RESIGNATION OF A GENERAL AND THE ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF A NATION...December 20, 2018

An  unusually highly respected  civil servant, General James Mattis, has had to conscientiously resign his post due to the chaos at the top of our governmennt.

The statement below can help one more clearly and practically grasp  the unique  importance of individual  human consciousness in the known universe. And this increased consciousness brings with it increased responsibility for the world. The animals can't become aware of and seek solutions to our pressing national and  world problems. They are as dependent on us as the trees and oceans.

Now, as never before, the destiny of our species and our planet depend on how many humans use their consciousness capacity in an intentional creative way, like many never have before. We should know our human Consciousness can serve and support evil destructive trends in the human family just as readily as it can endorse good, truthful and redeeming trends.

The resignation of our Secretary our State may be one of those moments, which seem to be happening in frequent succession, when citizens, who have the luxury of reflecting on the health of the nation, can intentionally call upon this Profoundly Important Personal Consciousness. And with a prayerful searching attitude attune ones personal capacity to choose goodness, sound mindness and truth over their opposites .

General James Mattis

As surely as a  literal star doesn’t know it's a star or a dog that it's a dog,  humans today can understand more forcefully the singular importance of individual human consciousness in our lonely universe. That consciousness has expanded in intensity and capacity since the Age of Enlightenment(re 400 years)

A personal expansion of consciousness can happen when individuals intentionally take their ethical judgments seriously, as if the world depended on us personally. In the end it existentially does. This, I'm convinced, is the nature of the depths of reality. Moral consciousness demands we take ourselves more seriously.

When such a respected person says he can no longer conscientiously remain in leadership in our system, that can wake us from our sleep and stir our common consciousness to exert its intended corrective influence.

More persons potentially can own the importance of how we ethically and responsibly evaluate such sad happenings. Happenings which effect not just our personal world, but the whole world.

At the moment one takes responsibility for personal consciousness and worshipfully offers up an internal commitment to the care of one’s integrity for the good of our world, authentic ethical corrections begin.

An awareness by individuals of the importance of applying his/her God-evolved consciousness is the only thing, I suspect, which can protect our nation and world from the looming chaos.

Related Post:
https://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2018/05/hope-for-planet-rests-on-human.html?m=1

THE BIBLE AND THE LOVE LIFE OF GAY PERSONS....October 4, 2018

Some thoughts on something that continues to divide Americans. Nowhere are different views of the Bible more troublesome in our day than the passages that, on the surface, may seem to blatantly indicate that God is very dipleased with the active  love life of LGBT persons.

This is the primary  source of one of the crippling  splits in our American culture. It is similar to how the Bible was, and still is by more than a few, culturally used to support racism and a belief, conscious or unconscious, in white supremecy. Historians say that even Abraham Lincoln did not fully overcome the bent toward  belief in whites being somehow superior to blacks.

It is not just that  such cruel beliefs are present among us but worse is the practical discrimination, social marginalization and legalized inequality that flows from them.

First, it must be faced honestly that there is no such possible  thing as 'taking the Bible as it is' as our way of applying it  today. That is a self deceiving and, I think, irresponsible approach to the Bible.

To use  and apply the Bible means to  decide, preferably consciously and intentionally, on the means of interpreting and applying it for ourselves.

With what we know in our times I'm thinking  a most profitable way to interpret the Bible is in light of depth psychology. Since the amazing Bible  is on the surface  full of metaphors, visions, miracles and dreams from the ancient past, this is a very fitting way to approach it.

 This way of interpreting it would be similar to taking and learning from it as it were a dream someone(s)  has had. In the book The Bible As Dream by Murray Stein we get help and a feeling for what this approach to the Bible is like.

We can expect such an effort  to change what the few passages used, I think tragically and very unkindly,  to condemn LGBT love today come to mean to us. It will be  something quite  different than how they were taught to me(under the guise of 'taking the Bible as it is') growing up and emphasized as an adult.  Here is a page from that book.

HOPE FOR THE PLANET RESTS ON HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS....May 5, 2018

I don't think any of our present 'we vs them' political ideologies has the depth of energy  or endurance   to lead our American society to genuinely higher unified  thus surviving ground.

But politics, as Plato  says here,  does show us our own tragically divided, ethically decaying situation. Political involvement and interest  is essential  but will never be the sufficient  answer for  necessary change.

 Our collective mass mind is in dire need of being lifted to a truly higher level of human consciousness, above our polarites and  mean spirited differences and fears...a consciousness historically different than ever before and now essential if we are to enter a brighter more whole new epoch for humankind and creation.

Without such a successful transition now our species will have failed what evolution had tried to  prepare us to accomplish....to sufficiently expand consciousness, becoming more fully and openly who we truly are, in the world. We can instead  become another dead end in evolutionary progress and a new path will be tried.. We will have eliminated ourselves.

There are still  bridges in place that are ready to serve this change  from our past epoch of say 2000 years  to the new one. Many disciplines and institutions would serve as bridges  of such a transition and include ...politics, all the branches of serious science,  relevant government and social institutions, news media, social media, inclusive religious traditions, technology, formal education, depth psychology etc.

