The Spiritual Reformation of Civilization and Other New Age Bullshit

I know I just said to burn the libraries, but I’ve got to recommend this new book, As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial a graphic novel by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillen. It’s AWESOME! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll…get really angry. I confess sometimes (once a year or so) I wonder if I’m wrong about this whole civilization thing because how can I (and my small group of compatriots) be the only ones who clearly see what’s going on. Maybe there is some point to it. Maybe it is all part of some cosmic plan and the year 2012 will usher humanity into a “planetary transformation, a massive shift in human consciousness, and the movement into a new realization of being on the Earth.”(1) Heck, maybe that plan will even include a new and improved civilization.

In one part of the novel a bearded hippie says, “What we’re experiencing is a result of what is going on within ourselves. We’re the solution, as well as the problem, as well as the creators of the problem. Meditation is key. The infinite source of all reality will solve the earth’s dilemma. This will change the world. I invite you to try it with me.”

He is then shown sitting on a stump chanting, “Before me peaceful. Behind me peaceful. Above me peaceful,” as a logger chops down trees all around him.

For awhile I was in an abusive relationship and it turned me into kind of a new age/self help nut. Embarrassingly, I actually believed in stuff like the above statements. But it didn’t help me. In fact, I think it made things worse (although that is the time I really started reading Tom Brown Jr. …hmmm). Like the bearded hippie I believed that if I could just think the right thoughts all the scary bad stuff would go away. I wanted very badly to be enlightened, whatever that means.

Anyway, I gave up thinking about all that for a good many years or, more accurately, experienced a hostile backlash to it. But lately, because I’m desperately sick of feeling sick all the time, and thinking about starting a Reiki practice, it’s been on my mind again. Is energy healing for real? Do I believe in past lives or shamanic practices like soul retrieval? What is the point of my miserable life anyway? Is civilization really going to collapse? Why does civilization exist? Naturally, I’ve tuned to the Internet for answers, particularly revisiting some of the classic prophecy and new age explanations surrounding the coming collapse/transformation.

Speaking of liars, Tom Brown Jr. (j/k Tom, I’d still be your concubine if you’d teach me everything you know (2)) has disconcertingly, or providentially, depending on how you look at it released the descriptions for a new series of yet to be scheduled (but already full) classes at the Tracker School:

Preparation for the Exodus

Grandfather said that when the 3rd Prophecy comes and the sky turns red, “the children of the Earth must run to the wild places and never return to the places of man”. So, the question is not “will it happen?”, but “when will it happen?”, and “will I be prepared?” In this class I will tell you about my own personal preparations for the migration into wilderness. I will also describe in detail, what I will take with me, where and how I will live, and how to avoid the wars and hunting that will follow. Most importantly, this class teaches what you can do now to prepare physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, for the inevitable end.

Preparing for the 3rd Prophecy

I so often tell my classes that if the end of this world comes and you have taken the Standard Class you stand a good chance of survival. If you have taken the Advanced Standard and Advanced Tracking and Awareness Classes you will stand and even better chance of survival. But if you take the Scout Class, “you will survive”. This class deals with the way the Scout will live when all around are dieing. Unlike my regular Scout Classes, this class will address a new set of rules and circumstances that veer sharply from the normal Scout training. Not only will the modern Scout have to avoid the human predators, but also the new enemies of diseases, chemicals, and pollution, that will affect most parts of the Earth.

Chosen Destiny

As Grandfather once said, “the future does not exist, for there are only possible and probable futures. It is the choices we make now that determine which possible future unfolds into the probable future”. In the same context as the future, we do not have a pre-determined destiny, a master plan for our lives, because the Creator has given all of us a choice. Therefore, by making the right choices now we can positively effect our probable destiny. However, I warn all of you who are thinking of applying, this class is both difficult for me to teach and for you to understand. In the final analysis, however, I feel that it is a necessity, especially as we near the end of life as we know it in this world.

For those of you know aren’t in the know the prophecy says that the collapse will be marked by a series of events (the first two have already happened) but is preventable until the skies turn red (the third prophecy), at which point people will have one year of peace to prepare. Then they must go into hiding for 10 years during which violence and disease will ravage the planet . Only the children of the earth will survive (the fourth prophecy) (3). Personally, I’m a red sky prophecy agnostic. I mean, a whole year to prepare if it does happen? Awesome. But it makes you think, will the red sky prophecy coincide with 2012 or is Tom Brown, knowing that the connection will be made, simply releasing these classes at this carefully calculated time to prey on the mounting fear surrounding that date. Genius!

If the latter is the case then popular blogger, Jennifer Shepard of Lipstick Mystic might just be right:

The Apocalypse is the biggest mind-&$%# ever created. It exists as a Luciferian “insert”, a holographic piece of programming that has wormed itself into every society, every religion, every culture, and perhaps even, into our very DNA.

And it is a manipulation. A diversion. A false path of thought. It’s been with us for us so long that nobody even questions it anymore. The great deceiver is right in front of us, buried in disaster prophecy. (4)

But not all apocalypse discourse is focused disaster (not to mention that one mans disaster is another mans dream). The 2012 theories range the spectrum. While some do see nothing but horrendous suffering:

I explained abundantly clearly that life after a polar reversal is nothing but horror, pure unimaginable horror. All securities you presently have at hand, like – amongst others – food, transport, and medicines, will have disappeared in one big blow, dissolved into nothingness. As will our complete civilization. It cannot be more horrifying than this; worse than the worst nightmare. More destructive than a nuclear war in which the entire global arsenal of nuclear weapons has been deployed in one blow. Are you grasping the facts?

The earth will be subjected to total destruction. It will be many times worse than my description. Terrible hunger, cold and pain, and more will rule your daily life: without hope of a quick recovery, because all knowledge and resources will have been completely destroyed. That will be the reality of your daily life after the forthcoming polar reversal. And it is in this scenario you will have to try to survive. (5)

Many have a more hopeful view of the future. The peaceful New Ager’s version of the future often comes with the promise of a weird sort of psychic technoutopia, Atlantis style. I have heard among other things that people will:

-no longer have to go to the bathroom
- have perfect control over the weather
- be able to teleport
-travel throughout the galaxy

Obviously, this is supported by scientific evidence:

It seems that our entry into the magnetised plasma band will cause Earth weather changes, and a geomagnetic reversal, which will trigger the pineal gland into DMT and pinoline production, leading to kundalini and out-of-body experiences and increasing incidents of telepathy, while we develop our ability to see beyond the veil and into the next World. (6)

One well-known author on the 2012 prophecy, Daniel Pinchbeck, still comes at it from the spiritual evolution perspective, but doesn’t make any specific promises when he states:

I don’t think it is about going “back to the garden” but forward to a new state of being that will be the garden but at a higher octave of realization. I see the psychic evolution as crucially important, pointing toward a more psychic state of being—we may do global psychic works to put the climate system back together, like the Hopi raindance on a mega-scale. (1)

I suppose that’s not too far fetched considering the governor of Georgia has recently ordered his constituents to pray for rain. Pinchbeck concludes his interview with:

…so either we devour the planet and reach species burn-out, or we move into a sustainable model that will naturally incorporate elements of tribal culture—as indigenous people have created models of sustainability, and also nonhierarchic social organizations, social design based on fractals, communal decision-making structures that work, systems of subsistence agriculture that don’t poison the land, effective ceremonies for visionary and psychic purposes, etc. I see a global retribalization as the way to go, if we don’t want to go.

Funny, because this version is basically exactly the same future rewilder’s envision, one just like our past…except it seems to imply even more cool psychic stuff, and hints that the old ways can be blended or “incorporated” into modern civilization. To his credit Pinchbeck attacks the Pollyanna crowd saying, “The whole spiritual abundance” mentality of The Secret, Chopra, etc has created an unappealing culture based on ’spiritual materialism’–we should be thinking sufficiency, not abundance.”

If you don’t know The Secret. It’s on YouTube in like 9 parts. The first part pretty much covers it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1GKGWJbE8

Basically it says the universe is a big catalog and you can have anything you desire if you just think about it hard enough and if you get in a car accident it’s your own fucking fault. There are plenty of other videos on YouTube making fun of this video so I don’t have to. Even if the “law of attraction” is that simple this film makes no mention of responsibility to other people or the planet. No worries, the globe is your personal smorgasboard, where you can choose to live as a king or an ascetic, as an artist or a cobbler, in China or in Canada, and to dine on tilapia or…or…cod, since all the other fish will probably be dead seeing as how while we’re all waiting for the planetary shift to take place species are going extinct at a rate of, at the very least, 50 per day. It doesn’t offer any explanation as to how we could support six billion people all getting everything they want, other than flashing some footage of poor but happy Africans and chuckling, “luckily, we don’t all want the same things.” It makes total sense then that one of the featured speakers, who has indeed become rich, has been exposed for cheating investors out of their money.

Sigh. Fundamental Christianity is bad enough, but it seems that nearly all “alternative” spiritual conversation in this culture is twisted towards personal wealth and power (or alternatively toward poverty and detachment in return for rewards in the next world or life). Just take a look at this list of supposed benefits of “DNA activation”, a practice advocated by many energy healers:

* WRINKLES WILL FADE
* MORE HAIR GROWTH
* INTUITION WILL INCREASE
* HEAR & SEE THINGS MORE CLEARLY
* WEIGHT WILL STABILIZE
* SKIN WILL TIGHTEN
* NAILS GROW FASTER
* YOUR PERCEPTION IS HEIGHTENED
* YOU WILL WANT MORE WHOLESOME FOODS
* YOU WILL BE MORE CAREFUL OF THE FRIENDS YOU CHOOSE
* EXPERIENCE A “CLEANING UP & CLEARING OUT” PROCESS

How do you think it compares to Botox, I mean, pricewise?

A different, but still unsatisfying, explanation for all this madness is that our life on earth is part of a greater cycle, one that is largely beyond our control. Hindu philosophy at least doesn’t have a hard on for modern technology:

Rather than perceive past and future from a purely linear point of view, the great adepts, and masters of these ancient spiritually based traditions, knew that the flow of time and human experience is not linear but cyclic. In other words, in the same way that we as human beings experience the ebb and flow of cycles such as the seasons of nature, the phases of the moon, birth, growth, maturation and death, humanity, as a whole, experiences the rise and fall of a larger cycle of existence known as the Maha Yuga. This Maha Yuga or Great Cycle is composed of four ages known as the Satya Yuga, or Golden Age, the Treta Yuga or Silver Age, the Dvapara Yuga or Bronze Age and the Kali Yuga or Iron Age… (7)

Is it coincidence that according to this philosophy the last Golden Age ended 12,000 years ago, precisely where our archaeologists place the beginning of civilization? But “No!” you splutter, “They don’t mean paleolithic people, no, there were fairies! extraterrestrials! hobbits! Atlanteans! Vegans! The acheaological record has been destroyed! Surely, these were the people they meant! Anyone but cavemen!

…The teachings state that as this cycle begins, the world and all of its inhabitants are totally aligned with deep spiritual principles, the natural world and shimmering realms of Divinity. It is a time of unity, splendor, grace and luminosity. However, as the cycle unfolds and these Ages metaphorically progress, from gold to silver to bronze to iron, the bulk of humanity moves further and further away from this pure, unsullied, essential knowledge and experience of spirit. As time moves on, there is a gradual distancing from the Primordial Source and descent towards an age of total materialization and concretization. With each successive Age, faith, integrity, and allegiance to spiritual values is decreased by one-fourth. The veils between the realms of spirit and matter become thicker, and our resistance to the forces of darkness becomes weaker. By the final Age of the cycle, the pure light of spirit is all but extinguished. Only a quarter of the original Divine energy of truth, virtue and integrity remains and even that energy diminishes with the unfolding of the final Age. This final stage of the cycle, in which we now reside, is known as the Iron Age. According to the texts, it is the Age our race has lived in for at least 6000 years. It is the period of time known to us today as history.

Yeah. Exactly.

Anyhow, back to the original topic, what Jensen’s new book reminded me is that while we sit and debate about what the future might hold, and why we are here THE EARTH IS DYING. Catastrophic collapse, willing transition, planned cycles, spiritual transformation, back to the garden, or business as usual, any way you cut it we have a responsibility RIGHT NOW to each other and to future generations to stop the madness.

Both physical and metaphysical evidence indicate that the shit it going to hit the fan soon and I still don’t think civilization is redeemable, but you know what? It doesn’t matter, I mean, to me. I have been interested in primitive skills since long before I was a primitivist. As a teenager I read Bradford Angier’s How to Survive in the Woods and daydreamed about going to Tracker School before I knew shit about the environment or anything. I’ve never really wanted to be a rock star or an international jet setter with a solar power mansion filled with great art. Even if I could have those things without destroying the environment, and without a slave class, all I’ve ever really wanted is a cozy little house in the woods, a family, maybe a community.

These days I’d still rather be a hunter gatherer than have a career no matter what the rest of the world does (although I know now that it doesn’t quiet work that way, because civilization doesn’t allow for alternative ways of living). What I’ve finally realized is that preparing for the apocalypse and working to alter the course of things to prevent one are the SAME thing. Rewilding and learning primitive skills isn’t indulging in disaster consciousness or neglecting our free will to prevent these prophecies from occurring as Jennifer Shepard would have it. It’s about learning how to live sustainably, happily, and healthily. I win either way! Teaching other people these skills both prepares them for a future crash and brings them closer to the land in a way that causes them to question and therefore alter our current culture. Perhaps this is what Tom Brown Jr. has known as along. That and that fear sells! Viva la apocalypse!

1. We Need A Spiritual Revolution: A Conversation With Daniel Pinchbeck
http://anuran.net/2007/06/we-need-spiritual-revolution.html

2. Name of a Facebook club I started years ago. I am still the sole member.

3. Read the full red sky prophecy here: http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/redskies.html

4. Chaos Elementals and End of the World Consciousness:
http://www.lipstickmystic.com/articles/articles112804.html

5. Pole Shift and Pole Reversal in 2012: http://survive2012.com/geryl1.php

6. Beyond 2012 Catastophe or Ecstacy: http://www.2012theodyssey.com/articles-beyond.html

7. Tolkien at the End of Time: Alechemical Secrets of The Lord of the Rings:
http://www.jayweidner.com/JayTolkien1.htm