by Palden Jenkins
Part Two
An extract from an early draft of the book Healing the Hurts of Nations
Click here for Part One
|
|
Apocalypse!
by Palden Jenkins |
Voluntary awakening not only has a capacity to stop wars and removes ills. The very brain-waves, the emanations pumped out by humans change. This affects not only their own personal behaviour and relations. It can affect climate, vegetation, microbes, animals, geological stresses, ocean currents and, of course, other humans. All life exists within a context of vibrational energy-fields in which humanity and our technologies have become a major active factor. Planet Earth, as a physical resonator, vibrates at around 8 Hertz (cycles per second), and thus any other B resonance can harmonise and augment or conflict and confuse such a resonance-frequency. It is arguable, for example, that the conflict between high-tension electricity cables (at 60 or 50 Hertz) and the Earth frequency, which causes demonstrable cancer and other psychophysical effects, could be remedied by adjusting the frequency of electrical circuits to a multiple of eight – perhaps 64 Hertz. Similarly, any sensitive person tends to distance themselves from people with violent or frustrated feelings, because a cross-resonating dissonance will occur.
Voluntary personal apocalypse (revelation) has been experienced by millions of individuals who have chosen to face up to central truths in their own lives. However, numbers are still relatively small, and such people do not yet constitute an integrated movement. Personal apocalypses indeed add up to create a collective apocalypse-phenomenon, if sufficient people experience it privately and affirm it publicly. However, it is possible and necessary for humanity to make such a shift collectively – the fall of the Iron Curtain was one kind of limited collective apocalypse. Apocalypse does involve crisis, yet this is a crisis only for what is dying or dissolving, not necessarily for what is being born. From the viewpoint of what is being born, the breakdown of current normality signifies the end of its own crisis – it represents a rebirth. Apocalypse could, for many, dawn as a great relief!
Apocalypse implies an enormous expanded moment, when the cards are laid on the table. It's an awe-inspiring, circuit-blowing moment of truth. Time expands such that much is immediately seen and understood. "I saw all of my life flash before my eyes...". Zen Buddhists call it satori: a sudden seeing of the infinite dimensions and hidden connections which constitute reality. This brings an instantaneous new beginning – circumstances might or might not change with it, but our way of viewing and dealing with those circumstances change radically. Old realities suddenly evaporate. Labour pains give way to release and alleviation, to the birth of new life. A vast new vista presents itself, interwoven into the immediacy of the situation as it stands. New issues and challenges emerge – an utterly new agenda and set of priorities.
Apocalypse isn't the waving of a global magic wand – people who won't make an effort to save themselves cannot be saved by someone else, even God. Many of our problems contain their own inherent solutions or opportunities, within the very fabric of the situation, yet accessing these solutions involves an act of will. Such an act of will is rooted in a re-seeing, a detached or overriding perspective which motivates a different kind of activity from that which causes the problem It is not necessary even to know exactly what to do: at first, it is necessary solely to see what needs to be done, even if the means are as yet invisible. This seeing isn't a normal mental process akin to normal political processes: such seeing arises from the short-circuiting influence of predicament and a sense of urgency.
If driving a car and instantly faced with a potential accident, there isn't time to think things through: it is necessary to take evasive action as best possible, by gut instinct and a measure of inspired luck. This process is as subliminal as it is conscious, yet the solutions it creates are permanent and long-term. From then on, everything is very different, very suddenly. It's a change of awareness, a whole new set of tenets, norms and rules to work with. Every single thing is reconfigured in relation to everything else. Time itself feels different, and life feels different. This state can be accompanied by great happiness, meaning and peace – though some might react otherwise.
This situation presents a second major choice: what to do with it? Two knife-edge choices are available: to go bravely forward into unknown territory, knowing it is the only remaining alternative, or to fearfully recoil in shock or panic, grasping at knowns to hang on to. Which choice we make depends on our willingness or unwillingness to live in wide-open space, in an expanse without clear coordinates, without maps, without places to hide. This is challenging: we humans are, by long training, spiritually agoraphobic. We do like our security! However, what we define as security is nowadays false: we turned away from true security long ago in history – a soundly sustainable, safe, peaceful world where we live contentedly with what we have. So such stripping away of security could bring a rediscovery of original natural security, mutually-assured.