But none of these combined can have the energy and stamina needed to raise us to the new collective consciousness our situation is evolutionarily demanding of us.

 In short only an unimagined  transformation of the collective psyche , a dawning  of mind and heart after a long spiritual night , of a refreshed  world view and value can propel us successfully beyond our  insistent stalemate. Such an awakening is best described (in ancient  nearly forgotten Sacred symbolc story) as a 'religious'  collective kind of experience.( Not one fully fostered by any present organized religion but truly a new view of old things.)

 (The UFO phenomena of worldwide sybolism which unexpectedly  captured the modern human  mindset  five decades ago  is a mild version of such a collective psychological or 'soul' dynamic. For, whatever its actual  nature, it caused us to momentarily  imagine how human behavior might  appear to an intelligence and consciousness higher than our own. To compare ourselves with something truly superior. That  challenging  kind of experiment no doubt continues within some of our most conscious foreward looking citizens. Such a collective happening is never orchestrated by any political party or church but originates spontaneously from our common human creative depths. That is from the Sacred within us.)

Such a needed natural consciousness-raising  phenomenon in our present times seems the only dynamic capable of sponsoring a unifying shift in all our present diversities, polarities  and seeming pluralistic chaos.

Careful reflection on our unique evolutionary and historical situation worldwide  can bring the sane  and open minded human to gasp and mean it, "God  now help us a little."

FROM 'THE ZEST FOR LIFE' by Teilhard de Chardin....March 23, 2018

An excerpt below from this book by perhaps the most genuinely positive thinking genius in modern times -  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This lecture excerpt from the 'Zest for Living' was censored in 1950 by the Vatican.  It was published after his death.

This enriching concept 'zest for life'(not the reality escaping 'positive thinking' of recent decades)  I think is very noticeably missing in most present emphases of prevalent disciplines of human knowledge, social structures,  politics   and dominant religious interpretations. Yet how urgently is such a genuine  science enriched objective optimism needed?

De Chardin's grasp of both a primordial  natural faith  within our reach and scientific evolution are the foundation of his seminal  works where  intellect and heart extraordinarily  combine.

A parallel blog  post:  https://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-genius-of-modern-times-hope-for-our.html?m=1

A GENIUS OF MODERN TIMES' HOPE FOR OUR WORLD.... March 19, 2018

For an objective person in our times it is not easy, and can be simply another fantasy escape, to have a hopeful view of  the world's future. I see in  an article today where even  the brilliant Stephen Hawking  predicted the end of the universe shortly before his death.

It may be the genius mind of  Teilhard De Chardin has left humanity with one of  the most genuinely grounded  statements for hope of any person in modern times. This is partly due to the fact that he was a man of extremely strong scientific conviction  and at the same time a person of profoundly personal  faith in both humankind and the universe . I think it is also significant  that he  had his share of life long human suffering brought on by following his deepest convictions.

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/11/21/will-pope-francis-remove-vaticans-warning-teilhard-de-chardins-writings

It appears from this short article that now  even the Church, not able to understand him in his own time,  which  exiled and censored him is now seeing that his mythopoetic/science enriched  work looks like a jewel in the darkness of our overwhelming World problems. He expresses an assurance that  the very heart of evolution is pointing to a far brighter future than most any other areas of human knowledge, 'belief' and research are offering.

He describes today's most depressing realities as actual signs that the universe  is  far from any dead end but that the human species is being prepared  not only to  survive; but has  reason  for genuine excitement about the underlying positive meaning of today's most somber tensions.  He is saying that  our human species is on the verge of turning a material/spiritual  corner of  yet unimagined increases in personal and collective consciousness; a consciousness that  will produce a transformed view of reality and its potential constructive harmony. Where else  will one  get such a grounded and hope filled   point of view today?

A Parallel Blog Post:  

https://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2014/08/is-living-hope-in-humankinds-future.html?m=1

DANGERS OF THE INFLATED PSYCHOLOGY OF OUR PRESIDENT... March 19, 2018

Contemplating recent behaviors of our President on TV I have strong concerns. He appears to govern continuously like someone with a strong sense that he has found God and it is him. He seems lost from full connection to his mortal humanity. This is a trait that all cultures have expressed a fear of and have made strong efforts to avoid. It was referred to by primitive people as a 'loss of soul.' Unfortunately it has become , in our day for now, viewed by many as the sign of  a hero or savior type personality.

I seriously suspect such a felt 'god likeness' has been  his repeating inner lifetime experience . This is why he truly does 'see ' and understand that anything really important is centrally about him. And his judgments and intuition may be felt to him as being that of a god.

His words and actions are consistent with  such a frame of mind . He would not be at all conscious of such a psychology but only experiences it as a kind of ' god almightiness' exhililaration. He sees this omnipotence only in himself not in any others, even those closest to him. All others, he is now  repeatedly showing, are easily expendable. Demanded loyalty is completely a one-way street to such a person.

