New Revolutions For Small Planet

CHAPTER THREE

Rites of Passage:

Our Collective Near-Death Experience?

[A] mood of universal destruction and renewal … has set its mark on our age. This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially, and philosophically … This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious human within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science … So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of the modern human.

Carl Gustav Jung

Until you know this deep secret – ‘Die and become’ – you will be a stranger on this dark Earth.

Goethe

Something is dying, and something is being born. The stakes are high, for the future of humanity and the future of the Earth.

Richard Tarnas

The rapid cultural rise towards a technological state of mind – a Western-birthed epoch of modernization and scientific technique – is simultaneously in danger of rushing humanity towards an irreversible abyss. We are an infant species that is literally ‘growing up in public’, and thus forced to live out – and hopefully outlive – all our errors and transgressions. As a relatively new addition to our planet, we have passed through consecutive waves of civilization and civilizing processes to emerge at the cusp of a new era: the transition from species infancy to species adolescence. This transition, I argue, will itself involve a collective ritual experience, not dissimilar to the initiation rites of indigenous societies: a species rite of passage. It is becoming increasingly evident that we will need to pass through such an intense ‘initiatory experience’ if we are to continue the evolutionary unfolding upon our terrestrial Earth. Upon this journey we have passed through various phases of socio-cultural organization, energy utilization and communication revolutions. In each epoch these traits have converged to characterize its specific phase; i.e. social organization is intrinsically related to energy use and communication technologies. These reconfigurations have defined social relationships and the temporal-spatial perceptions of the time, which, in turn, influences the way human brains perceive their reality. It has been noted that there has been a general succession from mythological consciousness (oral cultures), to theological consciousness (script cultures), to ideological consciousness (print cultures), to psychological consciousness (electricity cultures).¹ Modern technocultures are very much tied to an underlying psychological consciousness, aided in the last 100 years by the birth of psychoanalysis and a wealth of psychiatric studies and applications. Our modern forms of warfare embody a mixture of ideological consciousness (nationality, religion, etc.) and psychological consciousness (fear of loss/scarcity, need for security, etc.) that have only exacerbated a mental warfare against individuals and pushed us collectively towards a global state of psychosis. In a similar manner philosopher Jean Gebser described the five structures of consciousness as archaic, magical, mythical, mental and integral. We are thus struggling with our mental stage, an unbalanced and overly rational era, until we can be thrust into the age of integral consciousness – the next transformation.

Yet whilst the Earth is in ecological turmoil, humanity is in psychological and spiritual turmoil. As turbulent events on both sides are accelerating exponentially, time is running out in which this almost vertical curve can continue. The natural equilibrium between human and Earth seems to have been lost, and this disequilibrium is now feeding upon a kind of chaotic energy that pushes the situation further out of balance. In the past, human societies managed their time, work and social balance by integrating their activities with seasonal time and movements, whereas our mega-societies have now virtually abandoned these cycles and bodies of knowledge. With this loss of functional cosmology and planet-solar-cosmic rhythm we have glided into a period of technical progress divorced from a grander significance and belonging. The once enchanted human mind, inspired by epiphany, revelation, intuition and cosmic connection, has ventured into disenchantment and what for many is drudgery.

Despite having developed through various stages of consciousness, of states of mind, and having reached the final step in this sequence, we are now desperately in need of leaping into a new mind. In other words, our current psychological consciousness may seem to be a new mind, even a radical mind, yet I argue that it is a mindset that represents a successive growth of the old consciousness; as such, it is the final stage of the old sequence. Just as the octave of the musical scale needs an interval to ‘jump’ to the next pitch, so too does our present octave of consciousness require an interval in which to jump to a new sequence. Our present sequence (which I shall refer to as the old consciousness or old mind) has culminated in creating an artificial context for our present living. Through extravagant use of energy and a leaning towards ‘mechanism’ we have slipped away from the organic flow of an ever-renewing world. In the words of one 20th-century commentator:

The civilization of our time, with its unlimited means for extending its influence, has wrenched man [sic] from the normal conditions in which he should be living. It is true that civilization has opened up for man new paths in the domain of knowledge, science and economic life, and thereby enlarged his world perception. But, instead of raising him to a higher all-round level of development, civilization has developed only certain sides of his nature to the detriment of other faculties, some of which it has destroyed altogether … modern man’s world perception and his own mode of living are not the conscious expression of his being taken as a complete whole. Quite on the contrary, they are only the unconscious manifestation of one or another part of him. From this point of view our psychic life, both as regards our world perception and our expression of it, fails to present an unique and indivisible whole.²

This suggests that we have adopted a lopsided, inharmonious manner of development. Our old mind has spurred the growth of particular physical aspects of life – science, technology, management, control, etc. – to the detriment of a holistic, integrated ‘whole mind’ that incorporates the sustainable, natural cycles of an organic Earth. A shift to alternative cultural forms, one that would serve to place humanity within the dynamics of our planet, is required. We need to adapt to an evolving, changing planet rather than attempting to force a much more resilient planet to adopt an ego-driven, ravenous late-comer species.

Nothing short of a global revelatory experience is required. An experience that would be able to awaken a collective human consciousness towards the grand evolutionary journey ahead: both for our species and for planet Earth. We have moved into our Crisis Window – a period for intense change whereby we are called upon to make the leap from the octave of the old mind (characterized by the pathology of power) to the beginning sequence of a new integral mind (characterized by collaboration and sustainability). For the past several thousand years the human race has defined itself through crisis and calamity, struggle and greed. We have crammed ourselves into conurbations; densely packed city spaces where, daily, we pass thousands of people, with tens of thousands more living within a few minutes of where we are, and yet we each act independently of each other, unaware of our intrinsic interdependence. Individually we act out our differentiated roles, utilizing bonds, networks when we need to, often feeling isolated at the same time. Psychologically we are separated, placed alone in our endeavours, whilst collectively being socially organized and effectively regulated and managed. Such a state of collective existential aloneness (perhaps aloofness?) reflects the old-mind energies of competition and struggle, which is an anti-social psychology and behaviour, and one that is damaging to our planet and may be forced into sudden change. In some ways this state-of-mind behaviour reflects the mythological ‘Fall’ which, as described in Chapter One, supposes an underlying form of subconscious collective guilt. As mythologist Richard Heinberg notes:

As human consciousness lost contact with its internal, heavenly source of power, technology emerged as a power substitute. Its first appearance was as sympathetic magic and as the invocation of spiritual beings to change Nature for human benefit. However, as human awareness became increasingly restricted to the material world, purely mechanical technologies appeared.³

Our relatively modern mechanical-technological societies are in need of an overhaul – a psychophysical transformation – if we are to successfully navigate a global shift/initiation towards a future that is sustainable for the planet.

We are struggling through a corridor of dwindling energy; as we are extending our reach through ever more extensive infrastructures (communication, travel, supply chains, etc.) we are relying more and more upon structures that are energy-intensive. Further, people are racing to reach out to one another whilst corporate and national interests race to control, store, utilize and manage the fundamental resources of civilization. We need to fundamentally alter how we use and manage both our material and psychic energies. It is for this very reason that I state we are heading towards a psychophysical transformation of life on planet Earth.

It is almost certainly a race between an emerging global consciousness (a new sequence of psychic evolution) and major social and cultural disruptions. Despite our modern era of social and human rights, ethnic sensibilities and ethical sensitivities, we have already been pushed to a critical threshold whereby a dramatic, and relatively sudden, change is upon us. Indeed, we may already have reserved our ticket for a collective near-death experience: the shock initiation required for our global wake-up call and psychophysical transition.

Rites of Passage

Michael Grosso echoes the words of Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin when he says that:

… ours is a disintegrating sensate culture on the threshold of becoming a new ideational culture, a culture of higher consciousness. We are, we could say, in the midst of the near-death experience of our sensate civilization.⁴

Although our ‘sensate culture’ (read ‘secular culture’) is beset by the denial of death, the signs of a dying cycle – a death before renewal – are all around us. We have accelerated (exploded) towards the overstretched reaches of our energy-intensive systems. The only alternative available to us, if we do not now wish to face a sudden implosion, is to undergo a rite of passage: an initiatory experience of death and renewal to mark our passage from species infancy to species adolescence. According to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist in near-death studies, the terminal condition is a challenge to growth; it shakes up the basic structure of personality and allows new possibilities of perception and relationship. In a play by Luigi Pirandello – The Man with a Flower in his Mouth – a man emerges from the doctor’s office with a fatal diagnosis; with this knowledge of impending death the man’s world suddenly changes and every small thing has significance. He undergoes a conversion of consciousness: a bleak diagnosis and shock followed by a courageous renewal. Similarly, humanity may be caught up in a forced fatal diagnosis for change as our global civilizations begin to enter their near-death throes. Perhaps ours is a world with a flower in its mouth.

Another way to view the passage of Western civilization is as a preparatory stage towards an initiatory event; a movement geared towards arriving at a rite of passage, a transition period, in which we must encounter a dark period. This dark period is to be characterized by warfare and the nuclear crisis; environmental degradation and the ecological crisis; cosmic alienation and spiritual crisis; to arrive finally at a transformation for individuals, our species, and our planet. It is perhaps a historical encounter with mortality on an epic scale, signalled by spiralling unrest in the collective consciousness of humanity. Just what this encounter will entail cannot be entirely known, yet the signs of global stresses are now becoming increasingly visible: problems with natural resources (fuel, food and fresh water); climatic disruptions; biodiversity loss; deforestation; ocean acidification; loss of agricultural land; chemical pollution of the stratosphere; weakening of the Earth’s magnetosphere, and more. Our initiation encounter is thus likely to place us face to face with the darker, mortal aspects of our existence; with death, disruption, chaos and a crisis of community and civilization. That we have no cultural memory of having encountered such an epochal transition before places us in frightening new territory. As Richard Tarnas states:

Perhaps the fact that our culture does not provide rituals of initiation is not simply a massive cultural error, but rather reflects and even impels the immersion of the entire culture in its own massive collective initiation. Perhaps we, as a civilization and a species, are undergoing a rite of passage of the most epochal and profound kind, acted out on the stage of history with, as it were, the cosmos itself as the tribal matrix of the initiatory drama.⁵

Tarnas goes on to say that as a species we may now be engaged in a race between initiation and catastrophe.

At the same time, however, we do not fully understand the process of initiation – of having to face our dark side, pass through a series of struggles, and emerge the hero. Part of the initiation – the suffering and the inner/outer struggles – is an intrinsic search for meaning; the journey to the underworld and back is not only an external test of fortitude, willpower and determination, it is also a necessary journey to purge and prepare. The ordeal sets us up to emerge after the trial as a matured and, hopefully, wiser being. The collective consciousness of humanity is currently manifesting tremors that are all too often manipulated by social forces into fear and insecurity. Yet we are required to transform our species mind, our global thinking, into a more energized, focused and integral mind-at-large. We are teetering on the edge of the hero’s journey – the descent into the underworld and back – the initiation, rite of passage, our dark night of the soul.⁶ The ‘dark night of the soul’ may involve a personal and collective crisis of meaning, a disorientation (perhaps even despair) where identity of the self is dissolved and renewed. This process has often been depicted in myth as rites of passage. According to famed mythologist Joseph Campbell there are three phases in the rites of passage: separation, initiation and return. The middle phase – the initiation – is the transformative stage, the transitional impulse, the transfiguration, that sets up the way forwards for the return: a return to the world as a renewed force.