In an acute situation like this, there is not only a vastness of open space, but there is also no choice – adverse reaction to this nakedness and vulnerability is but a loser's path. There's no alternative – just as, for older, conventional Soviet-bloc citizens of the late-1980s, the old order was gone, unrestorable, and they were overwhelmed by a new tide beyond their comprehension. In a global apocalypse, many people will step forward, and others will step back, each according to the predominant tendency within them. This could cause enormous challenges – a potential showdown. Or, alternatively, a simple acceptance, after a brief struggle, that the game is up. What will each person choose if faced with a radiance of irreversibly infinite possibility?
Here arise two big questions. They concern Hundredth Monkeys and Divine Grace. Momentous questions, each. The Hundredth Monkey principle[7] implies that if sufficient beings make a certain choice or learn a new reality, all (or most) other beings of their kind will tend to follow along, whether or not they know of the original choice made. If someone has done it before, it makes it easier for others to do it. Pioneering choices and actions made by a small proportion of humanity can make an immediate impression on the morphic field, the noosphere or collective psyche of humanity – the programmed energy-field on which everyone unconsciously draws. In other words, as the theory goes, if sufficient quantities and qualities of people choose to opt in joy and relief to start afresh, then a tide would gather which would cause others to step forward too in a similar manner.
Divine Grace. We're also faced with the possibility that The Management Upstairs, God and its friends, does indeed have measures laid on for dealing with this situation. This is where religionists switch on and rationalists undoubtedly switch off. However, personal predilections don't determine higher realities, even if they might wish to. It might be, for example, that Earth is flooded with unforeseen amethyst-hued compassionate grace-waves – a cascade of light which genuinely makes people feel unexpectedly better about things. It's dreadfully a-rational asserting things like this, yet, from the paradoxical viewpoint of depth-psychology and metaphysics, such an assertion makes utter sense and is entirely possible.
Put another way, all the Universe is at One, and there's a lot going on out there. We are not alone, isolated, helplessly marooned and forgotten on a godforsakenly remote planet, even though we tend to believe such is the case. There are powers which have it in their interests to see us save ourselves. Or, alternatively, consider this option: life has no meaning, history evolves towards nothing in particular, and when we die, nothing happens – we're all alone and doomed to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the situation. From a revelatory viewpoint, this dry materialistic approach gives little nourishment when the chips are down, and most materialists suddenly start praying.
Here comes free will again. If apocalypse should come, what would we do? The Big Choice comes at this very moment, at phase two of apocalypse: the growth-choice or the fear-choice. Put another way: does an experience of fear cause us to move forward or shrink back? Every time a woman gives birth to a child, she is faced with this choice. While a higher power might wish upon us salvation and grace-waves, the decision rests with us. That is, even powerful grace-waves leave us with choice, just as falling into the sea forces a choice between panic and relaxation, sinking or swimming. Divine intervention precipitates an even bigger choice than before.
Here comes the Hundredth Monkey again: if enough people make a growth-choice, opting to stand up and step forward, to share and make use of the moment, then most or all others would tend to arrive at a similar conclusion – or at least at a suspension of doubt. Those who do not make this choice would presumably be outnumbered or overwhelmed, like ardent, outnumbered Soviet communists in the late-1980s. They would have to go along with the new consensus, or lie low. Or they could cause trouble, like some ex-communists in the 1990s who became Russian mafioso! On the other hand, if an overwhelming majority makes a fear-choice, they would still be faced with the problem of contending with a prevailing atmosphere and tide moving the other way. Love is, to many, a frightening thing.
This question depends on the predominant public consensus and overall atmosphere of the time – whether it gives rise to acceptance of a rapidly-changing situation, or whether refusers dig in for a long resistance. The likely reality is not a clear-cut for-or-against question: it is more probable that the majority of humans is quite confused and unclear about what to do – although, when push becomes shove, the majority is probably quite human and decent rather than strikingly positive or negative. However, we are arguing rather theoretically, as if analysing potential election results. What is more likely is that there is a massive shift of awareness out of our brains and into our hearts and guts – it's a basic survival issue, a sudden opening of the curtains.
However, there is a small percentage of humanity so deeply hurt inside that they feel impelled to ruin things for others if others start being happy and moving forward. These would be the refusers or saboteurs, anxious to drag everyone back into the old, 'safe' reality. Get out the guns – we're in for a shoot-out! Too many variables and unknowns are involved to comment valuably on their possible effects. Whatever the situation, such people would need Bly affirmative action from others, to defend against their counter-attacks or to heal such people of their negativity, and they cannot be overlooked – unless God has special angelic storm-troopers lined up for dealing with them. There's another side to this problem too: aggressive resisters against change can have the contrary effect of confirming the majority's wishes for change. A dogged resister, by refusing to cooperate and join with others, can pinpoint key issues for the majority by threatening them with potential loss of a possibility.
