The term “eschatology” is derived from the Greek words “eschatos” (ἔσχατος) meaning “last” or “farthest” and “logia” (λογία) meaning “study” or “discourse.” Thus, eschatology literally translates to the “study of the last things,” signaling its focus on end times and ultimate outcomes.
Searching the internet, typing in “eschatology” will typically lead one first to Christian theology, but if we go to Wikipedia and scroll down through all the other “isms,” or start poking around in “secular eschatology,” or “eschatology and science,” or physics, things really start to get interesting.
The topic, arguably a primary driver in our lives, seems still pretty much the province of the collective unconscious, and just outside the “Overton Window” in most venues.
We do talk about the scary times we’re in from a secular point of view. We pray to science and somehow for a magic collective leap into mature ethics, while having allowed ourselves to become enslaved by infantile thugs, thugs that force us to look at eschatology.
Reminds me of the power of koan study, meant to be unsolvable by the intellect: "Like a red-hot iron ball stuck in your throat, you can’t swallow it, you can’t spit it out, and you can’t leave it where it is"… if you want …
The Christian rapture didn’t happen as predicted, but a lot of you still feel like we’re living in end times. Why is that? Right now - from religion to climate change to doomsday prepping - there’s a lot of talk about the end of the world. And, yeah,…
Pertinent to the topic, and hot off the presses, the “Rapture” is getting a lot of attention in evangelical circles this week. Look up the word, “dispensationalism.”
There seems to be a human trait in some percentage of the population where their egos surpass reality and they believe they are living in a special time. Some believe it will be a special “good” time and others a special “bad” time.
Looking at history, good and bad times go in cycles. Humans as societies grow, mature, become decrepit, then collapse.
When I was a kid in the 1970’s there were all these cool sci-fi ideas that humans would somehow excape this and expand out into the Universe through the power of technology, or turn planet earth into a Gaia - again through technology. Sometime around the 1990’s I think we realized these were just pipe dreams, except for a few developmentally delayed individuals like Elon Musk.
Integral was able to kid itself longer because it is all in the mind. Much like “enlightenment”, it’s difficult for everyone to agree who is and who is not a member of the club. People desperately want their opinions to be “Integral”, so they put forward candidates who share their opinions, regardless of how absurd they might be or how demonstrably non-integral they are.
Since there is no concrete, data-driven method to prove or disprove a person’s degree of “Integral” it all becomes a big perspective criven mess.
Most importantly, I have witnessed a fierce effort to deny that any of this has ever happened before in any community anywhere in the planet at any time. Because Mulligan. In this case the Mulligan is the Internet, which everyone believes makes them more Integral than anyone living before 1990.
There was a time when I dreamed the Internet would do this also. Between the years 2004 and 2014 information was wide open on any topic for anyone willing to learn how to steal it. I myself downloaded hundreds of formerly Esoteric and / or secret teachings. I soon learned that there were a few gems, but 99% were just “we are special and know more than everybody else” networks. Since they were secret, this was never challenged. Very very few of them actually advanced their practicioners into another level of spirituality. Fortunately, these very few were able to advance millions of people who would not have followed them otherwise.
Then came something that early Inernet champions thought was impossible: Control of the internet. Technology advanced quickly to the degree that there is now no portion of the internet that is 100% “free”.
The internet no longer contributes to human advancement towards “Integral”. It has become instead a yoke and a means to impede advancement.
With the Internet no longer advancing but insttead impeding human growth, Integral Theory will have to look and find another mulligan to explain why humanity will magically advance to be different from previous human cycles.
Governor Jerry Brown on Life, Power, and the Future of Humanity (Part 1) - Deep Transformation Podcast