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An Apocalypse Is In The Air

An Apocalypse Is In The Air

Last updated on: April 19, 2023 at 3:00 am by John Beckett

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An Apocalypse Is In The Air 2023-04-18T18:03:51-06:00 John Beckett

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Pagans and witches aren’t the only ones who sense something big is coming.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this post from last month titled The Great War in the Otherworld and in this World. Also read the links to the other writers who are seeing the same things. For a slightly different perspective, listen to this “proto-podcast” by Seo Helrune (I wasn’t able to play it in my browser – I had to download it and listen to it with the Windows Media Player).

But it’s not just us.

I got up yesterday morning and saw an article on the Patheos Evangelical channel titled “J. Richard Middleton Prepares Us for the End Times!” Now, Evangelicals talking about “end times” is nothing new. But there’s also this piece from Religion News Service called ‘Is this when we disappear?’ Rapture triggers haunt the Left Behind generation. Everybody on the right seems so concerned for the welfare of children (cough – bullshit – cough), but sermons about “rapture” and “tribulation” and “eternal hellfire” were traumatizing for me as a kid and nobody’s talking about making them 18-plus only.

UU minister and Zen Buddhist priest James Ishmael Ford has Some Zen Words for End Times. This one is quite good and I encourage you to read it. It has some historical context for Christian apocalyptic prophesies and it has some very good advice, courtesy of Jan Seymour-Ford: “Respect your tools. And everything you know is a working hypothesis.”

I could go on, and on, and on…

Maybe this is just a high point of random activity. Maybe it’s always there and I just happen to be looking straight at it. Maybe it has something to do with today’s solar eclipse (one that very few people will be able to see).

Or maybe other people are sensing the same things we’re sensing and they’re interpreting it through their own religious traditions.

Apocalyptic prophecies are always wrong

It’s important to pay attention to the wider trends and movements in our world and between the worlds. But it’s even more important to frame them in the context of our Pagan and polytheist religions. For our own good we need to avoid getting caught up in the apocalyptic fever of a religion we walked away from (or for a few lucky souls, that you never belonged to in the first place) because it didn’t ring true.

The tentacles of “end times” doctrines can linger in your subconscious long after your conscious mind has abandoned them and moved on. For those who have yet to fully exorcise them, it’s important to realize two things.

First, while the belief that Jesus will return to this world someday dates back to the earliest Christians, the idea of “rapture” and “tribulation” only began in the 1830s. Catholics and most Mainline Protestants reject it. The prophecies of Revelation are anything but clear, and a straightforward analysis points toward it being inspirational literature for those oppressed by the Roman Empire in the early years of the Christian movement.

More importantly, this is only one of many apocalyptic prophecies, a trend that began 3500 years ago in Zoroastrianism. Over those 3500 years, these prophecies have been wrong Every Single Time. They persist because of how they make people feel while they’re contemplating them. Their believers feel good thinking that their enemies will be punished, and they feel great imagining how they’ll be able to say they knew it was coming all along.

That they’re always wrong doesn’t matter. The payoff is in the fantasy.

The wind is blowing in an unfriendly direction

There will be no “rapture” and “tribulation.” But that doesn’t mean things aren’t going to get worse.

And it doesn’t mean we can’t tell which way the wind is blowing.

19th century Unitarian minster Theodore Parker said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t bend consistently, and we’re in a period where powerful people are trying to bend in back in the direction of injustice.

Tennessee. Missouri. Florida. Texas. An economic system that helps the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and a host of wannabes in the United States.

Do I need to go on?

This is all real, and it’s here, and it’s now.

But while the “Great War” that some of us are sensing has a political component, it is first and foremost a spiritual conflict.

More than two sides

On one side are those who promote life, freedom, and fulfillment for all, both human and other-than-human. On another side are those who crave power and control, who see strict hierarchy as the natural order of things – with themselves at the top of the hierarchy, of course. There are several factions of the Fair Folk, who want to take back what was theirs before the expansion of humanity drove them Underhill – and who want to make sure their side comes out on top. There are those Morgan Daimler calls Basdán, “those who seek to unmake all things.”

What, you thought this was Team Red vs. Team Blue? Team Jesus vs. Team Richard Dawkins?

When is life ever that simple?

And this is all taking place while – or perhaps, because – the currents of magic are stronger than they’ve been in several millennia.

Pay attention, take good notes, and act

Whatever is going on, it’s no longer just Pagans, polytheists, witches, and other magical people who are noticing it. People in other religions and other cultures are seeing the same things we are, they’re just interpreting them and expressing them in the context of their own foundational assumptions and working beliefs. That’s worth noticing, and it’s worth monitoring going forward.

I repeat what I wrote last month: Living Well is Also the Best Battle Strategy. Take care of you and yours. Be who and what you are, and what you’re called to be. Cultivate joy where ever you can. Build your skills, both magical and mundane.

Be an engaged citizen without losing your soul to the 24/7 news and outrage machine.

In addition to trying to live well (and thus keep my sanity), I’m doing my best to pay attention to what’s going on. Every story is another data point, and the more data points we can get, the better job we can do of understanding what’s happening and how we can best respond.

How many sides are there and what are they all trying to do? Who are our friends? With whom do we have common cause? Who can we trust?

I’m also trying to build my own skills. I’m exploring off the map again, to see what I can find, and to see what I can learn. I’ll share my notes once I’ve got enough to create a meaningful narrative. Don’t look for them any time soon – this is a long term project.

The world is not ending: keep moving

An apocalypse is in the air, the currents of magic are growing, and the wind is blowing in an unfriendly direction. But the world is not ending: not naturally and not supernaturally. We don’t get off that easy. Whatever is coming, we have to live through it, work through it, and when necessary, fight through it.

And then clean things up and start building again.

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