The Era of Natural Philosophy & End Times Prophecy?

 

This personal blog post continues the theme of the previous post: Creation, God, Jesus, & Resurrected Truth? And the post that effectively begins a new series of posts, since my initiatory series on perceptual wisdom & realized being, began back in 2019. With these new posts explaining all that I've learned about perceptual wisdom and realized being since then. 

Especially the undeniable truth that language makes us human beings feel like we are more conscious of reality than we truthfully are. And why this post is about the historical era of natural philosophy, and how it led to an end times prophecy that is bound to come true. Please consider:

The era of natural philosophy spanned from ancient Greek antiquity in the 6th century BCE through the 19th century, serving as the historical precursor to modern empirical science. It covered the study of the physical universe before splitting into specialized modern disciplines like physics, chemistry, and biology.

With this new series of posts taking on the existential challenge of the final post in the previous series: Humanity's Reification Redemption Challenge back in September 2022. When I wrote about my fears for generation Alpha and the world they will inherit, as an escalating mess created by my baby boomer (post world war II) generation. 

Especially all that hope for the world to come during the decade of the 1960s, cultural revolution. Like the lyrics of the Beatles classic "All You Need Is Love" Which many people of my generation thought was a fitting tribute to the pro-love anti-ignorance natural philosopher, Jesus of Nazareth. As we puzzled over the existential meaning of the verse lines:

Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy

With a friend of mine making the interesting observation that the verse lines of popular songs have something in common with verse lines in the Bible. Mind you, she did come from a devout Catholic family, and regularly confessed her sin of preferring rock guitarists and rock concerts to Catholic Confessions. "Its dead boring," she used to say, with typically ironic & sarcastic Mancunian humor.

Mancunian humor is dry, self-deprecating, and heavily tied to the working-class spirit of Manchester, featuring deadpan sarcasm, sharp local insults, and a refusal to take anyone too seriously.

But I digress, and will continue with the topic at hand and another classic rock song and image that inspired the Gen Alpha themed post back in 2022. Please consider:

 You live in a deranged age—more deranged than usual—because despite 

great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea

of who he is or what he is doing. — Walker Percy

As a baby-boomer of post world war two conception this image reminds me of Pink Floyd’s song Another Brick in the Wall and contemplating how my beliefs were built up from infancy. Along with the memory of an old monk saying “words are not reality and only experience reveals the nature of being.” As well as Socrates’ “true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.” And writing this paragraph I'm singing “we need education to thrive, not just survive,” in harmony with the remembered melody of Pink Floyd’s song.

The Walker Percy quote heads the list of quotations opening the epilogue of Iain McGilchrist’s challenging book with its apt subtitle; Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World. While this post title, Humanity’s Reification Redemption Challenge reflects the idea that human history will repeat itself until we all notice how our unmaking of the world is caused by a conscious reification-fallacy.

Suggesting we need a synthesis of knowledge to increase our depth of understanding and awareness of the unseen reality of our body and the cosmos we inhabit. While inside my skull Pink Floyd song-line “we don’t need no education” has become “we don’t need no reification.” As I build on the previous post idea that humanity needs a perceptual wisdom revolution to face mounting global challenges and save itself from itself.

By making sense of human history through access to transformational information that rectifies our illusions of knowing and frees humanity from a Pedagogical Prison. The pedagogy (teaching) of an existential prison R. D. Laing put an intuitive finger on with these salient words “we are all in a post-hypnotic trance induced in early infancy.”

The End Times Prophecy That Is Bound To Come?

This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world,

for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

Has humanity become so immersed in a multilingual consensus mentality, sense of reality? Our species has generally lost touch with a more sensory grasp-of-reality? Are we modern humans so invested in our mind’s matrix-of-allusions, we can’t even conceive the possibility that true reality literally hides in plain sight? Can’t even conceive of an era of reality-wise people, writing ‘riddle-me-this’ sayings about what the historical development of language had done to our species-specific grasp of reality? 

And that during an era of natural philosophy realized beings like Jesus' taught an embodied wisdom practice, that was later crafted into cryptic Biblical verses? So in the context of an ancient prophecy that is bound to come true. Is it possible that a great secret of ancient wisdom, lies hidden in plain sight? And was crafted into a cryptic biblical verse about humanity's multilingual heard (herd) mentality? As an unwittingly judgmental attitude towards the true nature of reality? In a verse that begins the climatic chapter of the biblical book of Revelation, known in the East as the Apocalypse. Please consider:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth

were passed away; and there was no more sea. (Apocalypse 21:1)

It requires the momentary suspension of our ‘induced’ mentality towards reality. And contemplating the possibility that our ancestors understood our brain’s power of predictive processing. That the “brain doesn’t passively receive sensory information; instead, it actively generates predictions about what it expects to perceive.”  A non-conscious predictive processing that we can begin to comprehend intellectually, by clicking on the link and reading the ScienceDirect article. While a more visceral awareness and understanding of its implications for our personal experience of consciousness, arguably requires the embodied wisdom practices of our ancestors.

