Back Thor or Balder-Christ? - Selfish and Unselfish attitudes 12th Aug 2005

WHAT ARE ANGELS?

Angels are aspects of spiritual world which can be imagined to be people. We can see that there is a continuum from Angels who have all the full aspects of a human personality , a complicated history, multiple and contradictory attitudes etc, through those who have a simpler, and more dependable personality, to those which represent just one single aspect of a personality in its pure form.

Saints in a way are a kind of Angel, the most human kind, and thus the kind we can most easily relate to.

The mainstream Angels tend to have a more clearly defined role, but have more personality than elves or spirits.

Elves (for Alfredanists) are simpler beings who are helpers for the Angels and Saints. Each Elf has a particular job that they are good at - i.e. they are beings that can make a particular spiritual change to a human personality. Elves are neither automatically Good nor Bad in themselves, but their Good or Bad effect depends on how they are used by the Angel that has employed them.

For instance there are Elves to frighten people, Elves to deceive people and Elves to harden or soften peoples hearts.


SELF-OTHER ATTITUDINAL ANGELS

A fundamental aspect of a human personality is its attitude to the Self and to the Other.

This basic attitude affects a person's behaviour in the most basic way, and thus the world that is created by their behaviour.

We imagine that there are Angels who reflect the same attitude and who are trying to gain power in the real world, by getting humans to follow their lead.

Currently Alfredanists talk of:

Balder-Christ: (or 'Ing-Balder-Christ')
An Angel who is willing to sacrifice his own Self, in order to fully serve the Other (i.e. GOD or the common Good).

In normal life Balder has a Self, but is always ready to see things from anothers point of view, and to work for their welfare.

However GOD has given Balder a gift - the Sword of Frey or Spirit of Christ. When he takes up the Sword of Frey, (i.e. when he becomes possessed by the spirit of Christ) he gains strength direct from GOD and becomes fearless in battle. However to allow the Sword to do its work he must sacrifice his own Self, giving up Self-willed control, and putting himself trustingly in the hands of GOD.



Thor:
A Selfish Angel, but one who is open to the Other. Thor sees the world from his own point of view, and seeks to enhance his powers within it. However because he is open to others, he is affected by their distress, and this places limits on how far he will go. Thor is an Angel who works with the natural order of things to build his own Strength. Thor is both an Angel of Individual Self, and of Collective Self.

Lucifer:
A Selfish Angel, like Thor, but one whose mind is closed to the hearts of the Other, and thus is unrestrained in his activities, except by the opposition of the other Angels.

Sorath:
A Self-less Angel like Balder-Christ whose heart is open to others, but who desires their distress, rather than their welfare.


BALDER-CHRIST & THOR

These two Angels represent the two basic approaches that Alfredanist can take. They can build up their own Self-strength in a natural way under the guidance of Thor, or they can selflessly work for the common good, as Balder would suggest, and trust that this basic goodness will attract support and melt away any resistance.

Christians believe that the way of Balder-Christ is the only way, and that the way of Thor is evil. (i.e they say that in our fallen world the 'way of man' is sinful and people must suppress their selfish desires and follow only Christ)

Alfredanists can see they have a point in that a Selfish attitude in a person (including a 'collective person' such as a nation) tends to lead to conflict with other Selfish persons, and is likely to reduce the chance of maximising the common welfare.

On the otherhand it seems Christians are just wrong to suggest - if they do - that a strong Self is not needed. Maybe some Christians wouldn't deny this, so much as just assume that man is naturally selfish and doesn't need any help to become so. However in our modern Lucifer-dominated age we see the 'Strong & Free Self' undermined more ruthlessly and systematically than ever before.

Thus we believe that both Self-consciousness and Other-consciousness are fully part of GOD's plan, and both must receive positive attention. Neither can be automatically sinful - rather we need to switch between these two attitudes depending on the situations we face .

In other words we would like to see Balder-Christ and Thor working together - both under the guidance of Woden.


Notes: People may think we live in a Selfish age already, but these Selves are actually weak, and unfree. We may have a cult of individualism but this actually undermines the Individual Self by cutting people away from the social environment they need to grow strong.
More obviously the idea that nationalism, or even religion, or any kind of authority is a 'bad thing' is an idea that has been fostered by Lucifer to undermine the strength of our Collective Selves.



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