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.

The Mind Reader

Light, Chapter 27: The Mind Reader

Below, you will find an excerpt of this chapter of my online novel. To read the rest of the chapter click here.

"There are certain requirements that we need to address before we accept people into the Journey of Light", Julie said. We are not a car club."

"Yes. Yes. Of course. I understand."

"Do you?" She looked at me in a way that made me shift uncomfortably. She didn't speak for what seemed like half a minute, though it was probably just a few seconds. What was she talking about? Was there going to be some weird initiation ceremony or something?

"The first thing we need to determine is where are you sitting currently on your spiritual journey? Where are you right now?” She turned round, picked up a marker and drew a long horizontal line across the whiteboard. “This line, this continuum, represents human consciousness evolution. This left side of the line represents zero, and the far right one hundred per cent of full consciousness. So, where are you on this line right now?" She then placed a finger on the line, and quickly moved it from left to right. Unfortunately for me her finger didn't go very far. In fact it came to a stop right near the beginning. Near the zero point. "This is where you are right now." She drew a short horizontal mark at the relevant point on the line. It was definitely less than five per cent or so.

"And this is where I am." Julie then did the same thing again, only this time her finger went much further along the line. She made a mark at about the half way point along the line.

I looked at my humble placing near the zero point, and hers at around the fifty per cent mark. I flinched. Who the hell did this woman think she was? Did she think I was a moron or something? A guy who just walked in off the street and who didn’t know anything about human consciousness?  I had been studying the subject in my own time for months, and the Awakening had given me abilities which most people could only dream of!

“I see’” I said. What I really wanted to do was tell her to go screw herself. The sheer arrogance of the woman! It was obvious that I already knew all the kind of  stuff she had been going on about; and had even worked it out on my own without needing some cult to brainwash me. And I certainly didn’t need some female Jesus wannabe with an inflated ego to tell me what to think. I would have walked out right then and there, if not for what happened next. And what happened next shocked my very soul in a way that nothing I’d ever experienced had.

Julie looked at me blankly. She was not smiling now, although she did not look displeased either. “I’m just going to channel your ego towards me right now, just to let you see it more clearly for yourself.” Before I’d even had time to work out what she meant by that, she stood up, and moved to the centre of the room. Suddenly her entire demenour changed from that of  a relaxed new age lady guru to one of angry agitation. Her voice became terse, abrupt. The sudden shift was shocking.

“Do you know who I am! I already know all this stuff!” She was pacing back and forward like a caged animal. Her entire body had become tense, her breathing shallow, her voice raspy. It was a frightening transformation. “I know more than you do! I can see, I can. I can see! I know this already! I know it.”

I was looking at her, and I could hear what was going on. But I could barely look, barely listen. The woman had ripped open something from within me, something very personal, very secret. She was reading my mind. And not just any part of my mind. She was reading the nasty part. There was more.

“So don’t tell me what to think you stupid bitch! I know more than you do! I’m special! I can see more than anyone! I’m superior to you! So fuck off. I’m out of here!”

At this point, mercifully, she stopped. From the hot feeling on my face I knew my cheeks had turned red, flushed. For a few seconds I sat there in denial. This was not me she had just mind read. No. This was somebody else, somebody dark. Somebody arrogant, angry and judgmental. Somebody else. But weren’t these the very thoughts that had been circulating through my mind just a minute or two before? I just wanted to run away. I felt, ashamed. Terrified. Naked.

So this was mind reading. I had always supposed that if it was real that it would be exciting and fun. A game played by children who believed in flying carpets, magical kingdoms, and fairies. Instead it was terrifying.

"Light", Chapter 25: FF

Light, Chapter 25: FF
 To read the rest of the chapter (or novel), click on the chapter title, above. There's a short extract below.

Professor Forsen picked up the creased piece of paper from the manilla folder, and put on his reading glasses.
    “I note that you failed the Philosophy 3A exam, where you attempted to answer only one question, and even in that you were awarded a zero grade by the marker. You wrote – and, um, I do quote here: “Western science is a deluded mishmash of forced extrapolations violently extracted from a cosmos that it does not understand, let alone feel. Newtonian science is the violent, rapacious organ of patriarchy, pillaging and violating all that stands before it. Universities have prostituted themselves, selling their souls to the phallus of dissociated patriarchy. Any academic moron who had done the slightest amount of introspection would know this.”
    He removed the glasses, and sat there looking at me.
    “Oh, and one of your blank answer sheets was folded into the shape of a jet aeroplane.”
    “Yes, I believe that is correct, Sir.”

The Fall

Light, Chapter 24: The Fall

A short extract from the chapter can be found below. Go to www.lightmysterious.com to read the rest of Marcus' new online novel.

The exams came. I’d pretty much given up on them to be honest. For my Philosophy exam I just sat there for an hour before I began to write a rant against the “retardation of the western mind”. That took me about fifteen minutes, and after spewing that out of my system I just went cold. A dark cloud descended upon me, and I fell asleep right there in the exam room. I only awoke when I felt a hand shaking my shoulder. I looked up, unsure for a moment where I was.

“Your paper?”

Groggy, I handed it to the examiner. She looked at it, and handed it back.

“Your name?”

She was pointing to the front page. I’d forgotten to write it.

“Oh?” I took it back, picked up my pen. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember my own name. My mind was completely blank. My breath caught in my chest, and for a moment a wave of panic almost overcame me.

“Um, sorry, this pen isn’t working. Wait a moment.” I shook the pen violently, then began rummaging through my bag.

The woman went off to the front of the room. That gave me time.

So what was it? James? No, that was my bother. Paul, no he was my friend. It was, it was…

           I sat there, barely able to contain my panic. This was the end. I had gone insane, lost it, my life over. I was a man who didn’t even know who he was.

New Cosmos, New Wisdom?

 Home: The Milky way and its 100 billion stars

A review of:

The New Universe and the Human Future How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World. Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack

The New Universe and the Human Future is a wonderful book, and I encourage everyone who has a passion for understanding both the human future and humanity’s place in the cosmos read it. The authors are veteran cosmologists, and they have taken the time to bring together the latest research and information about the universe we live in, and put it all in one short and readable volume. Today I am going to provide a very general overview of the book, and make one specific points about it. I may write another post commenting on other aspects of the book soon.

Abrams and Primack’s thesis is simple. Currently there is no universal human mythology which provides a big picture map of the cosmos or our place in it. The maps of yore, mostly religious in nature, are not only in disagreement, they are woefully inaccurate in terms of their depiction of the cosmos. Without a common “coherent, meaningful” map, humanity cannot work together as a united whole to face the huge problems that are upon us in this moment in history. What is it that can provide that unified map? It is, the author’s believe, a knowledge of the science of cosmology, and how our universe is put together. As I shall write below, I believe their aim is noble and necessary, but in itself is not enough to achieve its vision. Nonetheless the book is such a wonderful excursion through space and time in all its cosmic vastness, that I give it a definite five star rating. It admirably achieves one of its prime aims, to share with the reader the reality that we live in a cosmos of literally unimaginable size, wonder, beauty and complexity.

"Busted": Chapter 23 of "Light"

Chapter 23: Busted  

This is the latest chapter of my online novel, "Light" (Click to read full chapter). Here's a short extract. 

Marcus

Amanda pushed the note towards my face. I could see the words. Angela must have written them on the other side of the paper after giving me her phone number.

“So you won’t mind if I call this number then?” She started to dial.

“No!” I jumped up and lunged at the phone, missed it, and slipped on the floor. Before I knew it I was lying flat on my butt, with one mighty pissed off girlfriend standing over me. It was like a scene from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

“F… you!”

Before I could say another word she was laying into me with fist and foot, screaming. “Get out, you piece of shit!” She started dragging me, then kicking me towards the front door of the apartment. Amanda’s final push saw me flailing into space only to land face forward on the cold, grey concrete floor of the corridor.

“Now f.. off!” The raging hurricane slammed the door shut with a huge bang. I stood up, shaking.

“Sorry.”

I don’t know if she heard me. I doubt it, because it was spoken by the voice of a little boy.

"Oh Wow"! The End of Steve Jobs and the End of Life?

“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” By now you will have ‘heard’ these words, the final utterances of Steve Jobs before he passed away. Job’s sister, Mona, revealed as much while giving a public eulogy. The words made headlines around the world, which can be put down to both the fascination with Steve Jobs the man, and the natural human fascination with - or oftentimes terror of - death.

Yet there was something else in those headlines, wasn’t there? It was something silent, implicit, almost - but not quite - written. Ironically, that silence spoke of the forbidden country where few in modern mainstream media dare to venture: the spirituality of death. No doubt most of the general public were thinking exactly what I was thinking when I read the words. What is it that Jobs was feeling, perceiving, seeing in those final moments of his earthly existence? Was it something transcendental, spiritual, or dare I say, divine?

Most importantly why is it that newspapers could not bring themselves to allow this aspect of Steve Job’s death bed utterances to be openly discussed? How has it come to this point where the spiritual has become so denied, so absolutely taboo, even where it is so blatantly, poignantly present?

"Light", Chapter 22: Dinner and Whine

To read more of Light, go to http://www.lightmysterious.com/

 

It wasn’t the best weekend I’d ever had. Closer to the worst, actually. I spent most of it in my room playing music to drown out the numb feeling that had overtaken me. I tried ringing Amada three times on Saturday morning, but she didn’t answer. What the hell is it with women anyway? Can’t they just get pissed off and get it out of their system like men do? I think I mentioned the bit about me being a sexist bastard. That was one more thing to beat myself up about as I lay there staring at the ceiling.