Yet they would be faced with a changed majority around them – and declining stocks of bullets. Here we're playing with unknowns. However, we do know that humanity has a tremendous habituated propensity for corruption. It depends how willing humanity is to bury hatchets, drop complications and act in cooperation. The less struggle humanity puts up, the less that disaster needs to take place, and the less effect it has. These principles are readily demonstrated after snowstorms or floods which wipe out everyday routines and services – people start cooperating.
Here, humanity is faced with its own shadow of darkness, since we are habituated to resisting reality, or to allowing resisters to have their way. Faced with a Big Choice, many might lapse into doubt and directionless confusion, or some into localised opposition and spoiling tactics. If such resistance is allowed to grow, then it leads humanity, after some disheartening conflicts, to a further acute choice: to unite against confusion or opposition, or to give power to doubters and detractors who activate fear in others. It's the difference between affirmative citizen action or indifference and complicity.
If humanity accepts and yields to apocalyptic revelation – if it responds easily at a sufficiently early stage – then we're talking about intense transition, not necessarily disaster. If we yield to fear, we're talking about horror and great trepidation, embodied in unprecedented potential catastrophe. We have well enough weaponry, poisons and dangers to make life very unpleasant.
In human affairs, there are always people who unfortunately get scrunched. Change is hard to live with, though it gets easier and more inspiring if accepted. As with nature's storms, there's a ruthlessly indiscriminate aspect to crises, though they also can clear the air, removing dead branches and leaves and quickly creating new facts. However, sacrifices become meaningful only if they genuinely help to end bad patterns.[8] Foresight and proactive changes remove the need for disaster or for excessive or unwilling sacrifice. This is the deciding factor in the buildup to the apocalyptic moment.
In choosing to believe in the possibility that tomorrow could be significantly better than yesterday, we empower ourselves and others to go forward with a certain creative mobilisation and confidence. We're talking about something akin to 'war efforts' of old, in which populations have undergone enormous exertions and privations to save their nations. Except, here, we're talking about billions of people, globally, engaging in dealing an utterly new, yet drastically simplified situation – raw, uncomplicated facts and realities.
This is a mobilisation of every able-bodied person alive, and of all the resources and ingenuity at our disposal. It involves a realignment of the very purpose of life and society, and a rapid dissolution of old conflicts and differences, drowned in the immensity of the global challenge at hand. It demands immense resourcefulness, communication and cooperation, and the opening of new social territory. It rests entirely on a choice, a choice to see and acknowledge that our collective longterm interests override our personal and national immediate interests and that survival outweighs our desire for the next cup of coffee.
Earlier, Divine Grace was mentioned, and the choice-issues which might follow from that were sifted through. However, what if this is a reality-override of enormous proportions? What if an overwhelming grace-wave or frequency-beam were to override our psyches, to instantaneously render us all loving, happy and awe-inspired? This is what many new-agers hope for: a quick big fix. Instead of a historical rebirth-process of the kind outlined above, we might be irradiated with transformation waves which effect the process in one hour. Suddenly humanity is in touch with its inherent Buddha-nature, with the Christ within, with Light. What happens then? If Heaven dawns on Earth, what will it look like?
At first, it will probably look the same as before. As a Japanese Zen saying goes: 'before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water, after enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water'. However, human consciousness will have changed, and we would be likely to see the emanations and radiance within all things – and the shadows and poisons within certain of our creations. This would lead to our re-creating the world in a new way. New abilities and technologies would arise to change the way we carry out our activities. Human relationships would change. Everything would change, possibly quite rapidly. Yet, in another sense, life would be as before, just deeper and more dimensional. The scales would have fallen off our eyes.
Hearts and minds of humanity
However, the steady pattern visible across recent centuries is one of refusal to embrace fundamental change. We have had technological, economic and cultural change, but these have consistently led to an increasing spiritual impoverishment, and they have consisted of approximate extrapolations of the same basic logic of civilisation. Major historic changes we have made do not guarantee human survival – the UN Charter of Human Rights, the invention of the microchip or even the Earth Summit have been laudable, but these constitute significant though not fundamental developments. Our resistance is such that we refuse to change even when we know we need to.
