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Focusing, as usual, on the short term, many commentators on the Millennium concentrate their attention on the likely systemic effects of the Millennium computer bug on global society and prosperity. This is something of an evasion of the deeper issues at stake – issues arising from the unconscious cultural expectations and undercurrents surrounding the passing of this point in calendrical time.
The power of belief
The Millennium was one thousand years ago. That is, if we take 'The Millennium' to mean literally 'one thousand years after the birth of Jesus'. There were indeed major disturbances across Europe in the few years before the year 1000. Preachers ran riot with people's fears and hopes. People expected The Last Days and The Judgement, knowing that they had long omitted to live in pristine obedience to the Law of God and to spiritual purity, as their religion had taught them they should. Much blood had been spilt, and the lilies in the field had not been remembered. A lot of praying went on, hand in hand with duplicity. Absolution of sin fetched escalating prices. Fear of consignment to Hell acted as a major social force, and localised pockets of panic broke out.
The End of the World was nigh and the Last Judgement was on the threshold. In certain areas, things got quite hair-raising. This panic was confined to Europe, owing to its unique calendrical system – other cultures established their dates differently, often in terms of cycles, dynasties or reigns. The Judaic, Islamic and Christian dating systems all started from a point in time and progressed therefrom, except that they had each started at a different starting point.
However, for Europeans the year 1000 Anno Domini indeed was something of a turning-point inasmuch as the then-immature, 'third world', peripheral European culture was then on the edge of lift-off, on its way to becoming a notably distinct and creative civilisation of its own right. When the year 1000 passed by and the promised Last Days did not come, Europeans subconsciously felt they had been pardoned or blessed. Their way of life had been validated and legitimised, even favoured by the Almighty. Or at least they felt they might be able to get away with a lot.
Within a century after year 1000, great churches and universities were being founded, trade fairs were growing, kingdoms were being expanded and overseas Crusades were being mustered to reclaim the Holy Land from 'the infidel'. The Apocalypse hadn't happened. The Kingdom of God had not come – so it was now time to establish the Kingdom of Man, or at least, certain men. This kingdom was the nascent medieval order which nobles, clerics and other beneficiaries regarded as a breakthrough. Europeans felt divinely licensed to treat the Earth as a playground for adventuresome entrepreneurs and conquerors.
For most, toil and never-ending gruel-with-ale continued as before. But for some – such as the bold Normans, who invaded England and parts of Italy and infiltrated many lands – there was a growing sense of sanction to achieve wealth and power by any means. It was this sense of escape from Judgement which gave European culture a feeling of exemption from natural law. This was the psychological basis on which the Renaissance was built 500 years later, on top of which the Industrial Revolution was built 300 years after that.
Millennialism
Nowadays the date 1000 is given little attention in the history books, apart from wryly condescending comments on the superstitions of uneducated early-medieval people and the ravings of eccentric monks. Yet it did represent a major psychological turning of the tide for the fledgling Europeans. Millennialism, as a complex belief-system, carried on well into the Middle Ages, to embed itself in the European psyche and then to manifest in multifarious forms over the coming centuries. The Millennial cosmology has carried on, in ripples, to this day. Here it comes again, gaggled this time around the year 2000. A new book of Nostradamus' largely-incomprehensible predictions is published every two years – Nostradamus is a perennial good seller – though he gets no royalties!
However, the idea of Millennium is not necessarily to be taken literally. In ancient thinking, 'one thousand years' means 'a very long time'. Only in the last 500 years, with our clocks, statistics and machines, have we become so quantitatively precise in our numeracy that 1,000 years literally means exactly 1,000 years.
Additionally, the popular idea of Millennium is distorted: the sequence of events described in the Book of Revelations describes a specific set of conditions which would follow 'the Last Days'. The Last Days were to involve the dreadful coming and the eventual defeat of an Anti-Christ – the ultimate in worldly badness and domination. This was to be followed by the parousia or the Second Coming of the Christ – the ultimate good guy who would save us all from ourselves as well as the Anti-Christ. The Millennium was to start after the Second Coming. It was to be a period of bliss, peace and wonder, lasting a thousand years and preceding the final Reckoning and the dissolution of the world. This is the belief of Millennialism.
Somehow, we have got this Millennium business all wrong. Since, as far as we know, the Second Coming hasn't yet happened, the Millennium hasn't even started. Therefore it is mistaken to observe its ending! Additionally, there is no inherently sound linkage between Year 2000 and 'The Millennium'. Even if we mistakenly count 'The Millennium' to signify a thousand years after the birth of the historical Christ, that event happened ten centuries ago! The connection between Year 2000 and 'The Millennium' is a misconception dreamed up by evangelists, populists and sloppy thinkers long ago.
The most rife period of millennial cult activity in Europe was from the 1100s to the 1500s, having no connection to calendrical dates at all. Millennial mythology, adopted by Christians from much earlier origins, is derived from the Iraqi doctrine of Manichaeism. Manichaeism was an upgrade of ancient Persian beliefs which saw life as a battle between the forces of Light and Darkness, leading to an inevitable conflagration – an idea preached by John the Baptist and recycled in the Book of Revelations. It was adopted by the later ecclesiastical compilers of Christianity, who were under pressure from Emperor Constantine to come up with a consistent creed – or to be relegated to an already-full graveyard of marginalised minority sects. The bishops, themselves a variegated and dissonant bunch, co-opted various ancient Middle Eastern strands and traditions to give Christianity universality, adding and subtracting various bits, in the centuries following Jesus' radiant yet blighted life. Thus the religion-to-be of the Europeans was constructed.
Calendrical conundra
If indeed the date of the birth of Jesus the Nazarene does have a bearing on current global affairs, and if indeed we're talking about millennia or two millennia, then the years 1994 or 1995 are likely to be far more important than the year 2000. This might sound odd until one appreciates that, according to the best current thinking amongst scholars, Jesus was born around the years -5 or -6 (BC) – not in the year +1 (1 AD), as our calendrical system would have us believe. The initial setting of the Year One was probably a mistake – or a cover-up to lose a few years of Jesus' life-story. Our current dating system was initially checked by Sextus Julius Africanus in the +200s and later by a Ukrainian monk in Rome in +533, Dionysius Exiguus, who was commissioned to check back through history year-by-year, comparing Roman and Jewish records, to fix the beginning of the era.
Both researchers found that the four years Octavian had ruled Rome alone (-31 to -27), before he officially became Emperor Augustus, had been omitted from the Christian year-count. This error skewed the chronology of the time of Jesus. As a result, the historical reckoning and dating system was inaccurate. Since the dating system was already widely used and had been authoritatively validated as an article of faith by successive papal Vicars of Christ in Rome, and since it was agreed to be ecclesiastically impolitic to alter things at this stage, it was decided by Exiguus' employers to be easier to stay with an incorrect system than to change everything around. The public might fear the consequences of a perceived loss of time or of ecclesiastical authority.
In a time when the Church needed to claim moral authority and absolute knowledge, admission of an error in dating would be politically unthinkable. There could be a risk of setting in motion further investigations which might unveil other uncomfortable issues – such as the missing twenty-six or so Gospels omitted from the Bible, plus other major matters. These had been edited out while the Bible was being compiled from the disparate records left by earlier Christians, Essenes and Gnostics. Many faiths prior to that time constituted a jumble of teachings which the bishops now sought to simplify, to render them more uniform and controllable. This was done mainly at the Council of Nicaea of +325, called by Roman emperor Constantine (Constantinus).
Constantine recognised the centralising value of a written doctrinal ideology in a time of moral relativism and arbitrariness not unlike that of today. He sought to found a state religion to bolster the new civilisation he was seeking to create – Byzantium, successor to Greece and Rome. He saw himself, not Jesus, as the Messiah and the embodiment of the Second Coming, pulling together an all-embracing state religion synthesised out of cults including Mithraism, Sol Invictus, Manichaeism, Christianity and Judaism. Eventually he succeeded with the help of the Christian bishops, whom he coopted to his cause with funds, advantages and favours.
