🧵Integralism/Neo integralism

The following is a basic breakdown of the terms; Integralism and Neo-Integralism (their operational lineage showing) showing how they are not aligned with Traditional Thomism and detailing the philosophical and metaphysical corruptions that allowed such movements to gain traction within ecclesial structures. I’m sure to have missed something essential and those covering this material in its operational capacity (rather than its propagandist rhetorical gloss) more frequently than I do will please step in to add crucial elements I may miss. 2/
I want to start with what was for me an essential foundational distinction to understand as fully as possible - the paramount distinction(s) between Traditional Thomism and Neo-Integralism:

Traditional Thomism is grounded in:
Metaphysical realism (reality is knowable and ordered),

Natural Law rooted in the Eternal Law (not in power or sentiment),

Free will and moral conscience as essential to human dignity,

Political subsidiarity and civic virtue, not coercive theocracy,

Telos (final cause) as the organizing principle of personal and civic life.

In contrast, Neo-Integralism is a political-theological system that weaponizes theology for central control. Rooted not in Logos, but in order-as-force and pragmatic hierarchy, not moral formation. Interested not in the salvation of the soul through virtue, but in uniformity of behavior through structure. It uses Thomist language (law, common good, hierarchy) but operates on Machiavellian metaphysics.

🧵Subsidiarity - understanding it Operationally

The concept of political subsidiarity can appear, on the surface, to align with American Constitutional popular sovereignty and self-governance…….but…….while subsidiarity contains some overlapping aims, it also contains hidden dangers; especially when detached from metaphysical realism or grounded in specific doctrine.

Subsidiarity (Stated Definition)

Originating in Catholic social teaching (particularly Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno), subsidiarity is the principle that decisions and responsibilities should be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority. Higher levels should only intervene when lower levels are unable to function. 2/
Where Subsidiarity Aligns with American Constitutional
Self-Governance

Presumption of Local Agency:

Like subsidiarity, the U.S. Constitution is built on the idea that power originates from the People, not from the state. The Tenth Amendment reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states or the people, echoing subsidiarity’s call to keep authority close to those governed.

Distributed Authority by Design:

Federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances are all designed to prevent consolidation of control; aligning with subsidiarity’s suspicion of top-down rule.

🧵Beyond Self

One of the deepest and most urgent questions facing sincere atheists and agnostics today is also the site of the most widespread spiritual misdirection and strategic co-option. The human sense that there is meaning beyond the self is not religious by default, but ontological, it’s a recognition that life, order, beauty and even moral awareness are not reducible to individual emotion, social consensus, or evolutionary utility. That sense is real and when unacknowledged, it does not disappear, it seeks expression elsewhere and there are many ‘World Builders’ seeking to profit off of that redirection. 2/
For many atheists and agnostics, the awareness of “something beyond myself” often presents as:

A moral intuition that some things are truly right or wrong; regardless of opinion, outcome, or cultural setting.

An experience of reverence/awe (in nature, music, love, or tragedy) that feels like a confrontation with something greater, not just psychological.

A sense of vocation or purpose; not as self-invention, but as something one must answer to.

A recognition that truth exists, even when inconvenient and that there is value in pursuing it even when it offers no evolutionary advantage.

These are ontological intuitions; they reflect the structure of being itself. But without metaphysical realism to anchor them, they become vulnerable to co-optation.

🧵
Despite presenting itself as a biblically pure framework, Presuppositionalism is infected with the very Enlightenment and idealist presuppositions it claims to oppose.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) – Transcendental Idealism
Presuppositionalism’s core method (transcendental argument: “X must be true for reasoning to be possible”) is directly derived from Kant. This means the truth of Christianity is argued not from being, but from epistemic necessity, it becomes a “necessary condition of rationality,” not the eternal Logos. Cogito ergo sum operating here. Collapsing metaphysics into epistemology with epistemology replacing ontology. 2/
With this collapse you then have have apologetic isolationism. Presuppositionalism does not invite a non-believer to discover reality, it assumes the non-believer cannot reason at all. This, in practise, precipitates collapse of Natural Law and Common Sense. By claiming that unbelievers cannot truly know anything without the Christian God, Presuppositionalism nullifies Natural Law, conscience and moral common sense.
It cuts off the possibility of shared moral ground; despite Romans 2:14 affirming that the law is “written on the heart.” Tactics of fragmentation, divide and conquer. All common-ground civic discourse and shared metaphysical order are lost. This isolates Christians in epistemic enclaves, unable to speak into public reason.

🧵Containment

Listening to the following podcast I note the discussion on Husserl and Heidegger omits any acknowledgement of the metaphysical foundations both thinkers were operating from.
youtu.be/Nk8cCM0rB9w
Millerman (in discussion with Macintyre) names the mathematical and geometric rationalism (Descartes, Kant, etc) - Yes - he accurately observes the mechanistic reductionism of casting a “mathematical net over the world.” But he fails to trace it back to Hermetic mentalism, the Rosicrucian strategy of symbolic unification and the Neoplatonic redefinition of truth as mental projection or divine inner ascent. Instead of forensic metaphysical inquiry, he offers surface-level philosophical genealogy (extremely well done I might add!) but only accepting Husserl and Heidegger at face value which is lethal in operational terms because it leads to the consuming of greater toxins to ‘address’ the existing pathologies. 2/
Millerman presents Phenomenology as a corrective. This is the false dialectic. He treats Husserl’s ‘Intentionality’ and Heidegger’s ‘Being-in-the-world’ as if they are recoveries of metaphysical order. But they are not. They are deeper spiral containment moves. Husserl replaces realism with transcendental subjectivity. Heidegger rebrands participation as existential ‘thrownness’ (Geworfenheit) and poetic attunement i.e., symbolic projection as Being and the same ‘flungness’ that writings of Marx contain in the gnostic railing against existence as given.

🧵The Shared Core Before the Fracture

The Shared Core Before the Fracture

Before the late Scholastic decline, both Catholic and early Protestant traditions (under shared metaphysical realism) affirmed the following:

Truth as participation in divine order (not construction)
Human reason as subordinate but real, capable of knowing being
Moral law as natural, universal and binding
The soul as a real, immaterial substance, capable of formation
Community and worship as participatory not merely symbolic

This shared core was preserved in Aquinas and in a recontextualized form, in Thomas Reid and James Wilson. The metaphysical ‘plumbline’ was intact. 2/ Out with the Bathwater & the Baby

The Reformation rightly rejected Institutional corruption, legalistic penance devoid of metanoia and clerical authoritarianism masking the loss of theological substance. But it also accidentally (?) severed the sacramental metaphysics of participation, the cosmic hierarchy that links nature, grace and law. Crucially, it rejected the epistemic realism embedded in the Scholastic synthesis (especially via Calvin’s later interpreters and the influence of nominalist thought). What emerged was often a flattened theology with strong ethics but a weak ontology, which opened the door to rationalism, subjectivism and eventually, modern ideological capture.

I’m not seeking theological debate here, just tracing metaphysical rupture, for the purposes of tracking the defence against deception being removed.

🧵Kant;
Empire Builders & a Blueprint for Controlling Minds at Scale

Imagine you’re trying to govern a large, diverse, restless population, not just with soldiers and laws, but crucially, with their consent. You don’t want rebellion, endless policing, or constant uprisings. You want people to believe that cooperating with your system is the right, moral and rational thing to do. You want people to internalize your system as their own freedom, to police themselves. Now imagine you could quietly rewrite how people think about reality itself, without them realizing it. 2/
Instead of people believing that there’s a real world out there; a world of fixed laws, natural rights, and truths that exist whether governments approve or not, you teach them something subtly different. You teach them what they know and experience is shaped entirely by their own minds. That they cannot directly know reality itself, but only what their minds “construct” inside their heads according to shared rules. You teach them that freedom doesn’t mean living by a higher law beyond human control, but following rules that your mind would “rationally” create for itself.

🧵Images & Text ©️CJ 2/

🧵All text and images ©️CJ

https://twitter.com/thepalmerworm/status/1911258253444424189

2/

🧵The Court Without Nature (©️CJ)
A forensic fable on the erasure of justice and the construction of procedural law without truth:

‘The Disbanding of the Bench’

Once, there were judges who did not make law but saw it. They looked into the nature of things and ruled according to what was. But then a man arrived who said,

“You are no longer interpreters of being ;you are managers of peace.”

He dismantled their bench, took away their books, and gave them ledgers.

“You shall still wear robes,” he said, “but you will no longer speak of justice. You will speak of duty.” 2/ The New Oath

A new generation was sworn in. They no longer studied the nature of man. They learned codes, tables, classifications. They were told:

“Law is what is commanded. Morality is what is enforced. Right is what prevents conflict.”

