In the Age of Materialism, it is said that people have their orientation outwards and towards the boundary that separates humanity from the lower orders – the animals and plants – rather than the inner orientation towards Source. And it is within the great depth of materialism that represents the final stage of a grand cycle where the world reaches its ‘extremity of separation’ in a period of remoteness from the sacred impulse. Unknowing and blind to this, the materialist believes they experience no loss because progress has given humanity much more than it ever had, and that material progress shall be their salvation. At such a time, it symbolizes that humankind has reached a limit of distance (an extremity) from its essential nature – from its centre – and thus from its sacred home. And the modern person – especially the product of westernized modernism – has gone so far from their essential nature that they have ceased to think of it or question its existence, and even fabricate and invent a pseudo-truth for its material reality. Many now see these times of deep materialism as representing the ‘eleventh hour’ for humanity; as a decisive moment before a dramatic turn of events in its trajectory. Others, like myself, have referred to these times as representing humanity’s ‘dark night of the soul.’ I wrote the following passage over a decade ago:

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…the ‘dark passage’ that we are now venturing into. This is part of our collective rites of passage: it will shake us, reshuffle and reorientate a great deal of life on the planet; and it will also, hopefully, catalyze and prepare us for a psychophysical transformation. The reorientation required – both psychological and physical – may be far from linear…as we wrestle with the cloak of the old world system that clings onto a modus operandi, refusing to let go without a fight. Despite our glorious, gleaming, polished achievements that the world displays with pride, our current systems (social, cultural, political and economic) are remarkably anachronistic, cunningly deceptive, opaque, and in dire need of renovation. Yet in order to sweep out the brushwood we may be forced to endure a metaphorical, and literal, dark night of the soul. The next 20 years cannot be the same as the last 20 years. Change is upon us rapidly, even if we are not aware of its pace.[1]

We were not aware of the pace as I wrote those words; and many are no more aware now even though that pace has dramatically quickened. At each cyclical renewal we are faced with prophecies of the ‘End Time’ that also throw up images and imaginations of the world apocalypse. Yet such an apocalypse is not a fatality but a revelation – a revealing. It marks the disintegration of one narrated cycle and the emergence of new mythological voices as heralding a departure from the dying throes of an aeon of time. At such a moment, the aftermath of an apocalypse/revealing lies a great expanse where reality itself requires a re-stitching together and reimagining. A new operation of worlding comes into being. There is a change of guard of the architypes: the social-status figures of leaders, politicians, and bankers are replaced by the metaphysician, the mystic, and the prophet.[2]

It is said that the nearness of an end of an era brings with it a sense of otherworldliness. It is at such threshold moments where the veil thins to allow a penetration, a mergence, of energies from various sources, physical and metaphysical. Dimensions start to crossover and intervene; boundaries begin to dissolve.  It is then that the illusion of ordinary, consensus reality is fast breaking down; this very same illusion that shielded many people from infra-psychic incursions. According to philosopher Rene Guenon, the extremity of materialistic beliefs and practices leads to a ‘solidification of the world,’ and it is this solidification that causes ‘fissures’ to open up through which ‘infra-psychic’ forces enter. In other words, humanity is invaded by the specters of its own psyche. The reality of unknown psychic powers, and their influences, from beyond our world has always been part of human knowledge – only that now it comes out from its occult shell and more into visibility. The dissolution of the physical world, its fragmentation, chaos, and disarray, catalyzes the psychic manifestations that represent the phase of the dissolution of the present cycle. The dissolution of the present cycle of materialism only begets a necessary re-creation of the world. The hardening and extremity of corruption of our physical world must also lead to a degree of psychological fracturing if a new psycho-physical environment is to unfold. That is, unless there are cracks within the highly conditioned collective psychosphere of humanity, how can the light get it?

Every human soul is infused with a sense, a knowing, of the Transcendent – a filament or spark of Source – of the Alpha and Omega of all existence. Ignorance of it only exists on this physical, earthly plane, and obscured by the degraded forces of deep materialism. The inner faculty which recognizes this is often referred to as the Heart, and is the human being’s highest faculty – although it lies dormant or slumbering within most people. This is an incorruptible, inviolable element within the human – a ‘supramental organ of knowledge’ – that is beyond mind or intellect. The sense of the transcendent implies an inner urge, longing, or pull to transcend the limitations of this plane of reality. These urges are the signs of the times – the moment of the eleventh hour. The contact with Source energy is available (gives) to those who are aware of it: ‘For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’ (Matthew 25:29). It is at the eleventh hour, from a dissolution to a new beginning, that we understand also the phrase: ‘and the last shall be first.’

[1] Taken from my book New Revolutions for a Small Planet (2012 – Watkins Books)

[2] Campagna, Federico (2021) Prophetic Culture: Recreation for Adolescents. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska