Anthropogenic global warming is all the rage these days. It's become a dogma of the modern world, to dissent from which marks you out as a bad person and this means that most people don't even bother to investigate whether there is any truth in it. If you do investigate you see that the jury is still out and that, even if it is true, it may not be such a cause for concern as it is depicted. This clearly points to an underlying agenda. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that.
So I can't bring myself to be too excited by the idea of climate change. The climate is always changing, it's been warmer in the past and the contribution of human beings to CO2 in the atmosphere, though increasing to a large degree, is still a tiny proportion of what the normal processes of Nature shove up there. On the other hand, I am deeply concerned by something else that, for me, is far more serious and almost completely unrecognised. That is AGM, anthropogenic global materialisation.
What is this? Well, one way to describe it is as a general thickening of human consciousness as it detaches itself from acknowledgement of the spiritual world. This leads to the mind becoming enclosed within itself instead of open to what lies beyond itself, and a separation of the earthly human being from its roots in a higher reality. This, in turn, leads to human beings constructing a new and false reality to which they then have to conform, and that eventually leads to madness and destruction. The materialisation I speak of refers to the environment which, in response to the mind, actually becomes more opaque, more material, less able to serve as a veil to the spiritual. For you can see through a veil but you cannot see through a wall. And that is what we are doing, turning the material world from an opening to and reflection of higher realities to a barrier, an impenetrable barrier for most people, to them.
Mankind is a co-creator with God of the world. God creates the world but man then affects it through his thoughts and actions. When these turn to higher things, the outer world changes to reflect that. When they turn to lower things, material things seen as existing in their own right and impulses deriving from that attitude regarded as right and proper, the outer world solidifies. It grows a kind of crust not only to our perception but also in reality. To slip into New Age speak for a moment, its vibrations are lowered. We fall into a vicious circle with outer and inner both confirming, supporting and strengthening each other, and thus descend into ever greater spiritual loss.
The human impact on the environment, by which I mean not just the natural world but mental levels too, actual thought, does not discount the universal materialisation that takes place at the end of an age. But it adds to it. It will affect us all which is why this is no longer an age of miracles and the spiritual path, even when followed, does not offer the illuminations it used to. In Hindu scripture it is said that in the Kali Yuga it will be considered enough just to repeat God's name, so trying will be the conditions at that time. This idea is rather similar to the Jesus Prayer. However, God is still there if we turn to him. We may not feel his presence or not often but that is a test of our faith in a time of darkness and those who stay firm to the truth will win through. To quote a saying from The Imitation of Christ I've long been fond of, "You are not making progress if you receive God's grace but you are making progress if you bear the withdrawal of grace with patience, humility and resignation". The period of the withdrawal of grace is now. This is a test of the authenticity of the heart. It's easy to be spiritual if you spend your time in contemplative meditation, bathed in bliss. It's not easy when times are hard but that marks out the real lover of God from the one who just wants the gifts he has to offer.
Global warming, climate change, whatever it's called, is just a distraction from the truth. It's the hardening of the human heart and the effect this has on our spiritual and even physical environment that is the real problem. It's the materialisation of the world caused by the darkening of our minds that we should be worried about.
It's not AGW, it's AGM. Another example of the modernistic inversion of reality.
6 comments:
I'd be cautiously more accepting of the reality of man-made climate change, personally - based mainly on the evidence of the desertification of formerly arable land and on the loss of polar ice. As for direct personal experience supporting local climate change (aka'weather'), there has been little to suggest a pattern in the annual fluctuations.
But I share your criticism or hesitancy about the issue overall - largely as most of the proferred solutions seem to tend towards continuing and increased artificial engineering of the natural world, whatever the cosmetic shift in emphasis.
David Bellamy several years ago opined that habitat and species loss were the real danger the world was facing rather than climate change, and he was banished as a result. Which lends support to the hunch that there is an agency within the climate-change movement whose intentions are quite other than they claim (and if anthropic climate change is real, they don't appear to intend stopping it).
There is something readily noticeable, though, (which comes back to the main point you were making) - the alteration in the natural world caused by the increasing of industrial or otherwise unnatural environments - not just roads, factories and concrete, but the mental or spiritual underpinning behind them. The abstraction of mankind's purposes & designs that accompany the divorce from the greater spiritual world and the spiritual world as it incarnates in nature not only ossifies the human mind but seems also to have a corresponding effect on the natural world itself. It appears to shrink and withdraw in some way - not solely in terms of the measurable effects of human action but in some manner both more subtle and powerful. There seems to be both a contraction in our finer perceptual capacities and also in the Earth's disposition to enchant.
"the desertification of formerly arable land". Statistics i've seen based on NASA satellite images show that the earth is getting greener due to the beneficial qualities of CO2 for the plant kingdom. But that's not really my point here. I'm not arguing about the whys and wherefores of climate change just questioning whether it is as much manmade as claimed and also wondering if it matters that much anyway. And I'm certainly not saying that our destruction of the environment is not important but that's a totally different matter, nothing to do with climate change..
But what I'm really saying in this piece is that I believe the quality of our consciousness is actually making matter either seem or even be more material. It's becoming denser. I'm not saying that we create reality. Reality is as it is but we can have an impact on it through our minds and what we are doing at present is causing the material world to close in on us. We are literally cutting ourselves off from higher reality and that means we are living in an illusion of our own making. Your last few sentences sum it up.
@William - "Mankind is a co-creator with God of the world. God creates the world but man then affects it through his thoughts and actions. "
Yes, I agree. A primary truth.
"this is no longer an age of miracles"
Yes - but not because there are no miracles happening; but because Mankind refuses to recognise miracles - and will *always* explain-them-away as delusion or fraud, or coincidences.
All that needs to happen for this era to become an age of miracles, is for us to live by a perspective that acknowlegdes the possibility.
Of course, we will probably not be able to convince 'other people' of the reality of these miracles - and it is best not even to try. But our personal lives may be (when we are living them well) miraculous, IF we choose to acknowledge the fact.
"Mankind refuses to recognise miracles". That's exactly it. When we close our minds we actually start to form a barrier between ourselves and the real world.
AGM. Anthropogenic global materialism. I like this term.
I hope it gains traction in the world! (Of course, like you, I don't care for what it describes, but I do hope more people become aware of its harmful effects.)
The acronym is just facetious really but the thing itself is very real.
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