In previous eras, the Great Powers of Manipulation were able to influence and even manufacture ideology on a mass scale. The Church, Islam and the age of empires are all examples of this malign co-opting of the public’s interests and passions.
The concept of a divinely-ordained paternal ruler with absolute control of society lasted almost 2000 years, from Babylon and the Roman Caesars, to the tsars, kaisers and emperors of Europe’s Belle Epoque.
This ideal of how society should be organised, shared enthusiastically by the ruling classes and populace alike, provided the Great Powers with the socio-political basis and intellectual framework for their dominance of territories, economies, and populations.
Despite the last century’s shift towards democracy as a popular form of government, the locus of power has remained largely in the same hands, untouched. In some ways, the democratic form of government has even heralded a greater concentration of power rather than a diffusion. Now, the persistence of these powers is seriously threatened by the rising tide of awakening. They risk becoming giants with clay feet.
The response of these Great Powers has been to manufacture economic crises and other emergencies, to distract us and to stop this wave of awakening that threatens to become a tsunami, sweeping away their power structure. They try to terrorise us, to scare us and to reduce our focus to matters of mere survival.
The good news for us is that they are facing unprecedented difficulties. No longer can they mobilise the ruling classes and the masses on the basis of shared ideals. Not entirely. They can only use fear of wars, of terrorism, of poverty and deprivation. Their inability to influence people through positive ideals betrays the intrinsic weakness of their case for their own supremacy, with its ivory towers and emphasis on creating and exploiting divisions. They cannot match the strength and momentum of our awakening.
For fifty years they have been trying to convince us that European political union is the best way to preserve peace on this continent. They haven’t managed it. People are more aware than they were a few centuries ago, no longer so easily influenced. So now, they decided to emphasise the European Union as a defence against poverty. Something built on fear can never be as strong as something built on positive belief.
With the election of Pope Bergoglio, the Catholic Church is attempting to recover the goodwill of its believers, and the world. For now, the Pope tells people exactly what they want to hear, which sound good, right and true. We will see if he manages to involve galvanise people behind genuine principles, or whether the attempted seduction will fail. We hope for the former, that the Church directs its efforts to elevating the most positive ideals in people.
However, to truly serve the consciousness now developing in the world would entail a promotion of freedom and the rejection of any moral authority external to one’s own true sense of what is right. If the Church were to make such a step, the most important it can make, it would finally renounce its power.
It won’t. Some might think that, after many years of labour, the Jesuits have placed one of their own on Peter’s throne in order to destroy the Power of Rome. It’s more likely that they will continue to wield it, perhaps just in less obvious ways.
Mankind’s awareness will continue to grow in spite of and thanks to the insidious challenge it faces from these new forms of seduction.