Our window of opportunity for planning an orderly world transition opened in the 1960s. However, in recent decades we have invested ever-increasingly in avoiding 'the Big One' – we bought into the glitz of the free-trade, economic-growth lottery show, and many now quietly regret it. Thus, excepting possible surprises, we are heading for a full-scale whammy of an apocalypse. In our unconscious behaviour as a planetary race, we are asking for it. "Give us the Big One, so that we may learn – since we cannot learn ourselves". It's an obsessive-compulsive suicidal transformation-urge.
The 'Big One' could imply a single crux-moment, or it could imply a period of perhaps decades in which the symptoms of apocalypse unfold though a series of waves of intensity. Whichever, we are talking not of an ordered, planned change of direction for the human race, but rather of a change in the nature of order itself.
However, such a new reality would still need to be integrated: if our perception is changed, this sets us on a new learning-path, learning how to work in the context of that reality. A suddenly-obsolete gun is still there to be dealt with, and while cornflakes might taste less interesting, food still need growing. Even if food is grown in newly-miraculous ways, we will need to learn the practical issues surrounding miracles!
Whatever is the case, a likely scenario is this. Collective enlightenment could be either instantaneous or rapid – even if it takes five or twenty years, that's fast. Such enlightenment would be driven onwards by a need to respond to raw global bottom-line facts. Such a change of consciousness would not obliterate the realities of our situation – toxic wastes, risks of famine, geological catastrophe or social disorder – yet it would change our capacity to deal with them if or when they arose. We would certainly possess expanded possibilities – perhaps a serious new capacity to deal with nuclear waste through the psychic manipulation of matter, or a genius for intense earth-healing which might restore more regular climatic patterns. However, we would not be instantaneously adept in such possibilities – like a boy with a computer, there's a lot to learn and master.
This would tip us into a period of perhaps decades, where the implications of intense change were being intensely worked out – psycho-spiritually, socially, agriculturally and in every other department of life. If this led to a speedy alleviation of the major problems we face, we would still be embarking on a process of assimilating change, rebuilding our world, conducting and coordinating new activities – and we would need to maintain the daily needs of life. In other words, while apocalypse might last but a short time, its implications, even if dealt with rapidly, would be likely to take many decades or even a whole century to work through before a new stable equilibrium were reached. Historically, this would be exceptionally rapid progress. In principle, we would by necessity have resolved all of the core issues of human history, in one fell swoop. If we had not, we probably wouldn't survive.
A moderate view of apocalypse would encompass a period of several decades. This would begin with a worldwide, psycho-spiritual turn-around – primarily a collective inner experience which then would generate action. There would follow a longish period of hard work and large-scale change. There would likely be a critical point where things came to a crunch, a show-down with actuality. This would constitute the real transformation and redemption of our history and our 21st century situation. This might be followed by a time when the hump has been crossed, that the danger is over, and a truly new future emerged. My own guesstimates would put this period of into a time-frame of approximately 2000-2065 – though the beginning of the transitional process depends on our choices.
An approximate timetable of phases in this period of intense transition might look like this:
This is a hypothetical scenario, yet it might turn out to be a valid perspective and timetable with the effect of creating a sense of historical process and longterm evolution.[9]
A more radical view of apocalypse implies a short intensive period of time in which we are thoroughly overwhelmed by an utterly whirlwind transformation, taking place in days, months or a few years. For such a scenario to succeed, we would need to be wiped clean, 're-booted', such that we go through a short, sharp, shocking period of utter change, needing to start again from first principles. However, such a scenario, if religious and metaphysical prognosticators are right, would either destroy most of us or it would involve a spiritual dispensation so immense that the laws of reality as we know them become thoroughly changed, overnight.
The moderate, more gradual view outlined above would probably involve a warping and intensification of time and events – already perceptible in the 1990s. Much would be happening, relentlessly. But the radical view would probably imply our suddenly careering into a virtually timeless, razor-sharp breakthrough awareness – of the kind which takes over when we are told we've just won a million, or when a baby is being born or a dear friend is dying. In this scenario, time becomes insignificant – aeons can pass in the course of but seconds or days. The dawning of true reality is a total consciousness-changer: everything we thought we knew turns out not to be the case. Everything turns upside-down. Even up and down become indistinct.
Whether rapid or more drawn-out, this is the dawning of an order of a different kind. This order has something to do with the way the world and the universe actually operate. It has something to do with the intelligence by which the universe arranges its parts and gets them to work together with the whole. For us, it means and outbreak of collective genius and also emulation – a restructuring of everything according to quintessential lessons we learn from life itself. To quote Viktor Schauberger, one of the greater technologists of the 20th century: "Comprehend and copy nature!"[10]
Redemption involves a realignment with nature, with human nature and universal nature – the underlying thread of life. Cynics of today regard this as metaphysical bunkum, yet it might be pragmatic realism tomorrow. The humorous aspect of this is that the future is so unpredictable that even futurologists might also have their own personal apocalypse, fuelled by an overload of unpredictables and imponderables! Each of us will learn according to need.
All this will bring with it remembering, too. Remembering of how to do things right. It's the kind of remembering a receptive woman experiences while pregnant and giving birth – remembering on a cellular-memory level. 'Rightness' isn't one single stated thing, where one can define 'this is right' and 'that is wrong'. Yet, in the situation where one stands, or in an emergency, it is possible clearly to sense the right thing to do – there is a level of human genius which 'knows' what to do when faced with an exacting situation. We shall devise answers which differ widely for different people in different lands and situations, as appropriate to each people in each area – yet these answers can all, though different, work toward a similar end. Since there is no overarching guiding philosophy or religion we all share, with which to enter the 21st century (as, for example, socialism gave many people as we entered the 20th century), we'll have to drive by the seats of our pants.
Nevertheless, we humans are not inexperienced in this. This alert state is a natural state for humanity: it's what guides us through our births, our crises, our love-making, our risk-taking, our hang-gliding, our inspired guesses. It is an outburst of naturalness. This happens when people are suddenly snowbound or beset by large disruptions – they frequently calm down and stick together. Humans are very resourceful, and when presented with raw facts, we're tremendously adaptable and innovative. There is no time for disagreement.
We live today in a massive and crucial planetary laboratory experiment. The task is to find out whether we're going to 'make it' or not. We are faced with three choices: we may keep our heads buried in the sand, we may feel doomed to disaster, or we may feel trust that we shall somehow make it through. Predicting the outcome of the experiment is a mug's game, more a question of belief, of hope or fear, than of reality. Even God doesn't exactly know what is going to happen.
Nevertheless, it is realistic to contribute actively to bringing about certain chosen world outcomes. There is good reason to act in faith that there is a meaning and purpose to human life. This is a choice of the deepest import. It involves encountering a personal apocalypse, or an ongoing series of them. A growth-process. Even when we think we know the answers, raw revelations come pouring in to change these answers, and our way of knowing. The more that people experience personal apocalypse, the more experience is gained, and the more that the human race as a whole will master global apocalypse. There's a gradual buildup of skills and momentum which, when this wave breaks, can only contribute and help.
We could be in for times of great tribulation. It could be that the Times of Tribulation have been with us in the 20th century, and that a Great Relief might settle upon us in the 21st. We do not know. Yet, judging by the unsettling events of our time, it seems we are now entering, or perhaps have already entered, the critical time when humanity makes its Big Decision. The gridlock is moving into place. The showdown is on. We will only know what happens next by looking back at it retrospectively from the future.
NOTES
The extent of underlying world need for apocalypse, for a global, soul-educational breakthrough, changes with every moment. We are regularly making historically-impacting decisions, some of which are deeply decisive, and the trajectory of history changes thereby. Humanity has demonstrated in some instances a mysterious capacity to make last-minute redemptive decisions: it's called 'forgive and forget', and 'let's get on with it'. Even the urge for 'business as usual' can occasionally be redemptive – it helps us make new sense of rapidly-changing situations. It finally stops otherwise-unstoppable wars.
