The World Party is Over

Two days ago I awoke in the morning, and as often happens, an image of a newspaper headline came into my mind’s eye. The hynogogic state, between sleeping and waking, is the perfect time for the mind to communicate deeper consciousness. Many images are from spiritual sources - including spiritual guides, information from the mind’s of other people, and collectives of people. Such knowledge claims are anathema in mainstream circles, but this merely reflects how far twenty-first century understandings of consciousness have devolved.

The headline was simple.

World Party is Over

In the context of the world’s precarious economic - and increasingly social and political - crisis, there are no prizes for guessing what the message meant. The recent resignation of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi epitomises the end perfectly. Let’s call a spade a spade here. Berlusconi is a political dinosaur: a bloated, sexist, womanising, corrupt narcissist. Power, hedonism and self-interest define his personality construct. And when pushed out, he blamed the other. Sadly, he is the archetypical expression of the crony capitalism which has diseased the world.

The planet owes us nothing. Pond algae may overrun a pond for a short while, as its volume increases exponentially. But eventually it chokes on itself as it consumes all resources and destroys the other life forms in the pond. Then the pond starts afresh. Will this be the fate of humanity?

I like to call the human being who has lost the innate connection with Spirit “Alienated Man”. In turn Alienated Man exists with an expression of mind I call the Alienated Mind. This is mind which exists trapped in the blindness of the ego state, fighting to maintain the delusion that its fundamental nature is separation and specialness. It is appropriate to use the un-PC masculine term “man”” as this is all about an unbalanced expression of masculine power. Men are not intrinsically evil, despite what some unbalanced feminine critiques might prefer to believe. There is both a responsible (balanced) and irresponsible (imbalanced) expression of male power.

Balanced male power is a beautiful thing. It is nothing to be frightened of. It is all of empowered, nurturing, wise and compassionate. Sadly, it is also a rare thing in this world. Finding it in positions of power and influence is very, very rare.

There are many people who argue that the West in decline. However I think the question needs to be changed to, "Is western-style materialism finished?" The problem that many “Decline of The West”-type critiques fail to address is that “The West” is no longer merely in The West. Asia - especially India and China. These nations are now driving the world's economy, but their vision of development remains locked into a deeply imbalanced, patriarchal, Western, GDP/growth-centric view of “economy”, and of the world. The core expression of these nations retain the delusions of the Alienated Man, while largely denying the fundamental uniqueness of their own civilisational knowledge and values. I challenge anyone to come to Hong Kong, Beijing or Shanghai, and tell me that the “Western” vision is expanding in any meaningful way. It is not.

China, the driver of the world economy, is just spreading the disease wider. Let me put it bluntly: China and America are fundamentally the same: hyper-capitalist, hyper-individualistic societies where money, status and power are the prime values. A greater problem is that I cannot see the Chinese boom lasting, and there is evidence that it is rapidly coming to an end. The world party is over. Who is going to offer something different that works? And more to the point, will anybody listen?

Human beings carry with them the innate wisdom and the profound language of Spirit. Sadly it is almost a forgotten language.

One essential problem is that it is difficult to communicate the wisdom of the Spirit in a way that makes sense to mainstream science and academia. This is basically what I have been trying to do for years, unsuccessfully. I recently received yet another rejection slip for an academic job which confirmed this in very definite terms. The University of the Sunshine Coast, which gave me my PhD in Futures Studies, currently have four research positions in Futures Studies going. I could not even get an interview there despite a decade of research and publications in the field. I emailed them and asked for feedback as to why my application was declined. I have not received any response.

At the heart of modern science lies a profound poverty of vision which mirrors that same impoverishment in education and ultimately society itself. The material cannot sustain us. We have become like narcissus, staring into our reflection - not in the water, but in the material substrate of the cosmos, and confusing it for who we are. The love affair with the material has produced collective neurosis. Amusement, entertainment and pleasure will not free us.  The infatuation with with the machine (technology) has reached the point of obsession too. But this will not resolve the essential problem that we have lost our connection with Spirit. It is time to acknowledge the truth.

The world party is over.