Apocalypse Now (or Maybe Tomorrow!)

There has been so much buzz these days about the world coming to a complete end, with dispensationists like Harold Camping and others predicting that the apocalypse, as predicted in the last book of the New Testament, called “Revelations” has come to a final and terrible fruition. My friend and blog mate, Ananael Qaa, has been following the latest craze of predictions this year, and after each deadline, nothing has happened. All of the signs were clearly indicative, but the end of world failed to materialize. So I wonder what happened?

True believers would say that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and the atheists and cynics would say that maybe the terrible God of the Christians just doesn’t really exist. Maybe the myths and beliefs are just that, false beliefs based on superstitious ignorance. However, the occultist in me doesn’t take sides with the atheists or cynics, instead I think that what is happening is an unfortunate literal interpretation of what is in reality a very allegorical and mysterious prophetic book of the Bible. I have heard it said and found it to be true that if you approach the Bible with a predetermined solution and look into its contents (ignoring all of the scriptural context) for justifications, you will indeed find them. Of course this could be said about any of the sacred scriptures or books of mysteries to be found in any of the religions in the world. A person’s perceptions can be ironically mirrored by Holy Scriptures if one digs deep enough or far enough into them, even if those perceptions are completely absurd. Perhaps one could say that the Godhead has a very subtle but quite real sense of humor, and that the joke is on us.

An odd truth is that I myself have found the whole concept of the mythical end of the world to be quite fascinating, and I have realized it in visions and powerful spiritual encounters. However, the difference is that I am not about to go looking for outward signs that the world is going to end suddenly and immediately after my visionary experiences. 

 

If you read over Crowley’s book “The Vision and the Voice,” you will find that kind of mythic theme being repeatably expressed by him. Crowley told individuals that he was the Great Beast of the book of Revelations, but what did he really mean by that? Did the end of the world occur during Crowley’s lifetime and we just didn’t know about it. Actually, the truth is, yes, indeed, the world ended and then it started anew. It was what Crowley called the birth of the Aeon of Horus, and the mysterious date was in 1904, when the Book of the Law was channeled by Crowley’s wife. If you are a Thelemite, then this is an important great truth, to be celebrated during several days in April. So, Crowley was the Great Beast 666, and he caused the world to end through two great and terrible wars, but the world also changed and was reborn. To Thelemites, if the world ends, it is reborn at the same moment, which actually makes a lot more sense. Since that time of the start of the Aeon of Horus, some others have announced the beginning of other Aeons, which would either mean that the Aeon of Horus was rather short lived, or that those others were deluded, or maybe more than one Aeon can exist at the same time. I am not an expert in these matters, and all I have are my own experiences, so I would recommend talking to a real Thelemite about them.

For those who might not quite understand what an Aeon is, it’s analogous to an “age,” except with deeper occult implications. We all know that Christianity was born during the beginning of the age of Pisces, and that we are now waiting for the birth of the age of Aquarius. Some have said that the age of Aquarius has already begun, and others have said that it hasn’t yet arrived. An age is defined as a period of time that it takes for the natural phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes to move through one whole sign of the zodiac. Precession through an astrological sign takes around 2,166 years, and precession through all twelve signs takes around 26,000 years. Thus an astrological age is roughly little over two millennia, and the movement is backwards, so that’s why the current age is Pisces, the previous age was Ares, and the next age is Aquarius. Is that quite the same thing as what Crowley was talking about in regards to the Aeon of Horus? Maybe it is, and then again, it more likely represents a powerful worldwide spiritual transition announced by some kind of spiritual avatar, which is what Crowley meant when he talked about it.

Whatever the case, as you can see, ages are born and then after two millennia, they pass away into another new age. The old order fails and disintegrates, and a new order rises in its place. Between the two ages there can be a lot of disruption, chaos, and even a dark ages lasting for hundreds of years. The beginning of the Age of Pisces also saw the beginning of the decline of the Roman empire, which as it fell, accelerated into the Dark Ages, at least for Western Europe. During this same period, the near east and the far east thrived, but Europe was thrown into chaos and barbarism for three or four centuries. With this in mind, it isn’t inconceivable that the Age of Aquarius may have a very dark and disastrous beginning for much of the world. Only time will tell, and human ingenuity will be severely tested when fossil fuels become less available and much more expensive to extract. What will save us is radically new technologies, but equally, what might doom us is our inability to change until we absolutely have to (and then its too late).

From my own personal experience, I have been having visions, from time to time, of the end of the world occurring through some terrible catastrophe, and often they are based on a kind of world holocaust. They have occurred in my dreams, visions, and in my communications with spirits. Yet I know that this phenomenon has to do with the crossing of spiritual boundaries and limnal points, and it doesn’t indicate that the world is literally going to end. I see it as a powerful and profound mythic and symbolic experience, but it represents that I have crossed a boundary to witness and see things that are beyond the threshold of this age. I am, ostensibly, seeing just slightly beyond this spiritual age and into the next one. Even so, what I am seeing is distorted and hindered by my beliefs, which are rooted in the current age. Still, I believe that as I become more spiritually advanced, I will be able to peer into the next great Age (or Aeon) and see it with a crystal clarity. I certainly haven’t achieved that degree of clarity yet, but some of what I have seen and experienced has been a potent influence on my magickal practices and spiritual beliefs. It is, in a word, one of the more important sources of my inspiration and creative magickal work.

So how does one break through the boundaries of the current age and experience the emanations of the next and future age? I don’t deliberately set out to achieve this phenomenon, but it does happen every time I work with mystical and magickal systems that test my current beliefs and force me to shed my biases and imbedded fictions. Encountering spirits, whether Godheads or even earth-based spirits, can have this effect, and so can meeting remarkable men and women. Pushing the envelop of one’s mystical and magickal knowledge can also produce the phenomenon of crossing the Aeon Threshold, as I call it. That boundary and barrier is out there, and most are comforted by it (abiding within its protective envelop), but others seek to break through it. I guess you could say that I have always been one of those whose search for occult knowledge and spiritual truth forced me test all of the beliefs that I possessed. To discard what was obviously false and to adopt what was shown to be experientially true, this relentless process could easily make today’s great realizations into tomorrow’s discredited delusions. 

 

The process of seeking occult truth is without end, and it always leads one to that terrible and implacable boundary, with seemingly evil forces warding it from any entry. To cross this boundary is to experience the darkness and bitterness of the apocalypse, but just beyond that dark and terrifying vision is the dawning light of a new (and hopefully) better age. As a high plane traveler, I have skirted this boundary from time to time, hoping to catch a glimpse of the next great age.

Frater Barrabbas    

A Canticle for St. Frater Barrabbas

According to John Michael Greer, I have passed the self-initiation grade and I am a believer in Peak Oil and the decline and end of our industrial civilization. I won’t, of course, live to see it happen, but I believe that John is correct in saying that there is little likelihood of a different scenario playing out. According to some of the experts, the year 2005 was the year of Peak Oil, and from that epochal date, the amount of available crude oil will slowly decline, following the reverse bell curve, until it becomes a scarce commodity, sometime in the early 22nd century. 

 

Will other forms of energy become available as alternates to the fossil-fuel based energy that we have been addicted to for centuries? I would say that it is very likely that forms of solar, wind and thermal energy will take the place of coal, gas and nuclear fuels; but they will not be able to completely replace our current level of energy consumption. Maybe some form of fusion energy will be developed and put into place before the decline really sets in. Still, that will take care of the need for electricity, but it will not fuel our need for transportation and the important use that petrochemicals play in our agriculture and industry. Perhaps we can travel and ship things via electric trains, or ships that use something other than bunker oil for fuel, but the days of modern cars, trucks, ships and airplanes are likely limited. Without all of these props of a modern technological world, our lives will be profoundly changed for all time, and we can be assured that changes of this kind will not be a good thing.

Mr. Greer is predicting a likely collapse of the industrial civilized world, and I feel that he is correct. You might disagree with him, but based on our currently available technology, a world without cheap crude oil will be one that will be severely diminished in many respects. Considering that the current technological world will probably not go out with a whimper but with a bang, our future progeny can expect to inherit a world wracked by endless wars, pollution, famine, pestilence, mass population shifts, mass population die-offs and the collapse of the fossil fueled based economy, technology and even civil government. Add to that radical climate change, and you have a fearful prognosis for the future. Since all of the governments in the world are unable and unwilling to make changes that might forestall such an eventual cataclysm, it would seem that our collective fate is sealed.

There is nothing that I can do to change this dire future except learn to live with less and at a much more modest level. This is part of my future retirement plan - survive on as little as possible without being poor or destitute. I think that it's possible for me to put together a life that is comfortable and sustainable until I am no longer amongst the living. I am going to try to go this route, ironically when many others are just seeking to retire at the same prodigious level of excess as their parents, or even greater. 

 

However, one thing that I would like very much to do is to assemble a small cache of books and writings, all of them occult related, and some of them would include my own works, place them into an airtight and water-proof chest of some sort, and burry it in some strategic place where it might be found many centuries from now. I can imagine someone accidentally finding this chest of books long after the apocalyptic end of civilization as we know it, and after opening it, discover the many occult writings and ideas of an unknown author and occultist named Frater Barrabbas Tiresius. Maybe if I am lucky, the person who digs up this chest will be a monk of some future monastery, where such information of the past epoch has been gathered together for preservation, examination and study.

I can imagine this monk, toiling away, carefully digging the chest out of its hole, then recognizing that it’s from that distant time before the apocalypse. He would then eagerly have it transported by a mule team to his monastery, where it will be opened and the contents examined. The monks won’t know who I am, but I will be a voice from the past, presenting to them an exclusive collection of preserved secret knowledge and occult speculation to puzzle over. Maybe they will speak English, or maybe they will speak some kind of polyglot. A few will know how to read and write standard English, and I can imagine my books and papers being carefully examined, categorized and then safely stored away. At some point they will be studied by some scholar who will note them as an important find, and then seek to pull from them whatever is useful.

Who knows, maybe the information stored in those books and papers will help to trigger a renaissance of occult thinking and magickal practices. I might even be considered some important mage from the past and have some degree of fame amongst the small community of literati. I might even be canonized, and some monk might write up a canticle celebrating my mythic deeds. It would be a Canticle for Frater Barrabbas Tiresius, a mage from the pre-apocalypse time of mythic ill-repute and grandiose excess.

My papers and books might not be understood completely, if at all - or they might even be considered heretical. Who knows? Yet if I don’t plan for the creation of this chest, filling it with books and papers that can last several centuries and carefully burying it, then these scenarios have no possibility of ever occurring. Since I do believe that the far future is one that is dire, with even a long period of dark ages, then I can at least be certain that all traces of my existence will be completely and forever lost. Therefore, I have decided to produce this chest and its contents, and burry it where it will be found, but not too quickly. It will be a time capsule into the future, and it will be my hope that the distant ecotechnic future will find it useful, perhaps even giving me a place of honor amongst sages in the unknown future.

No one can really know exactly what the future holds for all of us collectively, but I think that John Michael Greer and others of his persuasion have shown the future for what it truly is, a time that will challenge humanity and maybe even cause its extinction. I hope not, but let us be prepared for the worst, and perhaps because of our meager efforts, a better world will come to pass in the mists of the future age.

Frater Barrabbas


Note: Apologies to Walter M. Miller Jr., for his Hugo Award winning novel, “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” whose theme was used to write this article.