past. To you, they all sound like people today. Mohammed was a man of peace. Jesus believed in free love, “gay marriage” and more. That Jesus approximates to a narrow window of time. Very narrow: maybe fifty years. 1968 or so till today. Your “Christ consciousness,” so-called, is culture-bound—highly conditioned by your own time, your own society.

GLS: As opposed to your medievalism?!

GT: Well, the medieval era is an important stage in Catholic tradition. But it’s just one stage. Catholic tradition covers 3,000 years—not just modern media culture! It begins with the Old Testament, becomes infinitely enriched by the Gospel, takes in Greek thinking with the Patristic era, develops through the so-called “Dark Ages.” Then comes the medieval era. Finally, the tradition significantly develops in modern times, as well. That, my dear fellow, is the whole point to Tradition—respecting three thousand years of Divine Revelation and dedicated human effort to engage that Revelation. Three thousand years of prayer, thought, study, sacrifice—indeed blood, sweat and tears. But all that, I know, is just three thousand years of encrusted patriarchal baggage to you.

GLS: It speaks for itself. All I see is three thousand years of intolerance, bigotry and war…

I looked at LightShadow closely. As ever, he appeared so utterly, superciliously sure of himself. Why did the Gentle Traditionalist persist in this futile “debate”? Only later would I realise his true agenda had almost nothing to do with our ambassador from Aquarius.

GT: Many of the “post-1968” generations feel just the same thing. But I worry they’re not thinking things through. There’s a real danger of simply parroting the Zeitgeist. Again: that’s what I meant by “provincial in time.” People don’t realise just how much their “thinking” is informed by the “post-1968” media narrative. Anything much before “1968” is automatically suspicious.

GLS: Man, you haven’t heard a word I said! I’m talking timeless, universal truths here. Just be kind, tolerant, mindful. Even basic things like don’t steal or kill—just like your Ten Commandments. There’s a simple common core everyone can relate to—Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, atheists—everybody!

GT: Sorry, my friend, if I sound obtuse to your message. I have tried to listen carefully. I see your idealism—a genuine hunger for a better world.

GLS: Okay, thanks, I guess.

GT: Moreover, we do agree on some matters. Genuine tolerance is a beautiful thing. And, yes, your movement maintains a certain limited continuity with the Ten Commandments. New Agers would look pretty odd if they advocated slander, stealing or killing (unless it’s abortion, of course). New Age-ism, like Liberalism, possesses a certain moral minimalism. Sometimes I call that “Minimum Commitment Spirituality.” Still, my question is why would anyone be satisfied with that? Why would you even want a moral minimalism?

GLS: Maybe some of us don’t want to bossed abound by religion anymore!

GT: Well, quite. And once again, we’re straight back to the cultural attitudes of the last fifty years. Before the 1960s, people believed in obedience. And THAT certainly belongs to any “common core” of world religions! Whether it is the obedience of the Hindu chela to the guru, the Jewish hassidim to the tzadekim or the Catholic faithful to the pope, spiritual obedience ought to feature in a “common core” to all religions. Why is that conspicuously absent from your “timeless, universal spirituality”?

GLS: I’ve been telling you, dude. Evolution. We’ve evolved beyond that, now.

GT: Or perhaps you’ve become enchanted by the Zeitgeist?

“Or perhaps,” I grumbled, “a harmonic convergence with the essence of random zebraness.”

“There, there, Geoffrey. Mr LightShadow does mean well…” As he said that, I saw his ring once more. And the sense shot through me that GT was being literal about enchantment. There actually was an unholy spirit—Geist—working through this age that bewitched people. It was not LightShadow’s fault. Not entirely, at any rate. Indeed, the ring brought a pang of conscience. I felt chastened. LightShadow, I needed to actively recall, was a victim to so, so much. Sneering at him meant my heart was closed.

GT: Still, Mr LightShadow, I must say your “universalism” actually dispenses with most of the Ten Commandments. “Obey the Lord thy God!” Or the commandments forbidding blasphemy? Why, those don’t fit the Zeitgeist at all! Keeping the Sabbath holy? Well, that one’s hardly convenient for modern Capitalism! “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife?” We have an entire pornography industry built on that today…

GLS: Whoa! Nobody’s advocating porn! As usual, you’re taking things way too far.

GT: No, I’m sure you aren’t upholding pornography. Would you agree, then, it should be banned?

