America’s Fourth Great Test — Part II
2001 to Present
Joseph F. McCormick and David A. Palmer, Ph.D
9.11 was not only a wake-up call for America to step back and take a deep look at ourselves through the eyes of the world, rather than viewing the world through the eyes of our country, but, at a deeper level, it was a predictable stage in “the journey of the soul” when an individual or collective falls from “the tower” through its own self undoing. An opportunity to deeply reflect on the quality and trajectory of the American dream we are dreaming (“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7.)
9.11 was the natural fruit of seeds long before planted by John Dee, coiner of the phrase “British Empire.” Dee was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, a trainer of ships captains in celestial navigation, and following the advent of the Tycho Supernova (SN1752) in the fall of 1572, a believer in the destiny of Britain, the mother of America, to “rule the world.”
The consort of the original British Imperial Project, the Utopian Project, gave birth to the American dream of “ideal commonwealth,” the place prepared for the millenarian “return of Christ.” This dream was refined and carried forth by Dee disciple Francis Bacon who entered Cambridge Univerity at 12 years old a few months after SN1572 (which remained visible in Cassiopeia day or night for 18 months.) These “twin projects,” now 400+ years old, have generated successive waves of spiritual growth and awakening for America, each followed by waves of testing and contraction (the subject of our past many essays.)
To switch metaphors: If the archetypal personal growth pattern of walking down a street, falling into and extracting oneself from deep holes in the sidewalk to learn and grow in successive stages of life holds true as well for a collective as for an individual, this current period — America’s Fourth Great Test, 2001 to Present — will be followed by us finally choosing to “walk down a different street.”
But this is a long, often painful process of growth and maturation.
On the one hand the Patriarchal aspect of the Imperial Project is seeking to finally achieve its vision of spreading market capitalism to the world and in the process gain full dominon over the material resources of the earth (see Part I of this essay). There are costs and benefits to this process and we will have to fully atone for those costs in terms of war and human sufferring.
On the other hand, the Matriarchal aspect of the Imperial Project is seeking to protect the people and the planet from harm through a sort of global Fabian socialism. There are similiar costs to investing so much regulatory power in the hands of government as we wake up to realize just how much debt we have incurred (secured by the earnings of future generations) and how much freedom, individual sovereignty, innovation and creativity we have traded away in the name of “social security.”
In the face of this Imperial consolidation the Utopian social awakening movements tend to enter a phase of apparent dormancy (as they always have according to our analysis.) Apparent because research now suggests that the oppressive experience of over-centralization in an effort to weather a crisis serves as a sort of incubator for seeds of populist creativity that inevitably bursts forth once the “storm has passed.”
During crisis at the same time as decisionmaking is becoming “conspiratorial,” conspiracy being defined as “breathing together,” patriotism naturally rises in response to a real or perceived threat. This current period of crisis — beginning with the Global War on Terror (codeword for The New Great Game discussed in Part I of this essay), rising domestic “uncivil war” (at least partially orchestrated red-blue polarity), followed by the “virus war,” all in the context of emerging climate and financial “war” — seems somehow different. Patriotism is becoming a hollow concept as people who would otherwise be considered highly patriotic become increasingly disillusioned with the “state of the union” on the one hand, and others expand their definition of patriotism to include all mankind on the other (“The world is one country and all mankind are its citizens” — Baha’u’llah)
This crisis-of-crises —which has manufactured aspects and “act of God” aspects— has resulted in more command and control, less freedom, justice, equality and, most importantly, a dramatic decline in social cohesion and democratic participation in governance i.e. unity.
Those who indeed love their country, rather than stepping forward to sacrifice their children in her defense, are losing trust in the Imperial narrative that states, in not so many words: “just trust us with the necessary power to meet the crisis and on the other side you’ll have all your ideals restored.” The advent of the phenomena of “forever” military, health, economic and climate “wars” have only served to solidify the skepticism of this narrative.
Since 9.11 government and its processes have been placed “behind glass,” accessible only through the screen of your computer, a scenario eerily close to George Orwell’s 1984. The Tocqueville era citizen has now been successfully transformed into the “netizen,” a harried, hypnotized, hope-notized consumer-spectator-voter whose every media search, social media comment, building entry/exit, or commercial transaction adds to his “big brother” profile and whose voice in the policies enacted in his or her name has long ago had its volume turned down.
There have been a range of responses to Imperial consolidation by Utopians.
One response has been to enter a more introverted phase, turning inward in the process of detaching from the corrupted version of the American dream, a nightmare now spread globally (see: Chinese Dream.) This often “New Age” segment of Utopians seem to be learning the futility of rebellion and reaction to the “the Empire,” turning utopianism into a spiritual lifestyle of non-resistance.
Other Utopians are keeping up the struggle but in a more fragmented way. Many Matriarchal Utopians, for instance, have been drawn into the identity politics of environmentalism, anti-racism, and LGBT/feminism united only in their opposition, active or passive, to the patriarchy.
Many more Patriarchal Utopians, libertarian and anti-communitarian by nature, are “prepping” for not only financial and environmental collapse, but a showdown with the government, similiarly united in their fear and suspicion of anything that smacks of matriarchal “socialism.” These “rugged individualists” often aren’t good at cooperating or making sacrifices for the greater good as they tend to view everything as a free choice. What they have yet to learn is that nothing is easier to control or manipulate by the Imperial order than isolated individualists.
Whether Matriarchal of Patriarchal Utopian, however, utopian causes have become personal lifestyles to be commodified: on the one hand co-opting those who identify with Utopian values into consumer lifestyles, on the other pushing them to become radical activists of “alternative” lifestyles.
