Comments

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  Willi Paul February 16, 2013 at 4:09pm

  "apocalypse ... is made possible today by the internet and mass media." But the post-apocalypse may not have the internet as many see the grid going down for most users. I posit that we will create tribal communities in a "return to permaculture fields and cob fired ovens." And yes, a three phase future. I agree Ed, that this vision is deterministic and narrowly defined. It's a start at a conversation?
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  Jerry Kurtyka February 16, 2013 at 3:08pm

  Another way to define apocalypse is "unveiling".  Recall the scene in Oz when Toto (instinct?) pulls aside the curtain revealing to Dorothy that Oz is just an old carnival barker. This happens when people come to see the real game that is being played out behind the curtains of power, when leaders are exposed for the frauds many of them are. Heroes, too, as we learn of Lance Armstrong"s stellar career being driven by doping.  I would call apocalypse a populist consciousness and it sure is happening today!  

  In the gospels, Jesus said, "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops (Lk 12:1-3).  This, too, is apocalypse and made possible today by the internet and mass media.  Errant televangelists, politicians and generals are particularly susceptible to its influence.  All reasons why I think apocalypse is the myth of today. 
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  Ed Koffenberger February 16, 2013 at 1:04pm

  Willi,

  Your link sent me to the three phase future. For me, it seems a bit deterministic and narrowly defined. Having gone through any number of different cultural end-times and global transformational periods without much change (and admittedly I may not be seeing change through my own clouded eyes), I wonder if in the act of seeing these changes the greater majority of folks have resisted the very process of change so that those change ideas arrived DOA or at least so weakened that they did not create a strong enough symbol to inspire change. Not that the transformation isn't coming, its just going to be agonizingly slow for those who have already glimpsed a brighter day.

  Your religious symbols below provided a wonderful spiritual Rorschach test for me. Checking to see if any of these symbols still held any numinous "draw."

  The only earlier image that caught my attention and filled me with dread was the Monsanto ad. The scarecrow wasn't from the Wizard of Oz but The Children of the Corn.
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  Willi Paul February 16, 2013 at 8:46am

  "Apocalypse is our new myth..." I call it the Chaos Era. Wonderful fodder for this group! 

  How does solo or collective fears fuel new mythologies?

  
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  Jerry Kurtyka February 16, 2013 at 8:38am

  I have an article from 2004 called, "What is the Archetype of the Apocalypse all about," Written by William Van Dusen Wishard. In it he makes the case that when you poll Americans it looks as if the traditional god-image is alive and well.   But when you look at our actual culture it is increasingly secular and without reference to the values and norms of the Judeo-Christian god-image, our core myth.  Wishard thinks that we (and really the whole world) are undergoing a new process of relationship to the Self or god-image, which he calls the archetype of the Apocalypse, i.e., Apocalypse is our new myth until this whole process is done. 
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  Willi Paul February 15, 2013 at 5:04pm

  Welcome Jerry - I think each of us needs to create a meta-myth that guides us. I see a lack of preparedness not a lack of consensus per se. 

  See:

  Journey to Cascadia: Building a New Global Mythology. For 2012 Study of Myth Symposium Work Shop
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  Jerry Kurtyka February 15, 2013 at 3:29pm

  To what extent do you think that our current national malaise - the whole Red State vs Blue State thing - is about myth or the lack of concensus on what our myth is? 
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  Willi Paul February 15, 2013 at 2:25pm

  Is that door is open now? Consider a few "symbols from the transition" that I am compiling for a future post...

  

  

  
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  Ed Koffenberger February 15, 2013 at 12:30pm

  I take van Franz when she writes that you cannot enter the psyche directly but must enter through a function which is not the dominant function of the individual. Do not attack a sensually dominant person physically but through the adjacent thought or emotion functions. The arts/images/symbols/myths allow us to go in the side door of the psyche rather than attack the strong front door.
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  Kerry Dennehy February 15, 2013 at 12:25pm

  Thanks Christian.  I was using Ed's phrase "side-door".

  "One really can't expect things to happen as one expects them to" as contradictory as "The only constant is change" and "everything in moderation except moderation."