GLS: Obviously, no! I believe in free speech and you may not know this, dude, but there’s a price we have to pay for free speech.

GT: Forgive me. Once more, I hear the Zeitgeist speaking. People before the Sixties believed in free speech, too, but they didn’t include degrading women in that. Right up to the 1950s, free speech advocates everywhere remained firmly opposed to pornography. Only very recently did people start saying free speech necessarily includes the grossest obscenities. Alas, if we eliminated pornography, it would hardly be good for the economy—even if millions of men would be spared the most powerful sexual temptations that have ever existed. And millions of women would be spared the toxicity pornography generates in their relationships. The demands of Liberalism, including Economic Liberalism, are destroying natural human sexuality.

GLS: You mean destroying your sexual repression and guilt trips, man.

GT: Back to our diversity of views again! Still, maybe you’ll see my point about liberal economics. “Sex sells,” as they say. At any rate, the banks don’t complain and the banks power the culture. There’s something else, Mr LightShadow. The commandment not to covet thy neighbour’s wife pertains to more than just pornography. Chastity requires an intimate interior discipline of attention regarding any man’s wife.

For the first time, LightShadow appeared unnerved by GT. He realised the old man was perfectly aware of his unhealthy fascination with Anna.

“Once more, I digress,” GT said. “My real point is the narrow provincialism of New Age spirituality. Provincial in time: bound to the Zeitgeist. And provincial in space: Eastern in origin, but promoted above all from Britain and California…”

XXI

Economic Liberalism and the New Age

FOR a few moments, the room fell silent. Brigid looked at LightShadow strangely. Finally, GT sighed and said: “You see why the destruction of tradition troubles me. One so easily gets enslaved to the present moment. All this ‘Power of Now’ stuff is dangerous, if you ask me. It’s also arrogant. Thousands of years of human insight, human enquiry, human intellectual and spiritual endeavour—not to mention Divine Revelation—thrown to the winds. And why? Because it didn’t jive with the Baby Boomers after the ‘Summer of Love’?”

“Oh, man,” LightShadow said, “your version of reality is like Disneyland—on acid. Bad acid.”

GT: Forgive me, I did put that simplistically, crudely even. It’s hard to capture complex realities in conversations like this. Still, we can’t close our eyes to the Boomers, especially after they grew up and took power in the 80s and 90s.

GLS: And rocked your tiny world.

GT: I won’t deny their sheer power. Alas, they gained access to the greatest communications technology ever developed by man. Never before in human history have elites had power like this: round the clock radio, television, now internet. Never before has so much human energy been marshalled for something as meaningless—and dangerous—as an advertising jingle. Look at the technology drilling those jingles into people’s brains. Look at the academy. People go to university now—to get a degree in advertising. To learn how to manipulate people’s minds. It’s a scandal. But nobody blinks an eyelid, anymore.

GLS: Uh huh. Anyway, I’m into spirituality—not Capitalism!

Argh. And LightShadow’s 300 euro workshop fee? And all his slick New Age marketing? I almost exploded. But, once again, the blood-red ring caught my eye. And again, I realised LightShadow was a victim, parroting precisely the forces GT now evoked.

GT: Perhaps, you’ll concede, then, an advantage to the “backward” medieval mind. Capitalism was beyond the pale in the Middle Ages! That’s because usury—the main propellant of Capitalism—remained forbidden in Christendom. Usury and Capitalism are both Protestant innovations. And no medieval university would ever award degrees for something as trivial and cunning as advertising… But I digress. My main point is the immense destruction of tradition. These Boomers, as they’re called, SUFFERED that destruction like no generation before them. Their deracinated anomie led to Capitalism taking over like never before in the 1980s.

GLS: Deracinated anomie? I think I’ll take my chances with that one, rather than your ideas—whatever it is!

GT: Well, I mean the soullessness that stems from abandoning our roots, traditions, ethics. Oh, I know the hippies rejected Capitalism. Funny their generation gave rise to the greatest concentration of wealth and the most powerful capitalists the world has ever known. Far beyond Calvin’s wildest dreams. I am sorry, but your “holistic revolution” doesn’t look that different to me. All those books about gaining wealth, abundance, “prosperity consciousness,” “you deserve to have it all…” Not to mention those enormous therapy and seminar fees! Meanwhile, the Catholic Church offers the Eucharist—the most profound grace on earth—entirely free of charge. Your “holistic revolution,” though, comes with a price tag…

I noticed how GT operated. He didn’t directly attack LightShadow’s expensive Dublin workshop—the way I might. Nonetheless, he illumined the chasm between the New Age and the Church. The Church was meant for everyone, including the poorest of the poor. But the New Age remained a middle class phenomenon: strictly for those who could afford it.

“But all this isn’t surprising,” GT continued, “if my thesis is true: the New Age depends on the historical Protestant trajectory which formed the Anglosphere. Again, your ‘holistic revolution’ owes a lot to Luther and Calvin. As does the Enlightenment, Secularism, Liberalism, including Economic Liberalism—all these things followed in the footsteps of the Reformation. It was the Protestant reformers who first took the axe to the forests of tradition.”

I listened, mesmerised. GT knew exactly what Belloc told me on the phone! “Without that preliminary clearing away of traditional structures,” GT looked at me knowingly, before continuing, “your ‘holistic revolution’ wouldn’t stand a chance!”

GLS: Maybe Luther couldn’t handle your control-freakery! He just didn’t go far enough in dumping religion.

GT: Well, opinions differ. At any rate, Capitalism thrived in the new “free” climate he initiated. The capitalist revolution started in Protestant Holland and England when usury was established there and modern banking began. I don’t suppose you ever read Belloc or Chesterton?

GLS: Never even heard of them! Let me guess, your favourite religious crackpots?

GT: Friends, dear friends… Anyway, they’re very clear on Capitalism. It’s no coincidence the two greatest Protestant powers of recent centuries—Britain and America—were also the two greatest commercial powers. In both empires, Catholic tradition was suppressed, by one means or another, as ever greater Liberalism took hold. And now, even spirituality becomes a BUSINESS. People paying out money for “enlightenment.” Again, something unthinkable in the Middle Ages…

GLS: Oh, yeah—what about the Church selling those indulgences? That’s what set Luther off!

GT: Sadly, you have a real point there, my dear fellow. The Church on earth is far from perfect—

GLS: I’ll say!

GT: We have all sinned greatly against Our Lord. I do not deny it.

GT said those words sombrely, as if filled with pain. “Still, as grievous as that episode is, it is—in the big picture of things—an exception. The Church has worked for centuries feeding the poor, clothing the naked and offering the greatest gift of all: the holy sacraments. All without any charge whatsoever. We’re talking about phenomenal charity to billions of souls.”

“For two thousand years,” I added.

LightShadow laughed. “You guys are hysterical! And all that Vatican wealth?”

“Is something of a delusion, I think,” GT replied. “I sadly confess to the tragic sale of indulgences. However, the Vatican wealth story is largely obfuscation, propaganda. True, the Vatican guards priceless art and treasures of humanity. But no one uses that wealth for themselves. The people working in the Vatican, including the pope, are poorly paid, certainly by corporate standards today. The Vatican makes do on a small operating budget—something like that of a middle-sized university. From that, she pours out help to the entire world. But I’m losing my thread. Where was I…?

“You were talking about how the New Age is inherently liberal, as well as capitalist,” I reminded him. By this point, LightShadow was switching off completely, if indeed he ever paid any attention at all. But I was eager to hear more.

GT: Yes, again, because New Age-ism emerges from a Protestant cultural matrix. That renders it both socially and economically liberal. Like I say, the two go hand in hand.

Think of London and New York. They’re not only two of the most liberal places on earth, they’ve long been world “capitals” of Capitalism. London was quite literally the capital of the British Empire, an empire built on financial power. (Somehow other European powers were never quite as good at Capitalism as the British.) And now we have the American empire, built on Wall Street in New York. (Of course, there are other major financial centres, too, like Frankfurt and Tokyo. Still, it’s interesting they’re not in Catholic countries.) At any rate, no one doubts the power of Wall Street. And London remains the main banking centre of Europe.

My point is it’s no coincidence that London and New York are two of the most liberal cities on earth—with astonishing cultural clout. New York, of course, is home to the world’s mightiest publishing empire, including the supreme New York Times. And don’t forget the sheer cultural force of Hollywood in California! People are riveted by the great liberal Anglophone centres of power.

GLS: As opposed to riveted by the power of Rome, I suppose?

GT: Well, Rome is filled with human beings—fallen creatures—like everywhere else. For all its sins, though, Rome retains the power of its Providential Assignment. St. Peter— the rock on which Christ founded His Church—was the first pope or bishop of Rome. I suspect that’s why Dan Brown tries so hard to destroy him.

GLS: Sure, and my pet gerbil works nightshift for the KGB… Dude, if I didn’t realise you were a medieval fruit-cake, I might think you were paranoid!

GT: I can’t ignore the politics here—hidden politics. For anyone with eyes to see, it’s obvious Brown has a Masonic agenda closely allied to the liberal Anglo-American establishment.

GLS: Theosophists! Freemasons! Is your entire universe populated by bogeymen out to destroy your precious Church?!

GT: The Church, of course, always has powerful enemies. Anything truly good in this world always does. When Dan Brown wrote his “masterpiece,” it was amazing how the New York publishing industry went into overdrive. That book got the best publicity money could buy. Then, right away there was a Hollywood movie with a major star. And not surprisingly, Brown was also promoted by your pope-in-waiting…

GLS: My pope-in-waiting?

GT: Oh, sorry. Popess, I should say. Oprah, her with the big vision and the big, big bucks…

Anyway, these are relatively minor examples of what I mean. Really, the good ordinary Brits and Americans seldom realise how things look outside the Anglosphere. But other nations do. They can’t help noticing just how often the great banks and corporations behind the Globalist Project are American. Maybe you’ve heard the acronym: GAFA— any idea what it means?

GLS: Let’s see. Goofballs and Fanatics Anonymous?

GT: Alas, no. It’s a French designation: Google—Apple— Facebook—Amazon. Of course, GAFA doesn’t even begin to cover it. There are the Wall Street banks, Disney and the rest of Hollywood, Bill Gates’ Microsoft, Ted Turner’s CNN, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, even Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire. (That one’s smaller than the others. Still, it’s had a disproportionately powerful effect in breaking down the old Christian restraints on pornography.)

GLS: All these evil Americans!

GT: Au contraire! The American people have always struck me as having a fundamental decency. You still find real wholesomeness there, particularly in the so-called Red States. A refreshing difference from tired European cynicism!

Still, the world is increasingly controlled by a limited number of mighty banks and corporations. A disproportionate number of those are American. The major world oil companies are also American or British. Think of the sheer power of that commodity and all the wars waged for it. And even though the British Empire crumbled ages ago, English financial and political elites continue their “special relationship” with their corresponding elites on the American East coast.

Don’t forget British cultural heft, either. Look at the immense power of British Positivist philosophy over the centuries: Bacon, Locke, Hume, Mill, Russell, etc.—so different from Continental philosophy. Then, there’s pop culture, too: “Cool Britannia” and the British invasion beginning with The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bowie, Elton John—the list goes on. Who listens to French or Italian tunes?

GLS: Who can compete with Zeppelin or Bowie!

GT: Yes, well, I think there’s more to it than that—may I continue?

GLS: Go on, man. I’m taking copious notes.

GT: Thank you. Anyway, there are hidden strains here, too. Like I say, the New Age Movement owes a tremendous debt to Britain, what with the English Theosophists, the Findhorn powerhouse in Scotland and more. Masonry originated in Britain, too, above all Scotland.

The last few centuries haven’t been so much dominated by Rome—but London and now New York! As you said, English is the world language today. That fact has everything to do with the Capitalism of first the British Empire, now the American one. Generally speaking, non-English culture has never been quite as successful at things like business, banking, marketing, mass production and entertainment, pop music…

Oh, once in a while a non-English band surfaces on the world scene. There was once a German band called Kraftwerk, I believe. There’s another one now, called Tokyo Hotel. They both had some international success, if I understand such things correctly. Of course, their songs are in English…

Forgive me, but Rome never had power like this! All these pop songs, all this marketing, boring into the heads of the youngest children. Babies even.

GLS: Better check under the bed—quick! There could be Brits hiding there! Complete and utter Anglophobia…

GT: It’s not Englishness I have in mind, but DE-SACRAMENTALISATION. Since Henry VIII, English-speaking culture inevitably carries a subtle disregard for the Church’s central mystery to the rest of the planet. With the British Empire, that’s perfectly obvious. But we see the same with American culture, which owes so much to the New England Puritans and the elite Anglophile Northeast Coast establishment that dominates the country.

GLS: Oh, man. This is completely paranoid. America is a melting pot of all kinds of cultures. Have you ever been there? There are Italian Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans—some are even Catholic!

GT: This I know. Certainly, America is a much more Catholic country than England. But I’m talking about the elites. Think of the names of American presidents—they hardly reflect that melting pot. Okay, there are some recent exceptions: Obama, Kennedy, Eisenhower. But hardly any others. Presidential names are overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon in origin: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Bush—to name only a few.

GLS: Aha! The plot thickens. The conspiracy theory just gets deeper…

GT: Right now, I’m only suggesting a continuity of culture. (We can talk about conspiracy later, if you like.) There is clear cultural continuity here: a continued bias against Catholicism. The original Puritan prejudice carried over into liberalism. Still, a subtly Calvinist DNA remains, so to speak.[17]

GLS: Wow! That’s some persecution complex you have. A real victim mentality. You could use some therapy, dude— major therapy!

GT: Well, unlike you, my friend, I’m not English. I don’t belong to the culturally Protestant Anglosphere that’s run the world the last three hundred years. British and Americans often forget they’re situated in that context from the moment they’re born. That’s why it’s hard to see how much the New Age is an Anglo-American movement. But the Brits and Yanks should try to see what their culture looks like from the outside. You remember Chapter Eleven of your book, I think. What’s it called?

GLS: Groan. “Creative Visualisation”—but I hardly see the relevance…

GT: Well, try to creatively visualise belonging to a culture other than your own—one foreign to this Protestant heritage. Then, imagine what it’s like to see your culture destroyed. That’s why we had the 1916 revolution in Ireland. Back then, it was perfectly obvious the Anglo-Protestant culture was hostile to Irish Catholic aspirations.

“Yes,” Anna said, “Ireland was far more interested in Christian spirituality then. Not British liberalism, economic or otherwise.”

GT turned to my wife. “Tell me something, Anna. What do you think the Irish patriots of 1916 would make of today’s globalised Ireland (dare I say Anglicised Ireland)?”

But the question was too much for Anna. No words came, only tears in her eyes.

Brigid stared at Anna, distinctly uncomfortable. A distant memory was triggered. Brigid was a small child, sitting by a fire-side with a wiry old man, smoking a pipe. That man was her great grandfather, Tom O’Neill. Born in 1900, Tom lived to an advanced age. And as a young man, he fought for Ireland’s freedom, during the 1916 Easter Rising. He remained a hero to her family and Brigid could remember him, sitting by the warm fire of the hearth. She remembered too, something else above that hearth: a faded picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with a red lamp, ever burning, beside it. Next to it were small portraits of Patrick Pearse and Éamon de Valera, leaders of the Rising. Pearse had been executed by the British immediately after the Rising, but de Valera, his follower, survived, becoming, in time, the founding father of the Irish Republic.

Fighting back her tears, Anna finally found words to respond to GT’s query. “They couldn’t stop turning in their graves.”

“Yes,” GT said. “Men like that could never be taken in by fake multiculturalism, today’s globalised goo that pretends to be pluralist. For them, the reality of cultural division was clear.”

LightShadow stared at GT open-mouthed. Throughout our conversation, he had, I think, regarded GT as a curious creature from a past era. Intriguing perhaps—but as irrelevant as the dodo. Still, GT clearly had an effect on Brigid and LightShadow clearly didn’t like it. GT was finally getting under his skin. At last, he was starting to explode. “Cultural division!” LightShadow’s voice was raised now.

XXII

It Takes Two…

“DIVISION, division, division! That’s all I ever hear from you. I don’t know much about Ireland in 1916—but obviously there was war. People got killed—that’s all your precious divisiveness leads to! People want unity these days, not separation! That’s the real reason your outmoded religion is dying. People are fed up being divided. Can’t we all just get along?”

Had LightShadow already forgotten how he celebrated other wars—like the French Revolutionary ones—when their aims suited his progressive agenda? But a war to establish Ireland as a different society from secular England—a Catholic society? That was obviously different! The man’s inconsistencies made my blood boil. The Irish war, as tragic as it was, involved nothing like the bloodshed of revolutionary France or even the American Revolution. I wanted to scream. But what was the point?

Nothing the Gentle Traditionalist said penetrated our visitor in the slightest. The man was impervious. He truly believed he stood for a free, multicultural society with a universal spirituality. And nothing would ever make him question his dogmas for an instant. He would undoubtedly pontificate again on dialogue and diversity during his expensive Dublin workshop next week, saying every perspective was equally valid…

And once again, I saw the blood red ring. It was uncanny—but I could not shake the image of little Gareth Crowley cowering in his bedroom, covering his ears while his parents raged. Years later, I sensed him again, stoned out of his mind, headphones on, Pink Floyd cranked up loud. He had learned to cultivate imperviousness by any means available…

Once more, I wanted to weep. Still, I couldn’t see why GT wasted so much time on this “dialogue.” Only slowly did I see he wasn’t doing it for LightShadow’s sake—but for Brigid’s.

“War is a terrible thing,” GT said, slowly, painfully. “I won’t deny these lines of division carry costs. Often appalling costs. And I know, Mr LightShadow, that you genuinely seek to love…”

“All you need is love, man. That’s what this is all about. That’s all I’m saying. Not all your divisive concepts…”

“Alas, separation—division as you put it—is necessary to truly love. That means risking divisiveness, even violence. The New Secular Religion tries to avoid that by enforcing a sham ‘multiculturalism.’ But the New Age Religion has a different strategy.”

“You mean monism,” Anna said.

“Precisely: the idea we’re all one and all separation is ultimately an illusion.”

“Right on, dude!”

“Well, I’m hardly surprised monism enthuses you. Monism is another key to New Age-ism. It’s part and parcel of the Theosophical and Eastern philosophy that undergirds your so-called ‘Universal Spirituality.’ It’s hardly part of Christianity, though.”

“What a surprise…” LightShadow groaned.

“Alas, the problem with monism is that, subtly, it denies love. Love, real love means allowing the other person autonomy. To be their own unique person, separate and divided from myself. It means setting people free.”

“Letting them do things you may not like and still loving them,” Anna said.

“Yes. It’s easy to love yourself,” GT said. “It’s also easy to love someone who just happens to agree with everything you believe. Who isn’t divided from you. But love—real love—requires something else.”

“It takes two to tango,” Anna said, “It takes two to really, truly love.”

“Yes, Anna. Loving someone where true freedom exists— which means the potential for true division—that’s where love gets tough! That’s why Christianity avoids the easy answers of the New Age.”[18]

LightShadow rolled his eyes, but said nothing. For the first time, GT looked weary. But for Brigid’s sake, for our sake and the sake of the future, he was not ready to stop. Instead, he meant to plunge ahead with a final summary of his argument.

XXIII

Tragedy and Hope

THE Cheshire zebra had lost his zest. Not only was the grin long gone by now, but I had the impression he wanted to escape. Only Brigid’s fascination with GT kept him put.

“I know you intend the best, Mr LightShadow,” GT said. “But New Age denial of genuine divisions is no answer. The same goes for the compulsory inclusiveness of Political Correctness. To be blunt: You’ve fallen for a lie. This ‘inclusive universalism’ you genuinely aspire to is built on a lie. And anything founded on a lie is bound to go wrong. With dreadful costs. Some of those costs are already evident. Others we can’t begin to conceive…”

“What I can’t conceive is why you need all this paranoia, all these bogeymen, all these straw men…”

GT: I am sorry to be so blunt. But, I repeat, there’s a fundamental lie here. Our globalist order is built on this lie. It claims to be neutral, tolerant, multicultural. But it has a tight, narrow agenda, which will not tolerate any other agenda. New Age spirituality would seem to be Globalism’s “spiritual handmaiden.” And its claim to be free of dogma simply renders it more effective.

Look at the giants of the new Globalist order—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon—they’re fine with your New Age spirituality. Doesn’t trouble them one bit! But it’s hardly fine with Catholic and Christian tradition! We traditionalists are excluded from public debate. Increasingly we’re either censored or concerned about running afoul of so-called “hate crimes.” Not because we truly hate! But because we refuse to substitute the New Secular Religion for our own.

GLS: Or maybe you refuse to grow out of outdated ways, once they’ve been exposed for what they really are.

GT: We face a choice, then: “update” our religion, join your “holistic revolution,” become “holistic Christians.” Water down the very core of Christianity so it agrees with the New Age (and the New World Order)—or face persecution. To us, the lie is clear. You mean to include us by destroying us. Anna, you once watched that Hollywood show Star Trek, I believe. Wasn’t there an alien race of robotic beings on that…?

Anna: The Borg?

GT: That was it. What was it they said? Ah, I remember now…“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” Science fiction often mirrors people’s fears of the future, even if the fear isn’t conscious. Today, there’s widespread anxiety of being swallowed up by a global machine. Indeed, becoming the machine ourselves! Certainly, I feel it myself. Modern civilisation seems ever more like the Borg. More mechanical, controlling, technocratic… But I digress. My real point is this new “spiritual handmaiden” to Globalism. How easily it supports the technocracy, the plutocratic elites. New Agers just “go with the flow.” They never feel persecuted like Traditionalists do.

GLS: You’re so morbid. No one’s out to destroy you. There’s no need for all this polarising “us versus them” stuff…

GT: Yes, even the notion of “us versus them” is shamed now. As though you must be paranoid for even suspecting you aren’t included in the Inclusiveness Regime. There’s a certain sleight of hand there. Meanwhile, we’re told Christianity is being superseded by a new paradigm. That’s another sleight of hand, if the truth is that all of this is being socially engineered. What I said about The Da Vinci Code publicity machine is just one small example of what I mean.

GLS: Look at you! You’re so threatened, man. It was just one book…

GT: And film.

GLS: A boring movie—hardly anyone liked it.

GT: Sometimes the Powers That Be fail. Even with a major Hollywood star and a major director and an American Memorial Day weekend opening…

GLS: The Powers That Be?!

GT: Well, it’s extremely hard to precisely pinpoint the exact players here. Different threads cross over. On the one hand, we have the globalist elites. These are inspired by Western Masonry more than many see. And Masonry, as I said, is British in origin. To this day, there is a powerful Masonic thrust to the Anglo-American establishment—operating out of the major financial centres of Wall Street and London. But also elite universities like Oxford and Yale with its “Skull and Bones” society, and so on…

GLS: Better hang on, folks! We just crossed over…into the Twilight Zone (do-dee-do-dee-do-dee-do)!

GT: Things aren’t that black and white, of course. There are non-Masonic threads, too. Sometimes they converge. For example, Blavatsky pioneered Eastern Theosophy. But she joined a Masonic order in America. Then, Alice Bailey developed her Theosophy—but her husband, who fostered her work, was a 32nd-degree Mason. These were all people intent on wiping out traditional Christianity.

GLS: Oh, man. The wheels in your head are amazing. It’s all so intricate. Like some crazy cuckoo clock! It takes you to cloud cuckoo land—but the thing still ticks. I’ll give you that.

GT: Why, thank you, my dear fellow. If you see any of these connections, I’m truly grateful. I hope you at least grasp why I find this “universalism” tough to swallow. Because I see a very particular spirituality. Eastern and Masonic, you might say, but more Eastern, than anything. And it means to COLONISE the West. Moreover, in the Anglosphere at least, its success is astonishing! Blavatsky was nakedly honest about her hatred for Christianity. With Bailey, it was more subtle. She pretended, like the New Age she pioneered, to “include” Christianity in a grand new synthesis of all the worlds’ religion.[19]

All this hit Anna hard. Many Catholics would dismiss GT as paranoid. But, unlike them, she understood the New Age. Unlike them, she knew Theosophy first hand. And she knew Blavatsky and Bailey meant to pioneer precisely what GT said: a global spiritual “synthesis” that would render Christianity obsolete.

But only now did she see how much their dream was already realised.

She remembered the Catholic Ireland she knew as a girl. She wanted to weep. Everything appeared so hopeless. This new “universal” spirituality incessantly and insidiously promoted by the Powers That Be was more potent than anyone realised. For GT was perfectly right about things like the American media establishment pumping up The Da Vinci Code, and much more besides.

Travelling in America, Anna saw New Age ideas everywhere. There were television talk show hosts—not simply Oprah—interviewing so-called “spiritual teachers.” “Spiritual experts” were all over the airwaves and they were not Christian. Four or five decades ago, America would have turned to Protestant leaders like Billy Graham or even the Catholic archbishops of New York. Today, its network-approved spiritual leaders spouted Blavatskyite ideology.

Elsewhere, things remained different. Anna’s life in France made that clear. Daffy New Age-isms were not nearly so present in French media, for example. But in the Anglosphere, the New Age was now mainstream—so mainstream, in fact, that people hardly recognised it as New Age any more! Aquarius was the new “spiritual air” of the Anglosphere. It even had its own English acronym now: SBNR—Spiritual But Not Religious. Even Ireland—of all places!—was utterly transformed. And the steady drip-by-drip erosion emanating from the media centres of London, New York and Los Angeles factored mightily in that transformation.

Anna could hardly hold back the tears. At that point, GT subtly shifted his right arm. The ring came directly into her line of vision. And in the blood-red depths of the stone, she started to sense things…

First came the unshakeable impression of immense mountains. She had seen these mountains before, in India, far in the distance. Now, they rose up in her mind again, closer up, higher than ever—the Himalayas! She recalled how Theosophists like Blavatsky and Bailey always claimed they were guided by Himalayan masters, initiated into occult secrets of the East. She recalled, too, an erstwhile Theosophist, Rudolf Steiner, who claimed these Eastern occultists were real, but they were two thousand years out of date. They lacked the least understanding of Christ crucified on Calvary, which changed everything…

Now, she saw before her an ancient Tibetan sage with no idea that his pre-Christian spiritual orientation had been transcended, when the world was transformed on Calvary. And yet this Tibetan believed his pre-Christianity could help the Occident! This Tibetan was so very sure the West was benighted—terribly in need of enlightenment from the East. And he found Anglo-phone emissaries, who also wanted to “help the world” through a redundant Eastern Occultism without Christ.

Anna shuddered. Why was she seeing this? She could not say for sure. But perhaps keys to understanding were being provided. Understanding LightShadow. Understanding Findhorn and her former life there. Understanding the New Age scene she witnessed in America. Understanding, too, the aloof, detached, happy, smiling, frequently even goofy “spirit of Aquarius.” That spirit that was so out of touch with human suffering, as well as human evil…

Yet the Christic grace of the sacraments confronted Christians with these realities. The Fall into sin, the forces of iniquity, the need for redemption. And now the blood-red ring drew her attention to darkness, to demons. Abruptly, she was startled by a sociopath! It was Adolf Hitler—Hitler in the 1930s at the height of his power, leading millions into psychosis.

Anna reeled with vertigo. Why, why, why was she seeing Hitler—of all people? Was it because the Nazis manifested the evil New Agers could not handle? Yes, but there were further reasons…

For, without warning, the ring shot her forward in time! Just a few short years later to a German bunker in 1945. There lay Hitler’s body. He had just committed suicide. Once, his dream of conquering a continent, exterminating an entire people, appeared on the brink of success. A little while later and it turned to dust. The collective delirium ended. Germany, once the sworn enemy of France and England, became their friend. Peace was finally achieved in Europe. But at what cost! Millions had been bombed or slaughtered in battle, millions more were tortured and killed in concentration camps. And the “lucky” millions who escaped lived in agonised fear and misery for years.

Another dark wave appeared to Anna. This time, she saw Lenin and Stalin. She watched while the Eastern wing of the Church was destroyed, as Communism swept across Eurasia. Yet this wave, too, had finished. Churches and monasteries were being reestablished across the vast steppes of Russia. Children were once again taught the Faith. Even abortion, introduced by the Communists, was increasingly restricted. Once, it was common-place for Russian women to have several abortions over a lifetime. Now, these atrocities receded.

Another demagogue appeared that Anna didn’t recognise. A female from the future, crying out for “puberty blockers”—that children might “choose their sexual identity.” Millions cheered her on. But, in time, the woman grew deranged for all to see. And, like the Nazis and Stalinists before, her followers at long last realised their complicity in a moral monstrosity. Sanity returned. But not before countless innocents had been mutilated beyond repair, while their young, unformed minds were solemnly informed that gender was a choice, not a God-given natural thing.

Anna gazed into the ring. In ordinary reality, that gaze lasted, perhaps, five minutes. But time itself seemed to stretch out for her, as past, present and future unfolded before her eyes. From long ago, the Tower of Babel rose up in her mind and the words of the Psalmist reverberated:

The LORD thundered from Heaven;

the voice of the Most High resounded.

He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies,

great bolts of lightning and routed them.

At once, Anna realised she was seeing the same pattern repeated throughout history. For, over and over