Emergency

From Symmetry of Soul

Western civilization is experiencing a philosophic emergency today. Civilization is in danger of being lost and a large backward slide occurring on our planet. The 5th epochal revelation (The Urantia Papers) are a revelation given to us to confront this emergency.

The emergency stems from and is associated with the following:

  • Planetary Rebellion and resulting quarantine
  • Adamic default and resulting deficiencies of biologic potentials
  • Michael’s incarnation and the resulting upgrade of spirit ministries of the Spirit of Truth and universal bestowal of Thought Adjusters, in the absence of the normal philosophic uplift provided by a Magisterial Son.
  • Increased spirited mind in the world today. Spiritual idealism is being displaced by material idealism (which is not cosmically sustainable; only material pragmatism is called for).

Also at play is the proliferation of technological advances and rapid dissemination of information requiring a procession of economic adjustments and social changes. These adjustments will take a millennium to play out.

We are told Urantia “...is quivering on the brink of one of it most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment.” This phrase “quivering on the brink” can be interpreted to mean (in a dictionary definition of the term) a crucial or critical point, especially of a moment that results either in definitive success or definitive catastrophe. Immediate success is not guaranteed; reading it that way is an old wineskin.

The emergency is not a spiritual emergency in the sense that somehow more spiritual energy needs to be applied to our planetary problems. Rather, the emergency is the lack of wisdom people are using in directing and deploying spiritual energies today. And wisdom is a product of the experience of tribulation.

The plethora of -isms and ideologies which abound today, each with a narrow focus and scope, testify to a lack of cosmic coherence, to say nothing of their effect in fostering sentiments of division and conflict.

The 4th ER was for the spiritual uplift of the children of God. Recall Jesus’ instruction to Thomas, [161:1.3] “It matters little what idea of the Father you may entertain as long as you are spiritually acquainted with the ideal of his infinite and eternal nature.” The 5th ER comes as a call for children of God to to become adults of God, and to help translate this spiritual ideal of God into better ideas of God.


Powerful -isms at play

<sitting between the nodes on an axis of science, politics, society, and religion>

Over the late 19th and 20th century, these replaced realism.

  • Secularism
    • There is no inner life. There is no eternity.
  • Humanism
  • Positivism
    • A willful negation--with 6th adjutant zeal--of the first (logical) cosmic intuition.
  • Progressivism
  • Marxism
    • A form of government logically playing out philosophic materialism and the Lucifer manifesto demanding absolute universal equality.
    • But actually, an elite corps of administrators become the lords over all the rest, the serfs.
  • Globalism
    • Summed up perfectly by Paddy Chayevsky in the movie "Network."
    • But actually, an elite corps of administrators become the lords over all the rest, the serfs.


No longer in sheltered bays

  • In millennia past, there was less spiritual energy at play on Urantia, and in those more primitive societies.
  • So, the energetics of spirit energy were not able to impinge upon social evolution much.
  • But these days, in the wake of Pentecost and universal bestowal of Thought Adjusters, we can bring spirit energy to bear more easily.
    • Easier now to have an unfortunate directionizing of your true willpower than pre-Pentecost.
    • In our post-Englightenment age of machines, this is dangerous territory for civilization to sail through.
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode


  • Ignorance can now spread like wildfire.
    • i.e., The Internet and our connected global world.
    • It's no longer confined to the playground, the locker room, social cliques, phone-call trees, or a single town/village.
    • Ignorance can even seemingly be given the stamp of authority on the Internet through its popularity or shareability.
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode


Dangerous trend: Nationalizing of regional mores

  • The United States of America was configured to be compatible with evolution
    • Regional mores and even regional laws can evolve naturally over time.
    • That is [Folkways, mores, and morals|folkways can evolve into mores]] and then become codified as laws.
  • But in the name of false material idealismpoor man's unity—regional mores are being prematurely codified into national laws.
    • As if zealous people are trying to usher in the age of light and life, prematurely, by fiat instead of through long evolution.
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode


Dangerous trend: Marriage as mere self-interest and self-gratification

  • Marriage is fundamentally an institution that regulates self-propagation, not self-gratification.
  • It is fine to discuss various legal pairings of individuals so they can satisfy their interests and obtain self gratification. But if those pairings are not fundamentally about regulating self-propagation, and the associated duty to civilization, it is unwise to confuse such pairings with marriage.
  • In [82:3.3] marriage standards are described as a sort of bellweather, or perhaps canary in the coal mine. If they are declining, that suggests the integrity of civil government and the power of the mores both are declining.
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode

Dangerous trend: youthful "you're not the boss of me" becoming conventional wisdom

  • There is nothing wise about unbridled liberty.
  • Society and its elders should know this, and impose restrictions on the naturally rebellious thoughts of youthful teenagers.
  • But when teenagers, or the rebellious teenage mentality, begins to run the show in society, that civilization is in danger of collapsing.
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode


Globalism in a nutshell

[commentary on Paddy Chayevsky's dramatized synopsis]

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!

And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, min-max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression, or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.


Will Things Bottom out and Turn Around Before an Interregnum?

  • Not sure.
    • Some Symmetry of Soul co-hosts are inclined to believe a better day is already dawning.
    • Others see deep corrosion and damage done to our institutions over the 20th century that perhaps only a new dark ages can correct.
    • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode
    • Still others wonder how much we, as transient passers-thru on this world, are called to worry over such things if the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.


Avoiding Despair and Depression on these grave matters

  • Avoid the unity-consciousness thought "What can I possibly do to save this whole planet, now, from utter destruction?"
    • There's nothing but grave depression along that line of thought. And it's not your job.
      • Even Jesus was not trying to save the whole planet, only those who were salvable.
  • Be practical: many on this world will fall. Not in an eternity sense, necessarily, but this is a tough environment. Have no doubt.
  • Remember the long distance view: none—NONE—of the cultural phenomena or religious movements we think are worthy today will survive to the age of light and life on this planet.
    • They're all primitive.
    • Just as species must die off for biological evolution to advance, so must primitive ideas die off.
  • Don't burden your conscience with the gravity of despairing for those species, ideas, and cultural phenomena that must die off as evolution advances.
  • Don't use your budding spiritual consciousness as your mere built-in error and evil detector.
    • That's a primitive usage of it, perhaps an inevitable individual developmental stage. But it is an indulgent usage, and it is one you should aspire to outgrow.
      • Remember the rhetorical question in [195:5.13]: "...why should men dwell so much upon the evil in the world just because it appears to be a fact?"
  • Source: Feb 24, 2015 episode