Even today, the modern public believes that Jesus was born in Year One. Few research the matter, even though only a little logic is called for. As we know from biblical lore, Herod had vowed to find and capture and kill the new-born boy-king when alerted by the Wise Men from the East. Yet Herod died in -4. "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king...", stated the Gospel of Matthew. Additionally, Cyrenius (Quirinius), governor of Syria during the census which caused Joseph and Mary to journey to Bethlehem, ruled Syria from -10 to -7. Thus, a reasoned estimate fixes Jesus' birth around -8 to -4. The Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus threefold conjunction in Pisces in -7 qualifies as a front-runner to be the Star of Bethlehem (Uranus was known to the ancients). Whatever the date of Jesus' birth – somewhere between -8 and -4 – it is certainly not +1 (there wasn't a Year 0). Thus the true Millennium (or bi-Millennium) is likely to have been around 1993-95! We have already passed it! Were you there?
Historic undercurrents
All this does not invalidate the enormous psychological impact on the world's population of the coming of the calendrical year 2000. Interestingly, millennial expectancy lurking suppressed in the collective unconscious is likely to be tweaked and exacerbated by likely normality-shaking systemic breakdowns brought on by the Millennium computer bug – about which there is now much nail-biting. Our dating system, now politely internationalised as the Common Era, leads us to a major calendrical turn of a millennium which has no inherent cosmic or natural chronological basis (despite efforts by many to find one), yet it does indeed have a raw numerical basis into which enormous significance is naturally invested.
This is special. Thought-provoking! What adds to its psychological charge is the old Christian notion that the coming of the Kingdom of God accompanies the Millennium. This is a legend of which the whole population is subconsciously aware, thanks to the influence of evangelical preachers, Nostradamus and a steady stream of millennialists. However, this underlying investment of meaning in a Christian religious belief derives from but a loose and unfounded association of ideas. The whole edifice carries echoes of the well drummed-in notion of 'Repent, for the End is Nigh'. This has been heard for centuries. This glowering religious threat has stirred so many God-fearing into dread, awe and unquestioning faith. It is fascinating how widespread this notion still is, even in these scientistically secular days – the notion, like Christmas, has even been adopted by non-Christian Orientals. Only affluence staves off the immanency of fear hovering round the emblem of the Millennium.
Whether or not the Judgement Day is attached to the millennial shift of year 2000, its very arrival causes us to re-examine our personal lives and the very nature and meaning of life, history and civilisation. It invokes a vision of a grand sweep of time, a quest for meaning in the course of history. The year 2000 gives rise to anxious anticipation. Not without foundation, since its coming coincides with an enormously vexatious and potent period of history in which change is racing ominously fast and intense. Issues for re-examination and alteration increasingly overwhelm effective solutions, in all niches of the world stage, affecting all actors hereon.
Amidst these confusing, urgent times, nothing less than miracles are called for – overriding accustomed expectation – in order to render the world into a state of wholehearted confidence in the future. A smooth, gradual and rational world transition is unlikely because too much needs to change too quickly. Since miracles are a paranormal occurrence – that is, they break the rules – the collective psyche seeks imagery suggesting miracles – or showdowns such as the Apocalypse. Unconsciously, it seeks the Big One. The total situation draws in every individual, every species, every atom.
There are dilemmas in every area of life – evasion does not make them disappear. The coming of the calendrical Millennium prompts every individual to think carefully about all that has happened in the last ten centuries since the year 1000. The 20th century, the first known global century, is ending. For many, this could be a great relief.
What next?
Looking towards the future, it is impossible to predict exactly what might befall during the coming hundred years – yet it is possible to gain an overall impression of likely scenarios, based on an historical sense of probabilities and on considered speculation. Indeed this is necessary. Our historical habit is to stumble backwards into the future. We feel that we as individuals make little difference, as if history and the future just happen at us. Paradoxically, religious, Marxist or visionary grand-plans which have guided people forward in the past have now rendered themselves invalid. There are no known, reliable roadmaps to show pathways into the future – even though many still believe otherwise.
We're going to have to drive by the seat of our pants. We'll need to consult back not to formulated knowledge or ideology but to our hearts, commonsense and basic human qualities. We'll need to consider the deep issues at stake and make deep choices about them. Otherwise, it looks like disaster – of some kind or another.
This threat of disaster is actually a helper: it activates inventive survival instincts. The human race needs to change course – this much is visible to thoughtful people, though how to bring it about is not so easy to see. We witness atrocities, abuses, scandals and horrors in the news, and we encounter many similar issues in the details of our personal lives. "Someone ought to do something about it!". Perhaps the next government might make a difference. Perhaps sufficient people will get steamed up to justify my own joining in. Perhaps an aid organisation or an influential person or pressure-group might crack it. In the 1980s and early 1990s we have tended to lapse into an insidious form of resignation.
In the last decades of the 20th century the world situation has grown complex and disquieting. A cynical conservatism has thrived in a situation where radical solutions are called for. In recent decades a minority of people have dedicated immense time and energy to world change and transformation, to campaigning, education and good works, yet it seems only marginal differences have resulted. There's been an enormously indefinable inertia at work, a consensus of busy inactivity. "Sorry, I haven't the time...".
If we accept the proposition that the current direction of mainstream civilisation is auto-destructive unless we change it, then it follows that we ourselves are part of this auto-destruction. Simply buying food at the supermarket reinforces the current mass-suicidal system. Yet opting out is difficult, and working to change the system from within comes a-cropper when the system itself and even our own colleagues and neighbours resist change. The temptation is to drop one's principles and isolate oneself in one's own little life. In the end, money decides.
Questioning the state of the world keeps us awake at nights – a sure recipe for burn-out. So the tendency is to settle into one's niche, do one's little best and forget about the big questions. However, we keep returning, in moments of honesty, to a basic truth: the way things look, humanity is likely, during the coming century, to suffer greatly – unless things change. Humanity could even become extinct – together with many other species. Some survivors might remain – but do you want to be one of the 'lucky' ones left behind to live with the consequences?
Sooner or later, life as we know it (according to information we now have), might no longer be able to continue. Delaying and evasion tactics have been successful in recent decades, yet world problems have not gone away. Gaia is crying for attention, and everyone's gone to the movies.
Various identifiable changes need to take place within coming decades. Not just legislation or tinkerings with interest-rate settings: something fundamental. Many great and wonderful things have been created in our civilisation – yet 'progress' as we know it is in itself destructive, relentless, directionless. Who chooses? Shall we institute corrective world changes by choice – an enormous historic step, itself a redemptive factor – or shall we have changes foisted on us by circumstances, in dire states of emergency? The latter is our customary pattern. The jury is out, and the future is dauntingly in the balance.
Here we all are
Here we stand, at the turn of a Millennium, looking at the coming century. Many wish that time would leave us alone and let us get on with our own lives. While there are great glimmers of hope, the Old Order still remains, perpetually dressing itself in new clothing.
Nowadays in new age circles the terms 'world transformation' and 'planetary healing' are bandied around, intermixed with varieties and undertones of millennialism and apocalyptic catastrophism. Few have thought how world change and the awakening of humanity might actually come to pass, in mundane detail. Some invoke geological, climatic or astronomical catastrophe, massive social reorientation, divine dispensation, extraterrestrial intervention or other global dramas, without fully looking at how such phenomena might realistically affect us all. If our incomes, comforts and children are hit by such a change, how will we feel?
Rain falls on saints and sinners alike, and it is unlikely that simple this-or-that solutions will prevail. The Bad Guys won't wake up one morning, suddenly inspired to change their ways, and the Good Guys might not be fired up with clarity and instant answers. There might be no descent of angelic hosts or star-people, and there could indeed be an almighty show-down. The potential details of the situation and the specific events which could arise become more elusive the closer you look at them. Alternatively, miracles can happen very quickly.
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