Thursday 25 March 2021

Crossing the threshold at the millennium into a New Age

In the years approaching 2000 there was a great deal of expectation in New Age circles that this time was to be a spiritual threshold crossing; and I myself first became interested in such matters at this time - initially focused on hunter gatherer beliefs

Yet, the first impression as we went into the early 2000s was that 'nothing had happened' - certainly there was no significant spiritual revival: there was no clear raising of human consciousness to a higher level. The New Age movement continued - but as an increasingly commercial, psychological, 'self-help' activity. 

Meanwhile, materialism began to take-off with an accelerating expansion of bureaucracy and managerialism - and the solid domination of increasing-leftism through the entirety of mainstream politics, law, churches, the media, academia, arts, science, health services - and then into the police and military. 

There was not the expected re-enchantment of life; but instead more and more dis-enchantment.  

So - did anything happen? Was a threshold of human consciousness crossed?


I now think that yes, something happened: something Big; and yes there was a change in human consciousness. And that change was (approximately): more and more people began to live in a world of their own creation

This was, in its form, exactly the consciousness transition that had been foreseen several decades earlier by Rudolf Steiner and then Owen Barfield. They foresaw that Men were going to become so detached from 'nature' that they would 'make their own reality'. 

But, the reality that Men chose to make was not the one hoped for by 'spiritual people' - it was instead the made-reality of the mass media and the pervasive, extensive, unifying bureaucracy (which was  linked-up globally by early 2020 - as was first evident from the birdemic-response). 

From 2000; Men came to inhabit a willed world (a virtual world) - yet this was not the 'spiritual' world of high consciousness that had been hoped-for, nor was it a world that individual Men had personally discerned and chosen. It was instead a matter of millennial New Man passively-absorbing a dominant, mainstream 'official world' - devised and propagated by those with the greatest power and influence.  


The millennial change in consciousness was 'about' Men having a new capacity to create their own reality; in other words to 'choose what was true'. It was hoped by some that Men would use this new power to choose to live in a world of meaning, purpose and personal involvement with nature and the divine spirit world - and that Men would therefore create such a reality. 

Because Men could now choose what to believe, and could make these beliefs real; they might have chosen to acknowledge the reality of God, creation and Heaven. Of course, as a Christian, I know these to be really-real - but since the millennial transition the really-real needs to be chosen and self-created in the same way as the false and evil.

Since the millennium; Men have overwhelmingly chosen to co-create a reality without meaning, purpose or humanity; a reality based on fear, resentment and despair; a reality which denies their own capacity (and right!) to choose. 

In effect men have chosen a world of alienation, futility, and inescapable death; and then chosen to deny that they have chosen!

And they have chosen to regard their choice as inevitable, the only possibility that ever-was real. 


Why have so many Men made this choice? A choice which had led directly to the current (and unprecedented) world government of evil and systematic destruction based on fear, resentment and despair?  

Why, to put it differently, have so very few Men chosen to co-create (as they could have) a world of faith, hope and love? 

...Rejecting the chance of a world where reality really-was enchanted. 


The reasons are many - but I focus on two. 

The first was leftism - which by 2000 had infected and become established in almost everyone; and leftism is intrinsically evil; being anti-Christian and metaphysically materialist, built-on and incorporating many Big Lies. 

The entire spectrum of mainstream opinion was, by 2000, merely variations on leftism. All significant political parties and movements - left and 'right' were leftist. All New Agers were leftist, in one or other respect - and many were very leftist. 

Leftism was assumed to be the bottom line of any 'good' morality - anything else than leftism was rejected as abhorrent. Reality was fitted-into leftism...


The second was passivity. New Age expectations of the millennium were that something would happen-to people. There would be some kind of shift - which was conceptualized in terms of raised frequency, vibration, energies or the like - and this external change would would raise humanity. 

Humanity, consciousness, would be lifted by external forces; and the primary act of choice was consenting to be thus raised. 

Yet, the truth was that Men needed to make an active choice to benefit from the millennial transformation. All the good options (God, Creation, Jesus Christ, a living conscious and personal universe...) required positive, active choice. 


By remaining passive, and by regarding leftism as the fundamental truth; when the millennial threshold was crossed; Men made the world that was all around them, the world that was easiest. The world that was everywhere, powerful, persuasive, fun, socially-high-status. The world view that brought in money and led to most pleasure - that is, the world of the media, or leftist socio-politics, of materialism...

So Man did cross the threshold at the millennium, and with new powers of consciousness to create his own reality...

And then Man chose to use these new powers to make the whole world a locked-down, hope-less, dead prison - for himself and everybody else. 


11 comments:

William Wildblood said...

The best analysis of what took place I've seen. A tipping point was reached at about the turn of the millennium. Unfortunately it tipped the wrong way. Part of the problem with all the New Age stuff was that it was too much concerned with 'signs and wonders' but there was also the very strong anything but Jesus element to it which corrupted the whole thing and made it easily open to demonic influence.

Bruce Charlton said...

@William - Thanks - "there was also the very strong anything but Jesus element to it which corrupted the whole thing and made it easily open to demonic influence."

Yes, I should have mentioned that because it was indeed very strong.

I know, partly because I used to share it! There is essentially never any criticism of any other religion than Christianity - only leftist-good aspects ever being discussed. Hence the New Age fixation on Sufism rather than actual Islam, Zen rather than actual Buddhism, Vedanta rather than actual Hinduism etc.

(The extent to which this is true of Anthroposophy is astonishing; considering Steiner's all-but-continuous writing about Jesus (albeit he had an extremely... distinctive... set of beliefs about him) - modern anthroposphists actually apologize for Steiner regarding Christianity as true, and go to great efforts to blur this. They are desperate to distance themselves from any other type of Christian.)

And if Christianity is mentioned positively it is only to valorize whatever is not Western, or was heretical and suppressed (Gnostics, Cathars etc).

Here in the British Isles, it is allowed to be positive about the Celtic church in New Age circles - which was indeed a fine thing which I admire greatly. But all its supposedly 'Celtic' aspects, except one, were standard mainstream Eastern Orthodox. I mean the Celtic focus on monks rather than priests, abbots and monasteries rather than bishops and cathedrals, hermits and mystics rather than secular priests and mass.

That one characteristic that was maybe unique (and they deserve credit for this) was a benign and assimilating attitude towards the pre-existing British paganism; albeit that its druidic central organization seems already to have been destroyed by the pagan Romans (that is what the Romans were doing - i.e. crushing the final druidic refuge in Anglesey - when Boudicca rebelled).

Another telling point is that New Age embraced (mostly literally, promiscuously, and frequently) the sexual revolution. This led to a built-in dishonesty in relation to any actual religion - since all real religions regulate sex in a more or less traditional manner. It also corrupted most New Age groups and leaders, sooner or later - and the content of their teaching, mode of presentation etc - and increasingly attracted psychopaths and the willing-dependent-victims they prey-upon.

But your main point is key. When that 'anything-but-Jesus' element dominates, then no good can come from a Western spirituality - it will either be ineffectual, or corrupted and malign.

Alex said...

I feel Fatima in 1917 must be mentioned in a discussion of boundaries crossed.

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/what-might-be-in-store-at-the-end-of-fatima-s-100-years

Bruce Charlton said...

@Alex - That and the Russian Revolution of the same year; which was the end of the fullness of Eastern Orthodoxy, when the lineage of tradition was broken; and establishment of the first of many atheist, anti-Christian, post-Christian states.

Alex said...

@Bruce - Indeed, and Our Lady spoke particularly of the errors of Russia.

R.J.Cavazos said...

Very interesting. Related I leave you with a review of a favorite book which is somewhat if obliquely related to your post: https://networks.h-net.org/node/6873/reviews/7384/allen-cohn-pursuit-millennium-revolutionary-millenarians-and-mystical

Be well all. Will continue to read and learn from your insightful and informative work after Passover. Keen at some point to learn about your perspective on Passover.

Lady Mermaid said...

I will echo William Wildblood's point that the "anything but Jesus" attitude led to demonic corruption. While it is certainly possible to follow Jesus w/o explicit knowledge (virtuous pagans), a willful refusal to consider what Jesus was offering is a result of a heart that is not submitted to God. I agree w/ Bruce Charlton that the sexual revolution is a huge roadblock in people's spiritual development. People are afraid to let go of their favorite sin. It's a shame b/c one will gain far more by giving one's sins to God than holding on to them.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

I also feel that, while it was not obvious at the time, something important did change around the turn of the millennium.

Pangloss said...

"Modern history is the dialogue between two men: one who believes in God, another who believes he is a god." ~Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Stating the obvious; the latter then creates his own universe.
Davila was a deep orthodox/Christian/Catholic philosopher and thinker whose aphorims deserve to be taken notice of in our circles.
https://zeta.math.utsa.edu/~yxk833/davila-Gilleland.pdf
http://don-colacho.blogspot.com/

Bruce Charlton said...

@Pangloss - Yes, he was an excellent aphorist - and I've read quite a bit of his stuff.

Nonetheless, I think his traditionalism has become impossible - and that this was inevitable. The two possibilities he describes - God or Man - does not exhaust the range of belief; and I think the future is not either/ or, but both (God first, then Man within God's primary creation).

Pangloss said...

@Bruce - I concur. Not either/or but and/and. Either/or is more Greek thinking; and/and is more Hebrew thinking. God and Man, Man and Woman, Heaven and Earth. They belong together. One works it in and out of the Other. Only together they are the complete thing.