Our own global ‘dark night of the soul’ may very well symbolize humanity’s own death–rebirth ritual that shamanistic and indigenous cultures recognize during transitions, such as that from childhood to adulthood; from dependence to independence; from innocence to maturity. By passing through a global initiation period, a mass psychical immersion, we may be provided with the energies and impulses to catalyse a growth in psychical awareness and understanding – a transition from a psychological to integral stage of consciousness. As Duane Elgin says:

At the core of our history as a species is the story of our movement through a series of perceptual paradigms as we work to achieve our initial maturity as a self-reflective and self-organizing planetary civilization.⁷

Elgin believes that we are passing through a series of ‘superheated decades’ from which a ‘new human alloy may emerge’. Yet such fiery decades will see the suffering of millions as destruction and disorder compel us to act against our collective complacency:

Needless suffering is the psychological and psychic fire that can awaken our compassion and fuse individuals, communities, and nations into a cohesive and consciously organized global civilization.⁸

Physical discomfort, distress, anguish and insecurity may have to be the price we pay in order to catalyse integral consciousness and a new planetary era. As Elgin puts it:

Eventually we will see that we have an unyielding choice between a badly injured (or even stillborn) species-civilization and the birth of a bruised, but relatively healthy, human family and biosphere.⁹

A shared psychological trauma combined with a series of profound physical crises may be the necessary requirements – the minimum price of admission – for the global initiatory immersion towards a psychophysical transformation of life on planet Earth.

On a related matter it is interesting to note that in the early to mid 1980s two hypnotherapists in the US – Chet Snow and Helen Wambach – performed a series of hypnotic future-life progressions with groups (in both the US and Europe) consisting of varied age ranges. This experimental project initially began as a means to effect a patient’s cure, then expanded as it became clear that a series of unusual data was being gathered. It began to emerge that nearly all of the patients, when progressed to a future life, witnessed living in a post-disaster scenario. All groups of patients were then progressed to a time much further into the future; again, all accounts were of civilizations that had emerged after a global cataclysm of some unknown type. Snow and Wambach were able to classify 90 per cent of these future scenarios into what they termed as four future types:

1 In-Space Habitats – off-Earth in space stations, colonies, or other planets;

2 New Age Communities on Earth – usually near mountains or the coasts, in natural surroundings;

3 Hi-Tech Urban Centres – usually in domed cities, artificially enclosed centres, or underground;

4 Rural Survivors – in more basic villages with little resources, living amongst the rubble of once-great cities.¹⁰

Whilst this is not a verification of future catastrophes, what it does show, at the very least, is a subconscious concern, or anxiety, about our future. It also demonstrates a potential collective unconscious psychosis that acts to warn us of potential impending worldwide crises. Chet Snow, one of the initiators of the future-life progressions, comments that:

If a species or planetary consciousness does exist, then today’s subconscious premonitions of impending catastrophes … may mirror collective unspoken fears that only drastic, dramatic change can solve our current world order’s many thorny problems.¹¹

Snow goes on to say that in order to choose and develop positive alternatives for our future it is first necessary to face our ‘deeply programmed fears of disaster’; in effect, to step into the underworld journey, struggle through the initiatory event, and return/emerge as a renewed hero.

Somewhat surprisingly this mythological hero’s journey of darkness and return is also mirrored in the now extensively documented cases of individual near-death experiences (NDEs). As in the case of future-life progressions, many people who experienced a close call, to the extent that they had an out-of-body experience as a result of nearly dying (or in some cases being clinically dead for a short period), reported unusual insights. Psychologist Kenneth Ring, who has studied the near-death experience for nearly 40 years, has found that people return from the experience with a changed worldview, often one that leans towards a (re)energized psyche and consciousness. Perhaps, to use the previous symbolism, they returned with a flower in their mouth. In one series of sessions Ring noted how more than 50 per cent (compared to less than 20 per cent of control group) stated that after the NDE they were flooded with more information than they could absorb, and that they also claimed to be able to process new information better than before. There was also widespread agreement across all of Ring’s groups that those who had the near-death experience felt that humanity was in the midst of an evolutionary shift towards greater spiritual awareness and higher consciousness:

… all groups tend to agree that these experiences reflect a purposive intelligence and that they are part of an accelerating evolutionary current that is propelling the human race toward higher consciousness and heightened spirituality.¹²

Ring remarks that the real significance of the ‘extraordinary encounters’ of NDEs may in fact lie in their ‘evolutionary implications for humanity’. Similarly, another NDE researcher, Margot Grey, came to an almost identical conclusion in her book Return from Death:

It would seem that similar physiological mechanisms are operating in both the NDE and kundalini phenomena and that they are both aspects of the same evolutionary force. Taken together, these spectacular instances of transformation add up to a surprisingly large and increasing percentage of the population and might therefore be expected to have a growing influence on the collective awareness of the rest of the species, at both a conscious and subconscious level … It would appear that a new breed of mankind may be about to be born, and that in order for this to happen our consciousness and biological structure is undergoing a radical transformation. What we seem to be observing is a rebirth process which … will eventually culminate in bringing forth an enlightened human being who has knowledge of the life and order of the universe.¹³

These are indeed weighty and profound speculations – that the near-death experience is a forerunner, or part of a grander process, which provides a ‘rebirth process’ that will culminate in the next stage of humanity’s evolution.

These ‘otherworld’ or out-of-body experiences (OBEs), including the hypnotic future-life progressions, all share similar patterns in that the mind-at-large (a phrase used initially by philosopher Michael Grosso), or the collective consciousness of humanity, is working with images/signals that tell of both physical and psychical grand shifts. In other words, the Earth herself may be entering a period of instability and disruption whilst simultaneously catalysing a dramatic, and perhaps unsettling, transformation in human consciousness. The global initiation – our rites of passage – may thus entail a collective near-death experience that will not only affect us physically and psychically but also directly involve our planet Earth.

Our Collective Near-Death Experience

There may still be a lingering unconscious guilt in humankind’s collective mind over some great evolutionary Fall. Myths abound in many cultures that tell of a once utopian Golden Age, where peace and harmony reigned supreme. In some ways the myth of the hero reflects this need/desire to undergo trials and tribulations in order to re-emerge victorious, renewed and re-spirited. The signs and reminders are everywhere in our cultural artefacts, tales/stories/myths, histories and beliefs. Our Earth is scattered with the remains of many long-passed civilizations as if to remind us that this too will pass. We are fascinated with tales of the lost lands of Lemuria and Atlantis; of speculations about lost civilizations at the bottom of our oceans, or even more ancient cultures now washed away with the sands of millennial time. Rather than living in linear time many of us are beginning to realize that the passing of events – terrestrial and cosmic – occurs in cycles. What has gone before may be re-encountered, and thus the signs of past experiences may be of deep value to us.

