The Global Awakening

The Global Awakening

By Nick Margerrison
Disinformation.com
November 13, 2012

Currently a huge change in human consciousness is
undeniably underway.

In terms of the number of people effected its scale
is unprecedented.

Its most obvious cause is the internet, or more accurately
the “communications revolution” which also includes mobile
phones and other technologies.

Some think it is connected to ancient prophecies relating to
“the great year,” an astrological concept describing the passage
of time recorded by a phenomena called the procession of the
equinox.

Most people from that background refer to this change as
“The Awakening”.

However, even without recourse to mysticism, it is obvious
people are dramatically changing the way in which they think.

Humans are shaped by their technologies and, just as the
invention of fire helped evolve our digestive systems, new
methods of communication are altering the way your brain
processes information.

According to a recent study it is possible parts of your mind
have already been subcontracted out to the online world.

Furthermore, it is likely you are viewed with suspicion
in the minds of others if your existence is not validated
by the internet and an online profile of some sort.

These are just a couple of many possible examples where
the internet has fundamentally, and possibly permanently,
effected human consciousness.

Staggering progress for a relatively new technology, the
developments caused by fire took significantly longer.

The speed of these rapid changes is a unique factor.

Unlike any generation before, it’s likely your understanding of
the world was shaped by reference points which have now been
rendered almost hopelessly old fashioned in the space of less
than ten to fifteen years.

Notions received from your elders are antiquated in a way
unlike any previous generations’ have been.

This is because there is almost no area of human life which has
not been either rendered irrelevant or enhanced significantly by
the all pervasive web.

In a sense it’s incredibly exciting but on the other hand
the accompanying uncertainty is quite frightening.

“There is a theory that history moves in cycles. But, like a spiral
staircase, when the course of human events comes full circle it does
so on a new level. The ‘pendulum swing’ of cultural changes does not
simply repeat the same events over and over again. Whether or not
the theory is true, it serves as a metaphor to focus our attention.”

Does God Play Dice?: The New Mathematics Of Chaos

I believe the pattern emerging in the wake of the internet
has been seen before.

In its time the printing press caused similar huge changes
in the way people were able to think:

“What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the
mind.” - Wendell Phillips, abolitionist and orator, 1811AD-1884AD

There is a direct line of cause and effect which goes from
the printing press, to books such as the “Encyclopédie, ou
dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers”
onto “The Enlightenment” and finally into the period of wars
revolutions and bloodshed which began with the French revolution
and, in truth, has only recently ended with the Second World War.

Nowadays “the Enlightenment” is looked back upon as an age
of almost unbridled intellectual development and progress.

A huge change in consciousness which was facilitated
and necessitated by printing presses that allowed mass
communication on a scale previously impossible to imagine.

This made the free flow of information and accurate exchange
of scientific discoveries possible like never before.

Sound familliar?

In my opinion “The Awakening” could easily be described
as “The Enlightement” put to the power of ten.

Massive upsurges in the technology of communication are once
again leading to our intellectual abilities being given a dramatic
boost.

I will confidently assert that your level of intelligence has
increased thanks to the internet.

The cynical view that it’s all porn and facebook updates
is utter nonsense.

Sure, that stuff plays its part but the reality is that these
days news stories emerge with counter narratives only
seconds behind them in their comments section.

You now have access to more perspectives on the world
than any previous generation.

You’re likely to have encountered more concepts online
than any of your ancestors did, through more orthodox
means, in their entire lifetime.

This brings us to another unique factor in this new age
of enlightenment and “awakening”, the question of scale.

“The Enlightenment” was something which took place
in the minds of a small group of European intellectuals.

This time around, the modern mental equivalent of what
happened them may well be about to take place in the
consciousness of a worldwide audience.

In other words, this time round it includes ‘serfs’ like
you and I.

Firstly put the change of consciousness which they went
through in the 1700′s into context.

At the start of King Louis XV of France’s reign it was thought
that his touch alone could cure diseases such as scrofula.

This was because The King of France was put there
by God in accordance with The Divine Right Of Kings.

By the end of, The Enlightenment, his son was being
put to death very deliberately as ‘a common criminal’.

That’s quite a dramatic turnaround in terms of the certainties
of the old world being replaced by the absurdities of the new.

On a large scale we can see the recent “Arab Spring,”
unthinkable twenty years ago, as its modern expression.

However on a smaller scale, the important thing here is not events
which happen to others but instead what is happening to you, inside
your mind, as a result of these new communications technologies.

Imagine going through an equivalent head change to that of a 17th Century French philosopher but from the point of view of your own perspective.

Imagine a certainty of yours equal to ‘The Divine Right Of Kings’
being abolished inside your mind.

We live in an era where such a thing is not only possible but likely.

Explore that reality by picking a core belief of yours, which is
so obvious it’s currently taken for granted, and picture it
being totally reversed and turned upon its head before you’re
a hundred years old.

There won’t be anyone reading this article who cannot at some
point admit to leaving an internet session knowing their world
view had changed forever.

You’re likely to have a good number of sessions like that online
again in the future, the compound effect of this is beyond calculation.

If you can deal with this thought easily you are likely suffering
from a failure of the imagination.

The sheer scale of change on the horizon allows no room for
complacency.

The words of the philosopher Socrates echo across the ages
with a new significance:

“The only true knowledge lies in knowing you know nothing”.

Stand in that void for a moment and embrace the possibility
that “everything you know is wrong”.