If we consider the possibility of a prophecy about the inevitable fate of the word, within our world, by the natural philosopher Jesus of Nazareth. By contemplating the possibility of our experience conditioned mind, being a 7th-seal that hides reality before our eyes. And how the personal experience of an apocalypse-of-words, can balance our felt and thought sense-of-reality. Which begs the natural philosophy question. Did ancient mystery school practices of living-resurrection inspire a tradition of apocalyptic storytelling? While using our inborn intuition to consider the likelihood of ancient mystery school practices, informing an oral tradition of apocalyptic storytelling tropes? 

To explore storytelling tropes about the living resurrection involved in experiencing an apocalypse of words, otherwise known a psychological experience of ego death. And a resurrection of the more heart-felt sense-of-reality experienced during our infancy, and a second coming of our mind? As we consider whether the story of Jesus' conception, birth, life, death, resurrection, and experience of perceptual ascension. Were written by people mindful of the pain-of-death warning about revealing ancient mystery school secrets. 

So is it possible that ancient Egypt’s womb-like rituals within its famous male and female temples, were developed to bring about a balanced experience of consciousness? That was later symbolized by a word created picture of a man on a Cross? And similar to the full-immersion baptism practices in Israel, did the rituals of the sleep temples evoke a new sense-of-reality? A felt-sense realization of a prior to humanity reality, hiding in plain sight? And is there an ‘apocalypse-of-words’ experience alluded to in this biblical verse: “When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Apocalypse 8:1) 

From the perspective of a balanced personal experience of consciousness, is this an example of Jesus’ apocalyptic teachings about the Kingdom of God being imminent? If, for argument’s sake, we replace the word God with the word Creation? Do we see the here-now imminence of creation in the photo above? If we dare to Jesus’ 113: “the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth, and people do not see it,” in the Gospel of Thomas. Please consider:

Saying 113 of the Gospel of Thomas teaches that the kingdom of God is not a future event to wait for, but a present reality. The disciples ask when the kingdom will arrive, and Jesus replies that it is already spread out across the earth, though people fail to see it.

And consider an apocalypse of words possibility, that Jesus' saying "I and the Father are one," in the good news gospel of (John 10:30), is about the Sun? Not the reality-labeling nature of the word sun. But the reality of that giant ball of nuclear fusion 93 million miles from the reality of our biological eye-balls? Which from a felt-sense perspective on balanced consciousness. Might inspire you to say the Lords prayer while feeling the warmth of the Father—metaphorically speaking—of the creation in the solar system, our human existence is immersed within? 

And metaphorically speaking, with an embodied understanding and awareness of the arbitrary reality of the sounds & symbols nature of language. Can you entertain the possibility that the cryptic verse about seeing a new heaven and a new earth, is actually about the reality-labeling nature of descriptive words? Please consider:

The connection between the sounds we make, the symbols we write, and the actual objects or ideas they represent is completely arbitrary. This concept, known as linguistic arbitrariness, means there is no natural or inherent reason why a specific word matches its real-world meaning.

Whether this explanation enables you to see and hear, how the word sea sounds like the word see? And helps you contemplate the cryptic metaphorical meaning of the words "and I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea?" As you look at this photo again and forego the urge to describe what you sea with thought-words.  

And of course looking at this photo is no substitute for experiencing the resurrection of light during the birth of each and every period of daylight. As our earth continues to rotate on its axis in the darkness of space. With the actual speed of that rotation varying, depending on the cosmic location, you happen to be witnessing the reality of creation from. 

This photo taken at Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia, where the earth-turning creation of daylight happens at 864 mph. According to: Earth Surface Rotation Speed Calculator, where you too can discover how fast the Earth is rotating beneath your feet. By entering any city or dragging the handle to calculate your exact surface rotation speed based on latitude.

And as I finish this post, continuing this series theme of good news that can be preached to the whole world. About the cryptically wise meaning of the words "and then the end will come?" Through a conscious realization about the deceiving power of the word. That enables an increasingly urgent need to balance our biologically receptive & psychologically projective, experience of consciousness.

I can only hope that I've provided some useful food for thought about the universal reality of being human. And why historical figures like Buddha & Jesus, are also known as enlightened, realized beings? Please let me know what you feel and think about this blog post, in the existential context of truth and falsehood.

Best wishes,

David Bates.