Some thoughts around Christmas – the season of miracle where satanists & cultural corrosion flock from every angle like inverted swallows of Capistrano.
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If you are new to the Band, this post is an introduction to the point of this blog that needs updating. Older posts are in the archive on the right. Shorter occult posts and other topics have menu pages above.
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Anton Raphael Mengs, The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1770, oil on oak, Prado
Clarify the point of this post. We aren't trying to diagram the constant assault on the central Christian miracle. That’s obvious with a glance back even a few decades. It’s not a history piece, so we won’t break down the top-down push towards “happy holidays”. Or how lies about a corporate logo anagrammatically named for Satan became the symbol of the festival of the Incarnation. Or the escalating and absurdly stressful orgy of commercialism.
Coca Cola Santa Claus, 1952 Christmas Poster
It's common to scan the current day beast system, then look back wistfully a few decades. The thing is, the inversive patterns were already in place. It's impossible to consider the central role of pedophilia and exploiting children in the moral inversion of society and look at an image like this as anything other than a red flag in plain sight.
The reality is that moral inversion is a continuum - a slippery slope. Or as we call it, the slippy slide into the abyss. Because it took generations to corrode basic Western Christian morality, looking back a little always looks better. But the seeds for the naked evil rampant today were planted a long time ago. That's why the masses never see it coming.
A far less meaningful but equally annoying tendency are the retards that blather on about Christmas “really” being a pagan holiday. As if pagan theology wasn’t extinguished in antiquity and reimagined in early modernity to add make-believe resonance to folklore. It's worse in modern times when idiots and grifters pretend ontologically-incoherent fantasy roleplay is "spiritual". One can pretend they're evoking long-extinct oral nonsense dogma, but that's intrinsically projected personal desire based at best on observable natural patterns. Literally no one knows what the belief structures entailed after the oral transmission chains were rightfully buried. And the everchanging variants of folklore != ancient belief systems for obvious reasons. Of course, reality is no obstacle to the fever dreams of the retarded.
For example, this version of the old spray of symbols. That's the occult pattern where a bunch of symbols of fake self-deification and inversion are plastered together in the asinine hope that more lies somehow approach truth. The spread-legged twink symbolizes that aberrant sexuality never really goes away.
There's no meaningful connection to truth, virtue, or the cultural history of the ancient West. But there might be something there for a winter game of D&D.
The problem with tackling the history and inversion of the celebration of the Incarnation in the West is that it is both too vast and too obvious. It’s too big to summarize the steps and examples but so self-evident that summarization shouldn’t be needed. Anyone who can’t see it are either too stupid to waste time on or complicit for some reason or other. But undermining and inverting Christmas is part of what we call de-moralization [click for a post where we introduce the idea]. Not the loss of morale - but not unrelated to that. The loss of morality. It’s why we hyphenate it to distinguish the two. It refers to a process that we’ve considered in other posts where objective morality is sequentially removed and then inverted in culture. And de-moralization gets to the point of this short post.
Start by reviewing how reality works. The motto of the Band is what can we know and how can we know it. Running through the posts are attempts to work out fundamental ways to understand the reality that we find ourselves in. This has led to structures like the ontological hierarchy that lay out how epistemology and ontology are integrated [click for a post].
Secular transcendence is another important one, where modern inversives pretend there is no coherent ontological or epistemological distinctions [click for a post].
Secular transcendence replaces the truthful representation of reality in the ontological hierarchy with what we call Flatland. This is a fake existential structure that underpins all the auto-idolatrous, self-deifying lies of modernism by pretending that all forms of knowledge - despite inherent contradictions and situational incoherence - are magically...
a) all applicable to an entropic temporal material realityb) accessible in their fullness to limited human consciousnesses with their intrinsic limits of discernmentc) all expressed through representational process that can be totally subjective or totally transparent depending on what benefits the liars at the moment.
This post will make a few observations about Christmas through the lens of what we can know and how we can know it. Because de-moralization is a consequence of secular transcendence. Flattening out realities of ontology and epistemology is what blocks recognition of abstract realities and establishes the lie that the material is all there is. But ontology is hierarchical. Ultimate reality is beyond any form of knowledge other than faith. And that is the foundation of Truth and moral objectivity as we can conceive it.