Utopian grief
The Five Stages of Grief is a phenomenon identified by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the founder of hospice. It is a pattern of emotional and mental response to the imminence of death, equally relevent to collectives as it is to individuals, because indeed 9.11 marked the final stage of death of the original utopian “City on a Hill” American dream of “ideal commonwealth” carried forth by the Utopian Project from the very beginning (see our essay on this topic.)
The first stage of grief is denial. “This isn’t really happening.” “We can get our old life back.” “It’s just a temporary setback, we’ll get back on the horse soon enough, just stay positive” This phase lasted for a few years, maybe you could say, for most, up through the end of the Obama administration. There was hope we could go back to the “old normal” before Homeland In-Security set in.
The next phase is anger. “Why is this happening to me/us!!” “This shouldn’t be happening to me/us!!” “Who’s to blame?!” This phase too lasts for a few years and maybe could be said to have begun with the Trump years. Everyone was looking for a scapegoat, someone responsible for their pain, fear and loss. The facad of calm and reason in the most calm and reasonable people began to crack as rage began to seep out.
The next phase is bargaining. “I’ll be good, God. I’ll change, I promise, if you just give me my old life back.” Some refer to this phase as “foxhole prayers.” You now know things have gotten really bad and there’s no end in sight to the suffering. All the indicators on the control panel are in the red zone (economic, environmental, health, security, etc.) This phase may have begun sometime after it was clear the pandemic was not going away quickly and would probably impact us all in one way or other.
The next stage is depression. “There’s no hope.” All the hopium and hope-nosis has worn off. The trajectory is clear, “we’re going down” and we’re powerless to stop it. This begins a phase of deep inner searching about the meaning and purpose of life. A quiet phase as reality sets in and all the old predict and control behaviors stop working, nothing seems predictable or controllable anymore. Time slows down as you watch the quicksand slowly rise around you.
Depression seems to be where many are right now and it can be transformative. All the non-essentials get stripped away. There is only what is real left. There’s only the feeling of old feelings long avoided. A symptom of this phase is the “withdrawal from the fight.” In depression we begin to surrender, we’ve already expended useless anger. One indicator of this phase may be the resistance to return to the workplace after long lockdowns. There’s still too much inner “stuff” to process in the quiet of our homes. We’re not ready to be around too many people yet, we still “need space.” Another indicator may be the rise of the “low desire” lifestyle, people rejecting high-pressure jobs in favour of “lying flat,” happy to just “hang out” and “chill out” (see: China’s tang ping, “ly flat” movement.)
The final phase is acceptance. We’ll no longer be in denial, we’ll have expended all our resources of anger and tears. We’ll have found out through direct experience that “God doesn’t make deals.” We’ll have sat with our pain and sadness at the loss in our lives. Some, maybe many, are now arriving at the phase. They are finally “hitting-bottom,” that is, their feet, or more likely, their toes, hit the bottom of the quicksand pit. They stop sinking, maybe just as their chin was going under. There is a feeling of relief, a feeling of being saved but not in a celebratory sense. It is a tranquil inner feeling of reverence for the power of a benevolent Creator, a wise teacher. It is a final acknowledgement that personal power always was an illusion. This is the beginning of re-birth, the storied return phase of the hero’s journey.
From here those who have their toes or feet on the ground begin to be the pathfinders of the long, slow truth telling journey of recovery, reconciliation and re-constitution.
Road to recovery, reconciliation and re-constitution
In recovery the seemingly polarized, paradoxical values of the Imperial and Utopian Projects become more integrated. Less and less will we see ourselves as aligned with an “us” or against a “them.” We will work on reconciling the “us” and “them” within ourselves. Based on the premise that all war is an externalization of the inner spiritual war, this may be the long awaited “end of war” some spiritual traditions have seen as inevitable. Indeed we will end the war within. We’ll “drop the sword” and cease to fight anyone and anything.
This near death experience actually turns out to be the beginning of a new story, maybe humanity’s “finest hour,” where the utopians wake up to and fully accept their inner imperialist and the imperialist do the same with their inner utopian. Where the matriarchal and patriarchal, the spiritual and material value systems find their right relationship. It is when, to again switch metaphors, we begin to walk down a different street having learned the painful lessons of falling into and extricating ourselves from successive holes in the sidewalk.
But before we end war forever, it seems, those who are still in the earlier stages of grief have work to do. There are many still stuck in denial, anger or bargaining. It is for this reason a percentage of humanity will still be burned by the searing fires of war, dis-ease and dislocation, including those most responsible for fanning their flames. A percentage of humanity is still addicted to the adrenaline and other chemicals produced by drama and trauma.
Humanity’s Ordeal
“A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings, pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants…It is at once a visitation from God and a cleansing process for all mankind. Its fires punish the perversity of the human race, and weld its component parts into one organic, indivisible, world-embracing community.” Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come (1941)
It’s difficult to discern over what timeframe such a cleansing ordeal will unfold and to what extent it is an internal spiritual or an external material process or combination of these. The establishment of long dreamed of “world commonwealth” will, however, certainly require a general level of consciousness far higher than humanity currently possesses. It will require all to finally arrive at acceptance of “God’s will,” the doorway to an as yet unimaginable form of self and collective governance that consistently transcends all polarities in its policymaking processes.
One interpretation of the reason Moses allowed the recently freed Jews to wander in the desert for so long before his son Joshua lead them into the “promised land” was to allow a generation or two to die off. Moses, it seems, was aware it was not possible to make free people from former slaves. Slavery, after all, is a state of mind, a disease of attachment to “inherited” and mistaken beliefs, not the least of which, the illusion of superiority and inferiority.
It may well be the case that current generations attached to the “old order” and the incomplete understandings of reality on which it has been built will need to die off such that their children and children’s children who have arrived at a state of spiritual detachment can begin to re-constitute the New Jerusalem.