An historical person with a more common and conscious self confidence can have a great and constructive encouraging effect on many people. But one that is this extremely unconscious and psychologically unaware can cause a group   (previously sincerely frustrated politically, socially  or economically) to lose their sense of personally responsible judgment.

This psychology is not new in history. But it must be rare such a person is given so great a power over others. A personality like this in the power role of the U.S. Presidency is potently dangerous for everyone in its influence. And this unfortunately means the whole world.

This mix can potentially create a significantly large collective mass of persons who are fully taken in and  up by such an archetypal energy. They may willingly sell soul and integrity to be close to and energized by such power. They can become 'no longer themselves. ' It is the same kind of energy that persons in a cult surrender themselves to. It can mesmerize and hypnotize. And how inoculated it is against any on-going responsible self critique.

This situation can reasonably be seen as a likely death toll for a democratic  nation and its human  values and equal rights.  But it can also be a strong enough  signal which awakens a large  enough part  of a sleeping public to the social, economic, religious and  psychological dangers that are present. Such an objective awareness of the situation is the essential  thing needed to begin a  cross path to a more healthy and healing social, psychological  and political environment.

THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS OF "shithole' NATIONS.... January 11, 2018

Behind the "Shithole" statement......I'm confident that he lives with such  'self' confidence. (of successfully talking himself out of the Shithole statement and any other  false or demeaning statement he makes.)

Being unconsciously in the grip of archetypal energies inflates  ones ego. It is the feeling of truly being God. Most of us with reasonably  strong egos have experienced, to lesser extent but no less real,  this irrational state of mind and recognize  it it as a weakness and aberration.

B

I sense  Mr Trump  is under a strong spiritual energy that has over taken the  ordinary ego long ago. I suspect he believes he  has' found God'  and believes it is himself. This is no exaggeration. This should not be expected to change for he shows no signs of resisting it.  Instead he personally thrives in his invincible ''god almightiness'.

It is such an inspiring thing that   those in his presence are easily pulled into this archetypal energy. So they react to  him as if to a god not realizing what has captured them.

This is  no different psychologically  than the experience of ancient gods in pre Christian times.. This dynamic  is different and stronger than any rationality. Reason will always fail and is no match to it.

Those around him, and regular citizens,  who see this as a national  danger will need more than a strong opposing  political orientation to not be bamboozled by it. Senator Durbin seemed able to make a fairly rational ,maybe hopefully  more than political, description of the  infamous  'shithole' meeting.

Those of us  concerned, from his campaign till now, about the dangers of trump idealism need to guard against becoming simply the other polarizing  national energy around him. If not we become no more  objective than Fox friends, just the other emotional based  extreme. That is not enough for a clarifying , healing or consciousness raising response. It only promotes another unrealistic fantasy if it brings no more than polarity  to the situation.  To rest in one pole of a cultural  or  personal polarized situation is to give  up finding a  middle  healing path. Any polarity  position only sees what it looks for after so long. So called 'Trump Resistors', like myself,  are in that danger now.

CG Jungs clarification of the  very real archetypal energies  can be of  much help in having a suitable response to any idealism. And not simply becoming the opposite emotional polarizing  response to the archetype  such as  has been externalized in front of us  via the Trump persona. Reasoning and emotionalism  are both, even together, insufficient.

A RELIGIOUS KIND OF HOPE FOR OUR TIMES....January 8, 2018

I suspect the most realistic hope now for the nation and world is a classically 'religious' one.

By that I don't mean one religion overthrowing another or one political view dominating. But that from ideals and ethical principles which worked to solidify cultures for centuries stirred up presently by an overwhelming deconstructing institutional chaos, a transformed world view will spontaneously arise among a majority of concerned humans.

Attending The Wounded In Another American Mass Shooting.

This would be a genuinely 'religious' solution to our times, a naturally occurring spiritual evolutionary response to a forming new Epoch unlike any of the past. This new Epoch has now  emerged. It has brought complex problems needing addressed for which our science based technology, well worn paths of 'common sense'  and traditional religious interpretations are glaringly insufficient.

Major religions have immemorially used the  symbol of baptism for such potential and timely  transformations of the social order resulting in a new collective human world view.

Flood/'Baptism' Scene In 'Brother Where Art Thou.'

Baptism has always spoken of a frightening  chaotic destruction of present cultural  orientations and mindsets surprisingly followed by a 'resurrection' of some new arrangement of old principles and orders. Religiously this is  retrospectively seen as not by human plan or conspiring. But by real unseen natural  psychological factors which are consistent with best human intelligence; and which also are far ahead of conscious human wisdom capacities.

Extreme Polarizing Of Dysfunctional Politics.

Such a 'new creation' would seem to have come  'from above'. Such a deep quality of hope has developed and persisted before in ancient times of sweeping social transitions such as 2000 years ago. Now seems to be such a time again. Such a hope stands in harmony with best science knowledge but goes beyond the conscious wisdom capacities of materialistic science. Perhaps we are very justified in such an anciently grounded inclusive hope for humankind.