Carl Bloch, The Shepherds and the Angel, 1879, oil on copper
The pretense that morality is subjective – that truth is subjective – requires secular transcendence. Denial of anything beyond our material existence. And that's why Christmas so triggering to the modern House of Lies? The Incarnation – the materialization of the Logos – is the essential thread that ties the ontological hierarchy together.
It definitionally affirms that this isn't Flatland and that de-moralization is a secular transcendent lie.
This makes the Incarnation - the ostensive point of the Christmas festival - the essential hinge in the entire structure.
It is true that necessity of a hierarchical ontology was reasoned out by the pre-Christian Greeks. But the operant mechanism that connects the ultimate/God to the material/human was unknowable without faith. And faith is unknowable by logic or observation – it can only be consistent or inconsistent with those but not confirmed. Christian Logos is uniquely consistent with onto-epistemological necessity as it is accessible to us.
So Christmas through the lens of the Bands ideas. There is one more point to bring up – a critical one for assessing human response to higher truths.
More specifically, inward or outward driven forms of moral direction [click for one of several posts]. Is morality based on internal intentions and beliefs, or on what other people think? Christianity uniquely prioritizes the former. What is in the heart and knowable to God trumps appearances. Obviously this overstates the binary distinction and inwardly-moral people generally appear outwardly so as well. But the drivers and intentions matter when considering social ritual participation.
Laying out the groundwork makes Christmas fairly simple. Start by considering it through linked ontological strata and representational processing.
The subject of Christmas – the Christ in the name – is the Incarnation.
Nazarene School, The Adoration of the Infant Jesus, 19th century
The paradoxical entry of God or ultimate reality into man or material reality.
The details are known by faith and by representation.
The faith can’t be “proven” observationally or logically, but it is consistent. The world is observably and logically fallen and subject to both passive and active evil natures. Logic also dictates that without a higher countervailing force, we would already be extinguished. There is no way to see empirically or even clearly conceptualize the appearance or nature of the Logos/Word that is and was with God and was the instrument of Creation. It’s beyond our limits of discernment. But it perfectly conforms to our survival in the objectively fallen world that we can perceive.
By representation we simply mean how we know anything [click for a post].
None of us were present before time when the Logos was and was with God. None of us were in the manger either. What understanding we have is through scriptural and other narratives, images, thought-pictures, etc. We know through faith that these representations conform to the things they represent, but that doesn’t change that their representational nature.
We might even call the Incarnation something similar to a representational act.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities, between 1675 and 1682, oil on canvas, National Gallery
The divine hypostasis of the Logos isn’t materially localized or visible. In human form it is. How divinity and humanity conjoin is beyond discernment. But the reality of a physically knowable version of Logos isn’t. Through the Incarnation God acquires aspects of temporal visibility.
The representational idea is also limited. If we think of Jesus as representation, we also have remain aware that he also really is divine essence he represents. Where it applies is in creating something accessible that previously wasn’t.
"Christmas" doesn't have the divine essence that the actual Incarnation does - it's purely representational. Whether the Biblical narratives or any subsequent celebration. This doesn't mean they are equally accurate - we accept on faith that the former are. We're also looking at the inversion of the latter. The point is that Christmas is an inherently representational phenomenon and what it does is represent - well or poorly - is the birth of Jesus with celebration. The ultimate reality and material reality ends of the ontological hierarchy linking through the incarnate Logos. Not collapsing like secular transcendence, but connecting in a way that offers a way around the Fall. That offers a connection to our Creator. This is the reason for the light of the world, the joy, etc.
The shepherds and Magi represent opposite ends of the socio-economic status hierarchy. Salvation is open to all. Note that the most lowly are the first to come - and are told directly by angels instead of having to follow sky signs.
The gifts and reverence represent God's ultimate gift and ultimate charity. Literally ultimate - actual ultimate reality manifested directly.
Note how de-moralized beast entertainment endlessly blathers on about a "spirit of Christmas" without any reason for it other than a vague appeal to custom. That there's supposed to be some objective joy, magic of the season, etc. without the supernatural miracle that invested the representation with its meaning in the first place.
In this 1950 film, there is a claymation version of the Nativity, but it accompanies the utterly secular "Night Before Christmas". De-moralization starts with the fake secular alternative as a supplement. This establishes a representational connection by association. Once totally non-Incarnate Logos related magic becomes "the spirit of Christmas", the Truth can be slowly phased out.
So any truthful representational quality of Christmas is rooted in the Incarnation and its meaning. This is known because it can be extrapolated logically through abstract processes. The universal processes of acceptance that open salvation to all. But how this manifests materially is... well... material.
Now recall the ontological hierarchy. In deontological terms, the abstract gives us moral reasoning. Applying ultimate Truths known by faith to our subjective, changing material realities in legitimate ways.
Because material reality is subjective, conditional, contingent experience. And that includes what we think of as "culture". Modes of living in the social physical world that develop organically over time. Material reality is fallen and had no intrinsic moral direction other than nature. For us to navigate this, higher forms of knowledge are needed. The application of those ultimate truths through that abstract reasoning.
That’s how we assess cultural values. How do they conform to moral truths that are literally super-natural? We alone have the power to transcend the impulses of fallen nature through spiritual discernment and higher reasoning. Which is why we are subject to moral judgment in ways the rocks and beasts are not. Though even they have a natural logos.
It will take different forms in different places and times. It may not be celebrated at all. It is not mandated Biblically, though Christians commemorating the Incarnation is hardly a difficult concept to grasp. So not required - a material, culturally determined practice that is not a direct extension of ultimate reality. This makes it subject to abstract assessment according to the Truths laid down by ultimate reality. The question is whether it's morally acceptable or not. In short...
Whether or not the celebration is moral is deontological. Does it conform to or contradict the morally reasoned applicability of ultimate Truth?
We know the angels sing and the magi bring gifts. A cultural expression based around charitable giving and joyous celebration is deontologically sound. It doesn't manifest a commandment because it is merely a commemorative representation of Truth. This also takes care of idiot obsession over the "actual date". Representations are by definition arbitrary in form, so what matters is the significance. Does the expression inherently contradict the salvific gift of the Incarnation or not?
The issue is the focus. Remember how Christian morality is interiorized. What is the motivation? It is an arbitrary cultural indicator that draws meaning from the material manifestation of Logos? Or is it a festival of greed and gluttony - material excess as an end in itself? The two are not the same.
John Conrad Berkey, Christmas Morning, later 20th century, acrylic on board
Quick... where's the Incarnation?
The embodiment of this secular transcendent de-moralization of the celebration of the Incarnation into orgy of materialism is "Santa". This is a tough one for a lot of people because of their own fond memories. But the supernatural foundation of the celebration is the Logos entering the world and offering the possibility of redemption. And the joy and charitability are participatory material-level expressions of that miracle - like artists creating in the image of the Creator. Think then for a moment on the creation and top-down pushing of an unchristian sorcerer with intense corporate promotion to replace God with worldly magic. A magic based on lies, that turns Christian fellowship around the ultimate revelation into a theater of deception.
Fun lies the beast says, but "fun" as a moral barometer has a poor track record...
Kate Greenaway, Christmas Eve, a visit from Father Christmas, 19th century, watercolor, private
Jesus doesn't sneak into the bedroom.
De-moralization is insidious. It is peddled to people who unconsciously feel the loss of Truth, but have no path back to it. The missing emotional appeal of the Good News and attendant virtues becomes the vector for inverted fake replacements.
There's nothing inherently wrong with a cultural generosity mascot. The problem is when that mascot becomes the central figure in what is ostensibly the celebration of the Incarnation. Their magics are ontologically incompatible. Contradictory. You have to choose, and as with everything in this Fallen world mindlessly pretending there is no difference is a choice. Perhaps not a mortal one, but certainly a chosen path.
Yes, the Band is familiar with Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters.
Anyone who actually read the book and somehow confused this expression of the master's literary fictional myth-making to the modern Santa is disingenuous. Nor did Tolkien run an atheist household. In fact, we are certain that his implicit grasp of the ontological is at least a match for our own. Material-level culture with real moral applicability.
There's the floor.
Likewise Father Christmas in C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - an explicit Christian allegory written for mid-20th-century English children set in a joyless place described as always winter and never Christmas. Within the allegory he symbolizes the bounty of Christmas and gives the Pevensies gifts connected to adult responsibility. He's a material expression of Christianity allegorized by Aslan, not the replacement. “I've come at last,” said he. “She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening.”
These literary creations have virtually nothing to do with modern Santa in the House of Lies.
It's not that you can't create a celebretory figure within a deontologically sound framework. It's that that isn't what happened.
The de-moralization of the celebration of the Incarnation was effective because of cultural inertia. There was a lingering veneer of popular Christianity of a sort well into the culture of the 20th century. This was slowly eroded through the integrated glamours of inverted mass beast culture - what we've been calling the House of Lies in recent posts. That makes it more obvious now, but the process was well underway over a century ago.
Consider the oft-quoted "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" by the ironically-named Francis Pharcellus Church published in a long-dead beast rag of 1897. In it a slippery rhetorician argues that Santa is a personification of our best virtues, without which there would be "no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence". Pure inversion - there's no way he was too stupid to not realize these things predate their supposed cause. An attempt to replace the divine source of the wonder of Creation with a fake wizard. Diametric opposite to Lewis. Now consider Church next to another Promethean appeal...
George Bellows, Hail to Peace, Christmas, New Society Dinner-Card, 1918, lithograph on wove paper, Hail to Peace
Church frames the peace with an ontological appeal - "In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him" - and then distils the wonder of the divine into a de-moralized marketing totem. Literally from the sublime to the ridiculous.
"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies!" But fairies aren't real either - just another Victorian fad looking to push occult replacements for Christian wonder. And note the complete lack of reference to the Incarnation anywhere.
We don't believe in Prometheus either.
See how early stage de-moralization works? Identify something miraculous like the manifestation of the Logos into Creation and the ontological transformation that that engenders. Reduce it to unfounded material human impulses. Then create a fake idol to account for the actual Truth that's being obscured. The real answer was no, Virginia, there isn't. But there is the the infinitely more magical and wondrous unearned gift of grace that brought light into a Fallen world. You can celebrate that with joy, thanksgiving, and charity of your own.
How about the Christmas tree? That's a sperg-tard magnet.
Jervis McEntee, Christmas in the Catskills, 1867, oil on canvas, private
It obviously isn’t an Asherah pole and one hardly has to be a polished exegete to realize Jeremiah 10:3-4 refers to the carving of idols. The shaping with a chisel part is a tell. This brings us back to inward vs outward morality again. Why do you put up a tree? Is it it replacing the Incarnation at the focal point of the holiday? If so, it’s an idol. Otherwise it’s a joyous expression through the lens of an arbitrary material culture.
The lights are fine. Most every culture had a solstice holiday around the lengthening of days. It's not a bad representation of the True Light of the Incarnation so long as one is not confused with the other.
Likewise the decorations. What do they represent? Are they hung in a spirit of joyous reverence for the savior? Or do they celebrate something else? Are the open to the ontological hierarchy or part of the secular transcendent Flatland that denies the reality of heaven?
Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, Christmas Eve in the Studio, 1911, oil on canvas, private
That's the thing about inward-driven morality - it's not always superficially obvious. This is a joyous celebration of family and beauty. Is it in a spirit of reverence? There's nothing obvious that rules it out, so only the participants know for sure.
But that determines whether it's consistent with the meaning of the Incarnation or just a material display. And that determines the nature of the moral content.
Does the joy come from the light cutting through a dark world or from gluttony and stuff?
Marc Swanson, Untitled, Sequined Antler, Peter Norton Family Christmas Project, 2009, mixed-media, private
It's really not that difficult.
The gifts are all right, so long as they don’t descend into the orgy of commercialism that replaced any other aspect of the holiday.
Does the moral charge to charity come from reverent gratitude for God’s infinitely greater gift? Or because a freakish godless demon threatens you?
Christianity is based on one moral judge that knows the heart, and true repentance of a Fallen sinful nature bringing forgiveness.
Replacing this with occult spies is just another example of the de-moralization we've been observing. With intrinsic Christian morality, there's no need for fake judges. Though they do condition acceptance of a state of constant non-divine surveillance.
The inward-driven morality of is Christianity crystalized in the Incarnation. Because we each have the choice to follow or turn back into the darknesss. This is a problem for many because it also comes with responsibility. Responsibility to sometime have to decline material pleasures on moral grounds. So the nature of Christmas the material expression is up to the person celebrating it. The ultimate truth of the Incarnation doesn’t change, but whether that manifests socio-culturally sure does.
What does “Christmas” the modern holiday mean? That’s up to you.
Choose.
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