The Tibetans have an account whereupon humanity is living at the end of a 26,000-year period of darkness, and that this dark period will be followed by a ‘a period of purification’. However, we will first have to face a series of catastrophes and political/social upheavals before the next epoch emerges. This account is remarkably similar to Mayan and Hopi prophecy accounts which both tell of a dark period of upheaval and great change before the next cycle fully materializes. The time frame of 26,000 years is identical to the Mayan calendar which indicates that the ‘Age of Jaguar’, the 13th baktun, or long period of 144,000 days, will come to an end with the fifth and final Sun on 22 December 2012. This time frame indicates a cyclic Great Year; that is, the time required for one cycle of the precession of the equinoxes to be completed, which is calculated to be approximately 25,765 years. According to the Mayan system, 22 December 2012 will mark the ‘switch’ to a new era of planetary evolution, one that requires a radically different kind of consciousness. Similarly, there exist Teutonic Norse myths which state that ‘a renewal of the world would only come after great destruction in which a period of anarchy would arise that would see humans commit many foul acts’.¹⁴

Another example of eras as part of what are called ‘Great Ages’ is the ‘Yugas’ of Hindu philosophy (epochs within a cycle of four ages from Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali). Such ages are known cycles within celestial motion, and within these macro cycles occur significant periods of planetary change. Many commentators speak of present conditions on Earth being under the influence of the Kali Yuga, which is ‘always oppressed by bad rulers with burdens of taxes; the foremost of the best classes will, in those terrible times, take leave of all patience and do improper acts’.¹⁵ It is said that the Kali Yuga will come to an end after much chaos and disruption.¹⁶ This doesn’t seem so different from present conditions today – bad rulers with burdens of taxes! However, as I discuss in Chapter Six, we may in fact already have entered an ascending Yuga cycle.

Biblical accounts, too, abound with times that denote the end of one cycle: ‘For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.’ (Matthew 24:6) Again, not too dissimilar to present global conditions.

These examples are only a few of the many Earth myths that contain references to celestial cycles and cyclical epochs. According to the book Hamlet’s Mill, a work of comparative mythology, there are over 200 myths/folk stories from over 30 ancient cultures that refer to the ‘Great Year’ – the precession of the equinoxes. Celestial calendars have been the central structure for many past civilizations, whose rituals and social lifestyles were arranged in resonance with celestial cycles. It appears that our ancestors were much more aware of cyclic change than we are today, and so the nature of rise and fall, dark and light ages, catastrophe and catharsis, are common themes within the long journey of evolutionary time. Mythologist Richard Heinberg sums up this rise–fall–rise cycle when he says ‘Humanity’s moral or spiritual decline must eventually culminate in a catharsis of cataclysmic dimensions, from which will emerge the seed of a restored age of peace and perfection.’¹⁷

The idea, then, of a planetary near-death experience doesn’t seem so fantastical when placed in the context of cyclical change. It may well be that our current age is experiencing the beginnings of this upswing – a rising cycle, rising mind – and as it does so it must first witness the Earth shaking as the planet passes through its own cosmic spiral as part of the precession of the equinoxes. This begins to make more sense when we put together James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, Jung’s collective unconscious, and the increasing crisis in our ecosystems, biodiversity, geophysical disruptions and climatic variations. The warning signs are all around us, for those with eyes to see, and a mind to care. This is why I use the near-death experience as a metaphor for the transition period we are passing through now, and which is likely to become more distressed in years to come.

Our old mind is one where we wish to intervene with the planet to restore ‘business as usual’; i.e. restoring the planet to how we wish it to be rather than adapting to a planet that is in need of readjustment. As scientist James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, recently put it:

The real Earth does not need saving. It can, will and always has saved itself and it is now starting to do so by changing to a state much less favourable for us and other animals. What people mean by the plea is ‘save the planet as we know it’ and that is now impossible.¹⁸

The old mind is one of the greatest obstacles to successfully passing our global initiation. Indeed, this is no child’s play, no page of poesy metaphors: astrophysicist Martin Rees (President of the Royal Society 2005–10) has publically stated that he considers the odds of our civilization on Earth surviving to the end of the present century as being no more than 50/50. Rees believes that we are currently at risk from both ‘malignant intent’ and ‘misadventure’, citing that the 21st century could be a foreclosure upon the human journey. In his 2003 book Our Final Century he writes that ‘A catastrophic collapse of civilization could destroy continuity, creating a gap as wide as the cultural chasm that we would now experience with a remote Amazonian tribe.’¹⁹ Again, this reminds us of the scenario put forth in Miller’s apocalyptic novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, in which a global catastrophe sends civilization back to the Dark Ages, before it again ascends to technological heights. Lovelock is acutely aware of this possibility, which is perhaps why he has proposed creating a ‘start-up manual for civilization’ including information on how to make fire, agricultural techniques and practices, genetics and technology. This manual would then be distributed far and wide, proposes Lovelock, in order to safeguard some of our treasured knowledge should … should something happen?

A near-death experience may be a sudden event; a sharp shock that literally throws one out-of-the-body and into a terminal phase. In later chapters I will look at some of the factors that may be involved during the transition from the old mind of species infancy to the new mind of adolescence. Yet here I wish to take a brief foray into some of the sudden impacts that might be considered unpredictable and/or unknown, and which could provide a dramatic shock awakening and force a necessary rapid reorganization upon human civilization.

Bio-threats

In 2002 Wired magazine ran an article asking prominent scientists for ‘long bets’; astrophysicist Martin Rees bet 1,000 dollars ‘that by the year 2020 an instance of bioerror or bioterror will have killed a million people’. He countered this by adding – ‘Of course, I fervently hope to lose this bet. But I honestly do not expect to.’²⁰ The issue of bio-threats is a Pandora’s box waiting to be opened. In reality only a total police state could offer hope of protection for a world where no bioweapons were manufactured – and even this may not be possible. The reason is that ‘biological super-weapons’ are so easy to manufacture that they can be created in low-key labs with moderate skill; for example, the Aum Shrinrikyo sect in Japan (now known as Aleph) which released the nerve gas sarin in the Tokyo subway in 1995 killing 12 people. Similarly, we had the mysterious (and never fully explained) anthrax scare in the US after September 2001 where envelopes containing anthrax spores were sent to two US Senators and several media organizations. Five people are known to have died during this amateur, and modest, operation.

Interestingly, only a few months before, on 22–3 June 2001, a bioterrorist attack simulation was conducted, codenamed ‘Operation Dark Winter’. It was designed to carry out a mock version of a covert and widespread smallpox attack on the United States. The scenario involved a localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City which was then designed to spiral out of control. The simulation was then expected to deal with a catastrophic situation as the disease’s rapid spread meant the contagion could not be contained. The mock attack was meant to highlight the consequences of a massive loss of civilian life and the widespread panic, social breakdown and mob violence that would ensue as infrastructures were left unable to cope with the strain.

In what appeared to be another bout of strange coincidence, earlier in the year, in February 2001, a BBC film crew began work on filming a ‘docu-drama’ that they titled Smallpox 2002. The BBC website description – ‘This docu-drama reports on a fictitious attack made by terrorists using the smallpox virus. Starting in New York the virus is ruthlessly carried out by one man travelling around the city.’ As we know, several months later the anthrax scare in the US became a reality, which was not lost on BBC producer Simon Chinn:

We began production on Smallpox 2002 in February 2001. ‘This is not science fiction’, had been our mantra, this could happen. This film is not about a distant future, it’s about tomorrow. Suddenly, seven months later, bioterrorism became a reality and Smallpox 2002 acquired the kind of prescience it had never sought.

The BBC docu-drama dealt with the social consequences of a pandemic and how families have to deal with such issues as martial law and enforced quarantine. It is clear that a well-orchestrated bio-terror attack could have disastrous consequences with a knock-on effect on world markets and financial trading; upon a grand enough scale, it could bring the world to a virtual lock-down.

This scenario is not fictitious, as revealed by top Soviet bioweapons expert Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov (now known as Ken Alibek) who published his memoirs Biohazard in 1999. Before Alibek defected to the US he was the First Deputy Director of the Soviet Biopreparat programme where he oversaw more than 30,000 workers engaged in modifying organisms to make them extra virulent and resistant to vaccines. In other words, his role was in creating the most virulent forms of biological weapons that had no known antidotes.

Biotechnology has been at a stage for many decades where viruses can be engineered, and equipment is now commercially available to manufacture new pathological agents. In 2002 research scientists at the University of New York at Stony Brook assembled the first synthetic virus from scratch by using the genome sequence for polio. The researchers then injected the artificial virus into mice whereby they were first paralysed and then died. What is even more unsettling is that the researchers say they followed a recipe they downloaded from the Internet and used gene sequences from a mail-order supplier. With these possibilities at stake Martin Rees’ 1,000-dollar bet may not seem so far-fetched after all. The situation could also become much worse if knowledge of the human genome were to be incorporated into bio-weapons in order to create targeted DNA bio-weapons. This would be nothing less than ‘genetic genocide’.

The threat of a pandemic ‘scare’ has already been experienced by the media-encircled world through the 2009 swine flu fracas. In this incident a global outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus (commonly referred to as ‘swine flu’, and which appeared to be a new strain) began in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, in March 2009. By June 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declared the outbreak to be a pandemic, despite the relatively few cases of infection. The new ‘outbreak’, however, had the world’s full attention by this time – it was a global pandemic and nations were rushing to secure millions of vaccine doses. Major pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter were racing to get vaccines tested, prepared and shipped out to desperately waiting governments worldwide. On 24 October 2009, US President Obama declared swine flu a national emergency, thus releasing federal powers. However, between March 2009 and August 2010 – when WHO finally announced the end of the H1N1 pandemic – there had been officially recorded a worldwide total of 14,286 deaths. Whilst seemingly sizeable, this is well below the annual average of ‘normal’ flu-related seasonal deaths which is between 250,000 and 500,000 globally every year. The figures from the swine flu 2009 outbreak were well below what should have been designated as a pandemic.

In January 2010 a member of the health committee at the Council of Europe, Wolfgang Wodarg, joined other critics to claim that major pharmaceutical firms had organized a ‘campaign of panic’ to pressurize the WHO into declaring a ‘false pandemic’ in order to make profit for selling vaccines. Whatever the specifics here, it does show that virus outbreaks such as H1N1 swine flu, a variation on bird flu (H5N1), SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), foot and mouth disease, etc., are all in danger of becoming global pandemics due to our human chains of transmission. In a world of high mobility and interconnectedness, localized outbreaks can easily become global threats. It is perhaps only a matter of time before the next mutated virus becomes a ‘near-death’ catalyst for a slumbering mass mind.

Technology Shock

Being integrated makes us vulnerable, not only as human chains of transmission but also as dependent technological chains. We have never been a species in isolation; we have always existed within a complex ecosystem of animal, vegetable and mineral (as the old guessing game used to go). Now we have an added ecosystem which is a technological one. As such, we have co-evolved a world that is entwined symbiotically between the biological and the technological. Philosopher Joël de Rosnay considers that our species is now symbiotic and, as such, information and energy regularly transfers through both biological and technical networks, enmeshing all processes together.²¹ In such a symbiotic world of increased integration and interdependence there is increased potential for disruptive technological shocks:

We are entering an era when a single person can, by one clandestine act, cause millions of deaths or render a city uninhabitable for years, and when a malfunction in cyberspace can cause havoc worldwide to a significant segment of the economy: air transport, power generation, or the financial system. Indeed, disaster could be caused by someone who is merely incompetent rather than malign.²²

The reality of the world is that we are moving from physical interventions-invasions into cyber-warfare and sabotage. This is becoming all too common over recent years with such incidents as the Titan Rain and Estonia cyber-attacks. Titan Rain was the name given to a series of well-coordinated attacks against US computer systems beginning in 2003 which were aimed against sensitive military information. A few years later on 27 April 2007 the cyber-attacks against the country of Estonia (known as the Estonian Cyberwar) crashed, hijacked and defaced the websites of the Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, media outlets and political sites. It was a highly sophisticated attack, considered to have been the second largest instance of state-sponsored cyber-warfare after Titan Rain. That accolade, however, was challenged in 2010 with the arrival of the computer worm known as Stuxnet.

The Stuxnet computer worm, which was first discovered in June 2010, was specifically created and programmed to attack critical infrastructure systems (what are referred to as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems – SCADA). This worm, now dubbed the world’s ‘first cyber- superweapon’ by experts, has infected a high number of critical energy infrastructure systems in Iran, notably its nuclear facilities, as well as a large number of Chinese facilities. One expert digital security company stated that the Stuxnet computer attacks could only have been produced with nation-state support, thus making it a specific cyber-weapon that will lead to the creation of a new arms race in the world.

Imagine a state suddenly having its energy and communication networks crash: electricity networks go offline; all Internet communication is stopped; transportation grounds to a halt as transport networks cease to function. The food would stop reaching the shops, people would be told to stay indoors and not to travel as traffic signals may not be working. Hospitals would revert to generators for power back-up whilst desperately needed medicines may not be distributed to those home-bound. It would create wide-scale panic leading to civil unrest and looting. If the infrastructures were not immediately restored then eventually everyone would turn to fending for themselves. The country would be put under martial law and some areas would revert to tribal organization and brute force. In such complex ‘civilized’ societies it only takes a critical disturbance to create widespread breakdown.

In late September 2010 the US Department of Homeland Security hosted a massive simulated cyber-attack exercise named Cyber Storm III, which is aimed at testing the security of both government and private-sector organizations. The US government has also recently launched a grand programme dubbed ‘Perfect Citizen’ that aims to detect cyber-attacks against private companies and governmental agencies responsible for infrastructures such as energy, transportation and security networks. This shows that the threat to a nation’s critical infrastructures is being taken seriously. In May 2010 Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) officially became operational in the US after several years of preparation. It plans a rapid expansion to ensure that all military computer networks are free from hackers and that military activities are fully protected against cyber-spies. Procedures are also allegedly underway for CYBERCOM to offer assistance to governmental and civilian networks, effectively intertwining military and civilian defence systems.

Similarly, the UK government released its National Security Strategy in October 2010, listing cyber-attacks as one of the most important challenges faced, alongside international terrorism. Following this, the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review explained how Britain will use the new £500-million boost to defend itself against such attacks. The head of Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is alleged to have warned that cyber-attacks against both government and corporate computer systems could be ‘the next Pearl Harbor’.

The rise of cyber-warfare is another aspect of the growing arsenal of ‘silent weapons’ that are filling the technosphere. The technological arms race now includes an array of space-based weapons and electromagnetic pulse weapons that can be operated through an invisible landscape. In this regard we may not even see the near-death experience coming; it will be shrouded in a virtual ether. However, the ensuing technological shock will be all too real, and may be reminiscent of a throw-back to the pre-technological Dark Ages. Our over-reliance upon external, internal, and behind-the-scenes systems may turn out to be our greatest weakness.

Natural Hazards

We may not need to worry about near-Earth objects (NEOs) hitting us, such as asteroids from space that have left us a crater-pocked Earth, since we have our own natural hazards to worry about. Despite the 50 per cent risk of an asteroid impact in this century on the scale of the Tunguska event that occurred in June 1908, we are likely to have concerns closer to home. The Earth is currently experiencing an unpredictable set of geological changes and disruptions, including hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The year 2010 especially highlighted the fragility of the human species upon a dynamic and shifting planet.

Early 2010 opened with a record seismic bang with the earthquake in Haiti on 12 January that was of a magnitude of 7 (on the moment magnitude scale). Due to the geology of the island and its living conditions it suffered a dramatic impact. It has been estimated that 3 million people were affected by the earthquake; a reported 230,000 fatalities; 300,000 injuries; 1 million homeless; and nearly 300,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Such huge figures have made the Haiti earthquake the sixth deadliest earthquake in recorded history – and yet this was soon followed by the fifth strongest since the 19th century. On 27 February an 8.8 earthquake (moment magnitude scale) struck off the coast of Chile causing huge tremors across 80 per cent of the country, and being felt as far away as major cities in Argentina and Peru. The earthquake also triggered a tsunami which resulted in warnings being issued in 53 countries; the San Diego area of California and northeastern parts of Japan were also affected. Chile experienced a blackout for 93 per cent of its population that, for some, lasted for several days. Looting ensued and the military were called in to restore peace and control damaged areas. The year 2010 was surely off to an explosive start – all that remained was for a volcanic eruption to add to the mix.

On 14 April 2010 the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which had had some minor eruptions the previous month, finally bellowed volcanic ash several kilometres into the atmosphere causing havoc and affecting economic, political and cultural events throughout the world. A European air travel ban was put in place causing extensive worldwide travel disruption. The International Air Transport Association has estimated that the airline industry was losing £130 million per day. Fears grew that daily deliveries of food supplies would be affected and that some countries, such as the UK, would experience shortages. Spoilage concerns also disrupted stocks of medications; global transport companies such as FedEx and DHL had to initiate road routes to compensate for closed air space; travel firms reported daily losses in the millions; some car manufacturers and IT firms were forced to suspend production because of interruptions in the supply chain of electronics. Kenya suffered greatly because of its time-sensitive flower export industry which, reported its Flower Council, had to destroy 3,000 tonnes of flowers due to spoilage. On top of this, cultural and sporting events saw widespread cancellations and disruptions; royal and state visits were suspended; and political dignitaries were forced to cancel their travel plans.

From just a few days of cloud ash the world was brought into chaos and upheaval. Not only companies suffered but people were given a brief picture of the fragility of such on-time delivery economies and lifestyles. We expect fresh food on the shelves each day; we expect to step onto an airplane and be halfway around the world in just a few hours; we are used to everything around us being on time, in time, and timely. The Icelandic ash cloud cracked this illusion and revealed, to those who could see, that our global systems may be efficient and convenient yet they are not resilient.

The Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption was estimated to have emitted about 150,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each day into the atmosphere. The US Geological Survey says that worldwide volcanoes release about 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere each year. Natural hazards are often beyond our reach and responsibility, yet they have the potential to throw the world into great tremors and shocks. Such shocks are part of living upon a shifting Earth – a molten-core rock – that is hurtling through cosmic-radiated space. The quicker we grasp this fact the better it will help us realize that security can never be taken for granted. Each day that passes brings our civilization one step closer to a near-death experience through natural hazards. And it may even be a ‘natural’ hazard that is human-made.

Man-made Hazards

We may not need any natural hazards to force us into an uncomfortable rite of passage; it seems we are quite capable as a species of providing the necessary shocks ourselves. Within the industrial period of our technological phase we have had our fair share of disastrous accidents. In truth there are industrial accidents occurring throughout the world virtually all the time; many of these are minor and do not make (or are forced not to make) the headlines. There are, no doubt, countless ‘near misses’ that are left under the radar, and of which the general public know nothing. For the sake of brevity, I shall refer to only a few of the most infamous human hazards that have occurred over the last three decades.

The Bhopal gas tragedy is infamous the world over as being the worst industrial catastrophe to date. On the night of 2 December 1984 the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, leaked a poisonous gas – methyl isocyanate – along with other chemicals. The immediate death toll was in the thousands; and there have since been several thousand more fatalities from gas-related diseases. A government statement in 2006 claimed that the gas leak caused 558,125 injuries in total, including many thousands of partial and permanently disabling injuries. Compensation has never been adequately forthcoming, according to those families affected by the tragedy.

Less than two years later, on 26 April 1986, what is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant accident in history occurred. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) had a series of ruptures when a surge in power output damaged a reactor vessel. The ensuing explosions sent radioactive plumes of smoke into the atmosphere, and then began to drift over large parts of the western Soviet Union, and across much of Europe. It has been estimated that 400 times more radioactive material was released during the Chernobyl accident than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Although relatively few deaths were related directly to the disaster (mostly plant workers and rescue teams), it is calculated that several thousand will ultimately die from cancer-related illnesses.

The aftermath of such hazards is not only immediate but is also longer lasting and farther reaching. In the case of radioactivity it can enter the environmental ecosystems and leave residual traces for many years. Radioactivity enters rivers, reservoirs, lakes and groundwater, leading to contamination of fish stocks and drinking water. Fauna, flora and livestock are also affected, with many forests and local animals dying as a result. Even in Europe many cattle were found to have radiation contamination with some herds having to be kept out of the human food chain. Such man-made hazards inject artificial and unnatural substances into natural ecosystems, adding to an invisible landscape of human pollution and contamination.

This was further shown only three years later, on 24 March 1989, by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the Gulf of Alaska, which has been long considered one of the most destructive environmental disasters. This is not because of the volume of oil spilled, which was between 260,000 and 750,000 barrels, but because its remote location meant the clean-up operation was slow and difficult. The oil spill was eventually to cover 1,300 miles of coastline and 11,000 square miles of ocean. The Alaskan waters are home to a wide variety of organisms, and the massive damage to the environment included the killing of around 250,000 seabirds, 3,000 sea otters, 300 harbour seals, 250 bald eagles and 22 killer whales. The oil spill also devastated the Alaskan fishing industry, leading to bankruptcies and several suicides. The Exxon Valdez disaster remained as one of the worst oil spills in the public mind due to the huge media coverage and exposure it received. This, however, was eclipsed by the BP oil disaster of 2010.

On 20 April 2010 the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig suffered an explosion, killing 11 platform workers, and causing an oil spill that flowed for 3 months from a sea-floor oil gusher. This oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (referred to as the BP oil spill) is now considered the greatest environmental disaster in US history, and is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. It may never be possible to accurately estimate the number of millions of barrels that gushed into the sea over the three-month period, not to mention the huge amounts of chemical dispersants used, most notably Corexit 9500. The Gulf seas may take decades to fully recover from the contamination, with fish stocks being severely affected. Due to the nature of the oil spill; i.e. from a sea-floor blowout rather than a sea-level spill, the longer-term consequences of the disaster may never be fully known. Also, unlike the Valdez spill, media coverage of the BP spill was severely limited and, according to many reports, actively suppressed. What is known, however, is that the spill has caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitat, fisheries, tourism, wetlands and shorelines, and allegedly people’s health.

Bearing in mind the few incidents mentioned here it may become obvious to many of us that we have had plenty of notice – so we can’t say we were not warned! Yet still we have neither awoken nor passed through our global initiation: we are still struggling with species infancy, teetering on the brink of our rite of passage; at the threshold of the underworld. Yet all these incidents have also accumulated within our environments and ecosystems. Whilst we have not yet been overwhelmingly shocked into realization of our crisis window, we will still suffer in the coming years from the damage we inflict today.

The attack on the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 was a wake-up call for many. Perhaps an insecure future of nuclear ‘guerrilla terrorism’ will provide the final alarm: so-called ‘dirty bombs’ (conventional bombs coated with plutonium) placed in crowded urban centres. With plutonium/uranium more or less ‘easily’ available on black markets, it is a plausible scenario. Again, as Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society (2005–10) states:

… in the twenty-first century, humanity is more at risk than ever before from misapplication of science. And the environmental pressures induced by collective human actions could trigger catastrophes more threatening than any natural hazards … New sciences will soon empower small groups, even individuals, with similar leverage over society. Our increasingly interconnected world is vulnerable to new risks; ‘bio’ or ‘cyber’, terror or error. These risks can’t be eliminated: indeed it will be hard to stop them from growing without encroaching on some cherished personal freedoms.²³

Indeed, individuals and small groups are empowered like never before with the misapplication of science, the crowning gems from our technological age. With such potential catastrophes we may find the human species being thrown suddenly into a collective psychological near-death experience. After all, we are doing it to many of the species with which we share the planet. Before the arrival of homo sapiens one species in one million became extinct each year; now it is closer to one in a thousand. Some are directly killed off whilst many other extinctions are due to human-induced changes to habitat or from the introduction of non-indigenous species into the ecosystem by human intervention. Global biodiversity is now being eroded like never before through interventionist practices, whether knowingly or otherwise.

Dr John Alroy, a palaeobiologist from Macquarie University, recently compiled data from nearly 100,000 fossil collections worldwide, tracking the fate of marine animals during extreme extinction events some 250 million years ago. His findings, which were published in the international journal Science, showed a major extinction event was currently underway that had the potential to be more severe than any others in history. Geological records show that there have been five great extinctions within Earth’s known history. Of all the species that ever existed, fewer than 10 per cent remain on Earth today, so it may be that the human species is bringing about its own near extinction – its collective initiation into an uncomfortable yet very necessary rite of passage. We are, it seems, fast approaching the end of our childhood.

Childhood’s End

Our human collective mind has been full of creative ideas concerning the progression to the next stage of evolutionary consciousness for a long time. It appears we are all tapping into a creative vision that exists as a non-physical shared mind. As the interconnectivity of our global species intensifies, it is as if this convergence will push us to another level. This idea has become popular through the writings of the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who in taking Vladimir Vernadsky’s notion of noosphere, conceptualized the emergence of a shared mind through the increasing interaction of human minds. Just as the biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems, the noosphere would represent the sum of all human shared minds. This would emerge as the organization of humankind becomes ever more complex, and social networks ever more intricate and expansive. Of course, with the dramatic and sudden rise of the Internet, ideas about the noosphere are now rampant and popular. They also represent the concept of a global brain which, according to systems-philosopher Ervin Laszlo, is ‘the quasi-neural energy – and information – processing network created by six and a half billion humans on the planet, interacting in many ways, private as well as public, and on many levels, local as well as global.’²⁴ Both concepts are alike in that they express the notion of an emerging planetary consciousness which, it is speculated, would be the natural state of our evolving species mind.

For Teilhard, the natural law of complex systems indicates that all life, including the universe, is developing/growing towards ever greater integration and unification. This, Teilhard states, will eventually culminate in a point of singularity, what he calls the ‘Omega Point’. The trajectory of evolution, therefore, is towards an ultimate unification of all mind/consciousness. At an earlier stage, however, is the formation of a planetary consciousness, which is more akin to the global brain concept. The further integration of human civilization is often supported by the exponential increase in information (since information is itself a form of energy). In 2005 experts noted that information generated was doubling every 36 months; in 2007 this had accelerated to doubling every 11 months. On 4 August 2010 Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated at the Techonomy conference that every two days we are now creating as much information ‘as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003’, and most of this new information is ‘user-generated content’; i.e. it’s the information that the people create themselves and add to the digital world. A recent study by IBM concluded that as of 2010 the amount of information is now doubling every 11 hours. With these statistics, it does appear that our global digital civilization is moving towards some form of informational ‘Omega Point’ (or ‘singularity’). Creative minds have, however, seen this more as a singularity of mind-consciousness rather than physical information.

Science-fiction is the realm that contains perhaps more representations of the collective evolutionary mind than any other medium. Olaf Stapledon’s writings have the recurring theme of a ‘supermind’ that is composed of many individual consciousnesses. His most famous novel – Star Maker – has as its central idea the formation of collective minds from many telepathically linked individuals, as well as the linking with higher collective minds of planets, galaxies, and eventually the cosmos itself. One of the most well-known science-fiction writers, Arthur C Clarke, wrote a popular book titled Childhood’s End which depicted all the Earth’s children eventually displaying psychic powers. A race of technically superior beings – the Overlords – are sent to Earth to protect and guide the Earth’s younger generation as they evolve beyond their material bodies and eventually merge with the universal ‘Overmind’. In a similar manner, the narrative of Doris Lessing’s The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 involves a planet undergoing an ice age that eventually covers the whole planet and destroys its civilization and peoples. However, as the final ‘representatives’ of the planet journey to the pole in their final endeavour, their physical bodies die but their conscious minds transcend and merge into a single collective consciousness that becomes the planetary mind and thus its final collective representative for the now frozen planet.

Psychologist and near-death expert Kenneth Ring sees such creative visions as heralding the shamanizing of modern humanity – that is, helping to develop ‘our latent capacities for imaginal perception’.²⁵ The human capacity for exercising ‘imaginal perception’, for creative visions, may indeed help our species to experience – or endure – the ‘shamanizing process’ of our global rites of passage towards a more functional planetary mind. Philosopher Michael Grosso also notes how a new type of species mind arises out of critical times, amid the collective possibility of annihilation; in other words, the threat of species death catalyses the rise of a species ‘mind-at-large’.²⁶ The transition to a planetary mind, a more evolved state of human consciousness, will be crucial for the continuation of our species upon Earth. As Vaclav Havel pointed out in 1991 in a speech to the joint session of US Congress:

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better … and the catastrophe towards which this world is headed – the ecological, social, demographic, or general breakdown of civilization – will be unavoidable.

A more empathic mindset is needed for our planetary future; an empathic consciousness that recognizes the evolutionary process and acts responsibly in light of this perception.

The future is more likely to drive towards a singularity of mindset than a technological singularity, as when the finite energy sources upon our planet dwindle we will be required to increase the psychic potency of our collective thinking. It is this transition that will be discussed in the following chapters. So far, the first part of this book has dealt with the formation of our current mindset, and how our modern technological state of mind has now brought us to a critical impasse. We have now entered the crisis window, the transition phase – that heroic journey into the underworld – where we will be forced to experience a shamanic initiatory experience, perhaps a near-death experience, before we can emerge as an adolescent species with a new, more mature mind. Until we reach that stage, however, we will have to struggle with the death throes of the old mind, as old systems cling to power and global infrastructures attempt to remain in control of a world in transition.