The feeling you should get is in my opinion one of consciousness:

[O]nce, in the Greek New Testament class on Sundays, taken by the
Head Master, I dared to ask, in spite of my stammering, what some
parable meant.

The answer was so confused that I actually experienced my first
moment of consciousness—that is, I suddenly realized that no one
knew anything.

Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and
Ouspensky By Maurice Nicoll

I believe the abolition of certainties, “knowledge” and higher
authorities is one of the most obvious positive consequences
of the “communications revolution”.

The fact no one other than yourself can tell you what to believe
puts us into a fascinatingly “conscious” position in our near future.

There is literally nothing we can rely upon intellectually in the future and it’s easy to fall into a void of endless speculation as to where collectively we might “wake up” once “the awakening” takes hold.

Furthermore, this is an ongoing process and it is effecting
everyone on the planet.

“Do we presently live in an enlightened age?” the answer is,
No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment.”

-Immanuel Kant (“What Is Enlightenment?” 1784)

Perhaps this experience we’re collectively having is best compared
to that of someone who ingests a “mind altering” hallucinogenic drug
and then announces nothing will ever look the same to them again.

The difference is again one of scale, a psychedelic user returns
to a world and people who have not changed.

Only the drug user’s perceptions have altered. In our instance
this trip touches everyone.

Perhaps the pioneers of the psychedelic age have something
to teach us here though:

“LSD and other psychedelics function more or less as nonspecific
catalysts and amplifiers of the psyche. This is reflected in the name
given by Humphrey Osmond to this group of substances; the Greek
word “psychedelic” translates literally as mind-manifesting.”

Stanislav Grof
November, 1993

The above description of mind altering psychedelics suits our
comparison with the internet.

It too acts “more or less” as a nonspecific catalyst and amplifier
of your psyche.

This article, as an example, will in the main only be read by those
whose minds were already headed in its direction. It will be used
to confirm thoughts or re-articulate them more forcefully.

Those who are not on our wavelength will have ignored it as irrelevant.

It is a digital manifestation of aspects of my mind and yours.

It is part of a larger thought process which is gradually unfolding
onto a unique and truly “psyche-delic” or “mind-manifesting”
map of the collective human mind.

This is of course true for the writers and readers of all online articles.

Furthermore this article’s polar opposite will likely exist in some other corner of the ‘net, perhaps written in a different language.

There each of the points I raise here will have been utterly
destroyed in the minds of another by an intellect driven equally
far in a different but incompatible direction.

It is possible, or perhaps even desirable, that such an article
will even be linked to in the comments section.

This serves to demonstrate my earlier point that nowadays ideas exist with an equally potent counter narrative only seconds behind them.

The internet’s ability to act as a non-specific amplifier means it
is able to squeeze every last drop of psychic energy out of even
the most inconsequential of moments.

A panda sneezing, a boy getting his finger bitten, a mad
comedian being all racist.

On the flip side of this it’s no surprise that mass hysteria
moves through it like an electric current.

Grievances both legitimate and otherwise can find an audience
online and bubble over into acts of violence, as happened during
the civil disturbances of last year in the UK.

In that instance the amplifying effect of the net acted as a
magnifying glass upon the hot rays of the summer sun and
frankly it appeared to catch the establishment completely
off guard.

Despite the positive tone of this piece the possible
future revealed by our comparison between the printing
press and the internet is quite daunting in places.

If the pattern of history holds true “the awakening” is
likely to bring a very violent and dangerous period
along in its wake as the establishment tries desperately,
like King Cnut, to hold back the tidal wave of change.

During the time of the French revolution debate was stoked
by a group of people collectively known as the pamphleteers.

The most notable of these in France was a character called,
Jean-Paul Marat, who used the new media opportunities
provided by printing presses to stir up revolutionaries and
attack people in power.

He’d write vitriolic attacks aimed at the prominent figures of
his age publishing the names and details of anyone he deemed
a “traitor” to France.

Nowadays characters like him spit their bile and ideas into the
net with blogs, youtube videos and podcasts that lie outside the
censorial power of an increasingly worried hierarchy.

Without doubt these neo-pamphleteers are only just getting
going, their teeth are in the main blunted by exposure to the
media of the old world.

I suspect their younger successors will be the ones with the
sharp teeth which humanity displayed during the times of
Marat.

Go google him if you’re political blogger, it’s he who sets your example not the likes of the MSM’s mealy mouthed political commentators.

Finally a note of caution, for some the above vision of our future
is woefully misleading because it is guided by and rests upon the
existence of external technologies.

Some believe that “the awakening” is a process which will
occur more mystically and without such artificial aids.

In this version of events the “net” or “web” literally becomes
a trap designed to carry the mark of the beast into the sacred
mind of humanity and, by extension, God.

Here the internet, as a mere extension of the big brother
state, becomes enslaver as opposed to liberator calcifying
the world order and freezing us into a position of eternal
subjugation.

For me it is worth filing this idea as a maybe and keeping
it in mind when my optimism goes too far.

In conclusion there’s something quite thrilling to me about
this vision of our times that I’m attempting, with the blunt
instrument of my own inarticulacy, to spell out for you.

I think it’s the smell of inevitable change.

I think it’s the fact we can at least inarguably see an early
dawning of a long predicted “awakening”.

I also think it’s the fact that I’ve just told you a story which
we both know we can’t know the end to.

http://www.disinfo.com/2012/11/the-global-awakening/