* 2000-2010: an ongoing barrage of critical situations in which escalating circumstances force waves of radical structural, economic and social changes, often people- or circumstance-driven – a juggling act being maintained by adapting old methods and institutions, and engaging and experimenting with utterly new ones;
* 2010s: extreme tests threaten breakdown and offer breakthrough, particularly around 2112-14 – very difficult times, or an ongoing state of emergency, making acute necessity the driving force behind innovation; this might need exceptional mobilisation of human resources and major institutional and infrastructural change; what form this takes depends on how we are dealing with it – this period could involve anything from disaster and breakdown to exceptionally rapid transitions; by the end of this decade, humanity could be in a state of 'shell-shock';
* 2020s: in some respects, this could be a decade of stymied, difficult progress, though much effort might be expended and much might be achieved, even though it might be only keeping pace with problems arising; later in the decade, a lightening atmosphere, with ideas-rich innovations, cultural interchange, social effort, rapid progress and changes becoming easier as a result of greater willingness amongst new generations to rise to the situation, and as a result of efforts beginning to bear fruit;
* 2030s: an emphasis on the consequences and results of changes made so far, and large-scale adaptation to them. A new level of challenges and solutions would arise on these foundations – changes will by now have been immense; many issues of the past will have been resolved, yet further work would also be piling up – the solution of one issue leads on to the uncovering of further matters for attention. This might still be a decade where we are dealing with the past and its consequences, though light might be appearing at the end of the tunnel, with a foreboding that the biggest transition is yet to come. This might be a cliff-hanger decade with rapid reorientations and ongoing crises, yet a momentum of change could also be well under way;
* 2040s: disruption, instability, restlessness. This could be the most thorny decade to get through. A struggle between polarised and contradictory issues and parties, and an enormous crunch-point in which the urgency of the moment tests humanity's priorities and capacities. This decade is likely to see tragedy or triumph, probably measures of both, yet pay-offs would be emerging, and there is a potential that humanity could achieve 'lift-off': large-scale problems matched by large-scale effort and progress. This decade could signify a crucial turning-point in human history, where both the problems and the solutions which became visible in the 1960s-90s become very real; this could be the decisive decade of the 21st century;
* 2050s: a growing sense either of being beaten by, or of mastering the critical world situation. This depends on how things have gone so far. Yet an entirely new reality-context can have arisen as a result of the developments of the 2040s – either an ascendancy for humanity toward a new future, or a sense of finality and tough assimilation of the facts which have presented themselves. There is a risk of change-shock and chaos debilitating humanity, or a sense of mobilisation and growing human unity in the face of difficult times. Much of the past will have been swept away, the stakes will be high, and few precedents will now be available – the inherent wisdom and cooperation (or lack of them) in humanity will likely be a decisive factor;
* 2060s: a time of gradual emergence into a new chapter of history, a new civilisation and reality. The success or failure of all that has developed since 1900 will by now be clear – the 20th century will now be long past. This could be either a time of immense tribulation and disheartened survival for humanity, or a time for tremendous revitalisation, reconstruction and reintegration, in a very different world from that which we now know. If there is to be a new civilisation, it will probably have laid down its roots by now, even though its unfoldment would concern future decades and centuries;
* 2070s-80s-90s: a gradual normalisation and assimilation of a new reality, and establishment of a new relative stability – however things have gone. However, the future would be more important than the past – the past will have been wiped clean. This opens up new possibilities for making the best of what is by this time our accepted reality. It could be a time of great light and joy, where human potential rises toward new creative peaks. The past is over, and the future wide open. The issue is now our longterm strategy, our goal for the coming civilisation and era of history, which conceivably might unfold over the following 300 years.
(1) Apocalypticism. The idea that the world is a battleground between the forces of light and darkness was dramatised by the Persian Zoroastran and Manichaean teachings, which bled into Mithraism, itself an ancient Persian nature-religion which flourished amongst the legions of Rome. It also bled into early Christianity: early Christians operated in a stark social environment of foreign Roman domination, Grecian secularism and gross social inequities, which struck them to be symptoms of a coming showdown between spirituality and materialism. The Persian idea of Judgement was thus used in the time of John the Baptist and Jesus. St Paul and early church councils (especially Nicaea) incorporated apocalyptic mythology into the Roman creed. Roman Christianity, patronised by Constantine, syncretically encompassed and sought to replace many other faiths. As such, it adopted and strengthened core cultural myths which inform the culture of today: apocalyptic mythology today outlasts Christianity as an unconscious undercurrent in modern society, even though it contradicts modernist ideology.
(2) Peacekeeping. Adopted as a core function of the UN, peace-keeping interventions after 1989 have been fraught with difficulties. The 1993 intervention in famine-stricken Somalia was well-motivated, staged to stem famine and disorder, yet fundamental assumptions were flawed: there was insufficient political will to stay long enough to focus on social reconstruction, insufficient military containment and disarmament of feuding factions and too much attention given to pleasing the American electorate.
In Haiti, the 1994-95 intervention was motivated by American interests. The restoration of President Aristide was successful, though its terms flawed. Haiti has become an American client state, and internal reconstruction and economic revival is stymied by capital shortage, foreign regulation and social imbalances.