They memorized procedures. They practiced neutrality. They were told this was freedom and that freedom meant never judging what is good, only what is permitted.

🧵Why Classical Education Is Not Enough:
Jefferson’s Vision, Containment & the
Forgotten Foundation of Constitutional Liberty ©️

The American Founders, especially Thomas Jefferson, understood that public education was not a luxury, nor a neutral civic service. It was the metaphysical infrastructure of a free Republic. It was designed to form the kind of person capable of self-government: morally anchored, intellectually disciplined, and able to perceive truth as something real, knowable, and binding. Jefferson called for the cultivation of “enlightened citizens” not to celebrate vague liberty or license, but to prepare individuals to discern, uphold and defend the moral and constitutional order of a principled, self-governing society.

Liberty was not a feeling. It was a responsibility and education was the instrument of forming the soul capable of carrying that responsibility. 2/
The American Founders, especially Thomas Jefferson, understood that public education was not a luxury, nor a neutral civic service. It was the metaphysical infrastructure of a free Republic. It was designed to form the kind of person capable of self-government: morally anchored, intellectually disciplined, and able to perceive truth as something real, knowable, and binding. Jefferson called for the cultivation of “enlightened citizens” not to celebrate vague liberty or license, but to prepare individuals to discern, uphold and defend the moral and constitutional order of a principled, self-governing society.

Liberty was not a feeling. It was a responsibility and education was the instrument of forming the soul capable of carrying that responsibility.

🧵What Academia Refused to Teach:
A Confession and a Call (text & image©️)

To our professors of law, civics, history and political philosophy:

You have taught many things. You have lectured on Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Rawls. You have assigned The Federalist Papers, taught Aristotle, debated Kant. You have published, peer-reviewed and promoted “civic literacy.”

And yet you have never taught the People this:

That there are two entirely incompatible foundations of law;
one grounded in obligation enforced by sovereign will,
the other grounded in being discerned by sovereign reason. 2/
That Pufendorf and Blackstone gave us law as a structure of control, while Reid and Wilson gave us law as participation in truth.

You did not teach the people that these foundations are not merely theoretical but operational. That one leads to administrative simulation; the other to popular sovereignty grounded in Natural Law. That one creates compliant subjects; the other forms self-governing citizens.

🧵The Sound of Logos:
Musical Counterpoint as Metaphysical Contemplation

Well this evening’s research had me dipping back into ‘The Vipers Of Venice’ (Farrell) regarding Descartes & Leibniz. While there I spent far longer in the sections on musical counterpoint than I really had time for and it reminded me just how much I miss conducting and directing ensembles and also how the practise of music as anything other than self expression is anathema to most - even (and this was alien to my experience) in Church music. I grew up singing liturgical settings of Renaissance & Baroque composers; Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria, Bach etc. As a music student I learned to write in their style, according to the laws of counterpoint. The music teachers/lecturers would occasionally reference vague notions of ‘Harmony Of The Spheres’ or music composed ‘To The Glory Of God’, but not one single teacher ever taught the precise correspondence between the formal musical structure; its laws of motion and the metaphysics being mapped in sound. We were taught the compositional laws as ‘just historical rules’ with no reference at all to their profound meaning. This was the entire telos of that music disregarded! So here’s a brief outline of why that lost understanding is so important: 2/
In the modern mind, music is nearly always equated with expression; a personal, emotional outpouring, a form of self-communication. This assumption is so deeply ingrained that few pause to ask whether music might once have served a radically different purpose. And yet, in the world of sacred polyphony and early counterpoint, music was not about the self at all. It was not self-referential, not emotive in the modern sense and not a vehicle for personality. Instead, it was a structured, formalized, deeply reverent act; a sonic reflection of the created order.

🧵💡
A people cannot rule themselves unless they first understand reality. Without formation in truth, every attempt at self-governance will collapse into the very system it seeks to replace:
‘Once, in a valley surrounded by great mountains, there stood a village called Hollowstead. The people of Hollowstead lived as they always had; planting, harvesting, trading, and speaking in words they had inherited without ever questioning their meaning. They did not wonder why their customs were as they were, nor did they ask who had first shaped their laws. Life simply was, and that was enough.’ 2/‘One day, a traveler arrived, a man who had studied the ways of the ancients. He had spent years searching for a people who still knew the old ways of self-rule, those who had not forgotten how to govern themselves by truth rather than whim. Seeing the village’s disorder; their dependence on rulers who neither understood nor cared for them; he resolved to teach them self-governance. He stood in the village square and spoke:
“You are not ruled by necessity, nor by fate. Your laws should not be dictated by distant lords. You can rule yourselves, if only you remember how.”

🧵James Wilson🔥🫡🇺🇸🔥
Thank you Roberta Bayer - pleased to have found your work!Roberta sets out here what I have been repeatedly sharing on this platform for over a year - and she’s a proper faculty scholar, a real academic - so there!😜 2/ The function of anti-realist philosophy in the academy was purposed for epistemic containment, serving Mercantile & Statist power consolidation which needed to ensure the eradication, thereafter, prevention of The People attaining or even desiring Self Governance. The fact that to this day (and with increasing zeal) we have academics and ‘thought leaders’ defending and lauding the philosophies predicated on skepticism (& its many derivations) which actively undermine and subvert popular sovereignty and self governance is not a mere intellectual curio or ideological difference of ‘opinion’. It is the destruction of the fabric of society in the American Constitutional Republic. It is tactical warfare of the deepest kind - as Founder and Framer; Supreme Court Justice James Wilson well understood. I have repeatedly presented this analysis and I can only hope that like a message in a bottle, the analysis I’ve posted on here through the past year and its implications and consequences I’ve dedicated my Fable Series to illustrating do, by some miracle, make it onto the desk of someone with the agency at National Level to assist with counter measures for Education at large and at scale.

🧵I won’t be winning friends with this thread but here goes:

Grassroots community-driven education movements, even when opting out of mainstream public schools, are already primed to reproduce the very ideological subversion they are trying to escape. Why? Because in the main (yes I’m generalizing) the parents, educators, and local leaders behind these efforts have already been intellectually formed by the same Neoplatonic and Nominalist paradigms that corrupted public education in the first place, irrespective of whether they are Faith affiliated or not.

They do not recognize the nature of epistemic war.

They cannot perceive how their own worldview remains captive to the enemy’s metaphysical assumptions.

They believe they are “choosing liberty” when in reality, they are re-enacting the same ideological capture in a different framework.

Even when they “opt out,” they remain prisoners of the very system they are resisting; because they are still using its methods, its content, and its assumptions about reality. 2/ WHY LOCALIZED “ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION”
WILL REMAIN TRAPPED IN ELITE CAPTURE

Parents & Local Leaders Have Already Been Formed
by the Enemy’s Intellectual System:

The majority of parents and grassroots education leaders do not recognize the epistemic war they are inside of. Even when rejecting “wokeness” and “progressivism,” they still fundamentally accept the deeper structures of Nominalism, Constructivism, and Neoplatonic mysticism that inform modern education. They assume that “Classical Education” or “Christian Homeschooling” is an escape, when they too, have in varying degrees, been built upon the same foundational errors that led to modern ideological corruption. Even “conservative” and “traditional” education movements will continue producing epistemically compromised citizens who may be able to uphold “tradition/heritage” yet are unable to sustain self-governance.

Currently there is much within the cant of both Tradition & Heritage which is being subtly and deceptively co-opted to Technocratic State Power consolidation by stealth. This is working fast to corral the demoralized population, desperate for anti woke and anti communist solutions in addition to fellowship with others desiring a renewal of hope & optimism in the face of so much hostility and destruction. Yes, I’ve been listening carefully to the ARC sessions posted online so far. It’s quite something listening to words that I so long to hear, then all of a sudden a quick “wait…..what…??!!” as the speaker/interviewee drops a call to action which utterly negates self governance and popular sovereignty under natural law.

🧵
Neoplatonic Corruption of Platonism & Nominalist Subversion of the Academy - their relationship🤓

Just as Neoplatonism corrupted classical Platonism by replacing objective reality with mystical abstraction, Nominalism subverted the Academy by severing knowledge from metaphysical realism, reducing truth to linguistic and conceptual constructs.

The two processes are 💡structurally identical; both operate by transforming🐍 knowledge from something discovered💡 into something created🪄, thereby placing it under the control of elite interpreters🐍 rather than objective reality🔥. 2/ FROM OBJECTIVE FORMS TO ELITIST MYSTICISM

Classical Platonism; Realism & the Fixed Order of Forms:

Plato asserted that universals (Forms) exist objectively; justice, beauty, and truth are real and discoverable, not human inventions. The philosopher’s role was to align human understanding with these pre-existing realities, using dialectic and reason to reach deeper insights into the nature of being.

The Neoplatonic Corruption; Replacing Objective Forms with Mystical Abstraction🪄

Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Proclus, Iamblichus) altered Plato’s system, making knowledge a process of mystical ascent🪄 rather than rational discovery💡.

Instead of the Forms being objective realities accessible through reason, Neoplatonism taught that knowledge was a layered, esoteric process requiring secret initiation, mediation by enlightened masters, and a transcendent ascent to “higher realities.”

Neoplatonism replaced metaphysical realism with an interpretive system, placing knowledge under the control of elite mediators rather than objective reality.

This shifted philosophy from an epistemology of discovery🔥 to an epistemology of controlled access🐍, where only the initiated🐍 could interpret reality. Only they had the ‘enlightened consciousness’. As with current Critical Consciousness “Scholars”, New Thought™️Leaders, Game B Architects, Technocrats & Integralist Synthesizers of every Brand.

🧵Stoney bringing the 🔥 here - have you spotted how/why?

Let’s break it down:

Language matters, and when the wrong language is used; even if it sounds “right” it becomes a Trojan Horse for subversion. If the wrong foundation is accepted, everything built on it will lead back to centralized control, rather than individual liberty and self-governance under Natural Law. 2/ The Problem with “Personal Liberties” vs.
“Individual Liberties Recognized in the Constitution”

At first glance, the shift in The Washington Post’s editorial stance may seem like a victory. After all, “personal liberties” and “free markets” sound like concepts aligned with traditional American values. But there’s a critical flaw in the phrasing; one that allows for ideological capture and subversion down the line.

🚩Why Is “Personal Liberties” a Red Flag?

🧵
Natural Law does not assess actions based on social trends, ideological narratives, or subjective preferences but on whether they align with objective reality, the intrinsic nature of human beings, and the moral order discernible through reason.

Natural Law is not arbitrary moralism; it is a system that derives moral principles from the intrinsic nature and purpose of things. In 2025, the question of homosexuality must be examined within this objective framework, not through emotional appeals, cultural pressures, or nominalist social constructs. 2/ Natural Law’s Framework for Human Sexuality:

This imo is much bigger than just homosexuality - I’d say the discussion is about sexuality full stop and one which someone like me - going to university in the “shaggathon early 1990s” where aversion to promiscuity was ‘wierd’ & ‘prudish’ & an option of *not* engaging in that was socially speaking, not even on the table - well….it’s a discussion my generation raised outside of limiting religious principles didn’t even know how to have, that it was even possible. You probably find that strange. That was the culture though and it’s only ever gone full steam ahead since then. So - away from subjective experience and back to Natural Law:

Natural Law evaluates human actions based on whether they fulfill the intrinsic telos (purpose) of human nature and whether they align with the rational order of reality.

🧵The City of Veritas and the Three Truths ©️CJ

A long time ago, in a land called Aletheia, there was a city named Veritas. It was a city unlike any other, built on a foundation that made it strong, free, and wise. This foundation was called the Word, and it was given to the people so that they would always know truth. 2/
The people of Veritas lived by three guiding truths:

The Word Alone (Sola Scriptura):
The truth came from the Word, not from rulers, priests, or scholars; it was accessible to all.

Faith Alone (Sola Fide):
A person’s relationship with God was personal and did not require approval from religious authorities.

Grace Alone (Sola Gratia): Salvation came from God’s mercy, not from human effort or government control.

🧵Understanding the Motivation Behind Epistemic Subversives: Why They Mislead & What They Gain

Why would public figures, especially those who appear to champion Western Civilization, intellectual freedom, and sovereignty, engage in epistemic misdirection?

The public often resists the idea that their intellectual heroes could be subversives unless they understand why these figures would deliberately distort truth. Many people assume that ideological errors are just mistakes, not intentional misdirection. To effectively counter epistemic subversion, we must clearly articulate the motives behind it. 2/
A public intellectual engaging in epistemic misdirection does not do so randomly. There are identifiable incentives and motivations that drive this behavior.

Core Motivations:

🐍Strategic Containment:
Preventing the Public from Gaining True Intellectual Sovereignty

🐍Personal or Organizational Gain:
Influence, Wealth, or Institutional Legitimacy

🐍Ideological Alignment:
Advancing a Controlled Narrative While Pretending
to Oppose It