Rwanda's near-zero geopolitical rating and the complexity of its inter-ethnic conflict meant that large-scale intervention was avoided in favour of non-governmental disaster-relief. This became bogged down in ongoing feeding of Hutu refugees, themselves manipulated by Hutu power-cliques. Meanwhile, promised economic and judicial aid to Rwanda itself was not effectively forthcoming, through lack of support by UN member states. The Rwandan aid effort has focused more on ameliorating newsworthy symptoms of tragedy than on addressing longterm issues of inter-ethnic instability. Private agencies have done remarkable work, yet they could not tackle political and military issues at stake.
Similar weakness of international political will characterised UN intervention in the Bosnian war up to September 1995. Though many lives were saved, UN forces (UNPROFOR) have also contributed to worsened conditions. Things changed when USA overcame previous reluctance, intervening militarily through NATO and ramming through the Dayton peace agreements which, at the time of writing, look inadequate and validate ethnic separation.
The UN is not permitted, financed or equipped to act on its own as an international force, remaining beholden to the values and political manoeuvrings of major member states. Thus, recent major UN interventions have tended to depend more on American political values than on international considerations. However, Britain, France and many other countries make stalwart contributions. The most successful intervention in the early 1990s was in Kurdistan, in which safe areas were established to protect Kurds from Saddam Hussein – however, aid and diplomatic effort have been insufficient to bring longterm solutions to Kurdistan.
(3) United Nations, post-1989. After 1989 the UN was thrust into a situation it was unprepared for, and its constitution and structure prevent it acting in response to true need. UN is not empowered to intervene in national internal matters, even when these affect the global situation. It can intervene only when dominant fund-giving members allow, only to support current national boundaries, interests and governments. The Security Council, responsible for peacekeeping and international disputes, is constituted of pre-1989 powers, biased toward the developed world, excluding Japan and Germany, and frequently dominated by national interests. For every intervention, forces and funds have to be cobbled together, and participation and contribution by member states cannot be enforced. The UN cannot restructure itself without support of a sufficient caucus of member states, meaning that its disempowered, under-funded, cumbersome organisation has become seriously obsolete. Impartiality and influence by the United Nations is thereby constrained, and smaller countries are correct to view the UN as a global tool of the world's dominant nations. Nevertheless, the Secretary General and his staff do an admirable job, despite weaknesses and errors.
(4) Rome – its downfall. Rome was traditionally founded in 753 BCE, becoming a republic in 510 BCE. It underwent ongoing expansion to dominate the Mediterranean by 30 BCE. Under Octavian it became an empire, achieving a golden age, 96-180 CE under Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. Rome's peak of territorial expansion was in 115, on the conquering of Parthia. Caught from Parthia, a smallpox epidemic cut the population of the empire by 25%, bringing stagnation – Rome was now overstretched, entering into ongoing disorder for a century from 180 CE. From 212, free subjects empire-wide were able to be Roman citizens, and the provinces grew more fractious.
Military over-extension, excess taxation and bad tax systems, economic inflation, private and public debt, misgovernment, decadence, declining morals and social bonds, political corruption and dissension, barbarian incursions, social change and new ideas all contributed to the long, slow fall of Rome – which, in the end, was propped up by foreigners. The empire divided in 395, and the Visigoths (410) and Vandals (455) sacked Rome. Legions gradually withdrew from the empire, trade and order subsided, and the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476. The crucial points of potential transformation came in the time of the Gracchi, the Triumvirates (60-32 BCE) and Marcus Aurelius (170s CE), at which points progressive re-evaluation of the purpose of Rome was needed.
(5) Soviet Nomenklatura. This was a privileged class of higher bureaucrats (apparatchiks), a self-perpetuating and socially-distant caucus of power-holders. They resisted perestroika and glasnost reform attempts from above in the 1970s-80s. As a result, it became clear in the late 1980s that abolition of the Communist Party was the only option. Though Russian and East European society underwent major reform from 1986 onwards, social-psychological dependency and conservatism prevented moderate change. Many members of the nomenklatura took advantage of their positions to gain economic power within new free-market systems instituted in the 1990s – by 1995 they had greater control over business and government than government itself, and major involvement in organised crime. The brutal Russian attack on Chechnya in 1994-95 was stimulated by Russian mafia contacts within government, to weaken the Chechen mafia, operative in Russia and internationally and threatening to overpower the Russian mafia.
(6) Kobe earthquake, 1995. This local disaster had not only a local effect. It underlined the decline of Japan as a world economic power. The earthquake affected world market confidence, coming at the same time as the collapse of the Mexican peso – both Japan and Mexico were thitherto regarded as good investments. Kobe-Osaka, at the communications hub of Japan, affected Japanese economic performance. Key components-manufacturing plants in the area were disabled, affecting supplies in computers, electronics and the automotive industry, and leading to systems back-up, non-fulfilment of orders and corporate collapse. Additionally, insurance claims divert large-scale funds from other investments and strain the overstretched world insurance system.
The failure to predict this earthquake, in a country leading the world in seismic studies, led to a collapse of confidence in understanding of seismic processes. Regional repairs will cost some $400bn, about 10% of Japan's GDP, affecting Japan's position as a world capital exporter. The sheer consumption of resources in rebuilding will affect far-away places supplying forestry, construction and other products. The list of effects goes on.
(7) Hundredth Monkey Principle. This states that, if a sufficient population learns a new idea, other populations elsewhere can suddenly learn that idea too, even if they have no contact with its source. This would imply that when an idea reaches a certain level of potency, by dint of people's belief, it reproduces in new host-minds easily. The notion arose from studies of the Japanese monkey Macaca fuscata in the 1950s on the island of Koshima. The monkeys were being fed sweet potatoes. A young female learned how to wash them and taught her playmates. Within six years all younger and some older monkeys had learned washing, then suddenly all the monkeys were doing it. The key discovery was, however, that, at the same time, monkeys on other islands and the mainland began washing sweet potatoes too – with no prompting at all.
See also: Watson, Lyell, Lifetide, Bantam, 1980.
(8) Ethnic sacrifice. Sacrifice sometimes turns tables for the victims of human cruelty. For Jews, extreme sacrifices made during the Nazi Holocaust facilitated the foundation of the state of Israel – the first geographical reunification of the dispersed Jewish peoples in 1,900 years. Paradoxically for Jews, sacrifices made by Palestinians since the 1940s drew public attention and support, despite political errors made by the PLO, to their need for an autonomous homeland carved out of militarily-occupied parts of Israel. This does not mean that such sacrifices are necessary for such outcomes to take place, but if there is no other way of bringing about the desired outcome, sacrifices can be worth it – if, that is, the world public notices or cares. The tragedy of many such sacrifices is that they go unnoticed.
(9) Astrological Turning-points, 1890-2100. Though astrology holds little credibility nowadays, its use in historical analysis is potent. The following data concern the cycles and major aspects (angles) of the outermost planets of our solar system – Uranus (84-year cycle), Neptune (165 years) and Pluto (250 years). The cycles of aspects between them are: Uranus-Neptune 170 years, Uranus-Pluto 111 or 143 years alternatingly, Neptune-Pluto 495 years. Major current crux-points of these cycles are: 1891-2 Neptune (0degs) Pluto; 1901-2 Uranus (180degs) Pluto; 1906-10 Uranus (180degs) Neptune; 1932-34 Uranus (90degs) Pluto; 1954-56 Uranus (90degs) Neptune; 1965-66 Uranus (0degs) Pluto; 1993 Uranus (0degs) Neptune; 2012-15 Uranus (90degs) Pluto; 2039-41 Uranus (90degs) Neptune; 2046-48 Uranus (180degs) Pluto; 2061-63 Neptune (90degs) Pluto; 2073-74 Uranus (90degs) Pluto; 2078-81 Uranus (180degs) Neptune; 2104 Uranus (0degs) Pluto. The conjunction (0degs) represents the end-beginning of cycles, the square (90degs) represents a manifestational crisis-point and the opposition (180degs) represents the climax and watershed of a cycle. The above data exists within the context of the Neptune-Pluto cycle which began in 1892 and will end in 2397. Note that, in relation to events, it is legitimate to consider all events within at least five years of these aspect dates as relevant to the significance of the aspect. See Jenkins, Palden, The Historical Ephemeris, privately published, 1993 (soon to be web-published).
(10) See Callum Coats, Living Energies, Gateway Books UK, 1996.
Paldywan Kenobi'sarchive of articles |
 |
© Palden Jenkins, 1995. All of these articles are copyright. They may individually be copied and shared with others in a spirit of knowledge-sharing and fair play, but they may not be sold, printed or reproduced in quantity or changed in form without the permission of the copyright holder. Magazine and other editors may e-mail me for permission to reprint. E-mail: