by Richard C. Cook

While skeptics mockingly point out that the “end of the world” has been prophesized over and over again for centuries with nothing happening—the latest being Y2K, they say, and another likely bust coming up when the calendar hits 2012—it’s obvious that mankind faces an increasingly unsustainable future.

The world’s economic, technological, agricultural, and political systems are breaking down. While the causes are debated, it’s certain that the human assault on the natural world has wiped out vast numbers of species and polluted the land, the air, and the oceans. After the past 100 years of history, with two world wars and low-grade but vicious warfare going on almost continuously somewhere in the world since World War II ended, it seems impossible for human beings to live together in a state of harmony either among ourselves or with the planet we call home.

Are we at “the end of the age?”

In social life, the overriding characteristic of our era is the increasing division in the world between haves and have-nots, masters and slaves, controllers and controlled, rich and poor. The power of the wealthiest class of people has never been so great. The weapons of mass destruction they–and the armed forces who work for them–monopolize have the force to destroy the earth many times over.

Teachings of peace, tolerance, charity, which have always received lip service, lack efficacy. Such teachings increasingly count for nothing. Organized religion, done in by its own transgressions and lack of transformative potency, rarely even attempts to make a stand for justice or persuade nations to forego war.

The people at the very top of the heap have been those Western financial magnates, especially from the Anglo-American-Zionist empire and the European Union, who control banking, industry, investment, and credit. The world is run by an international financial elite and their subordinates in government, corporations, academia, the military, and the media. This elite have plunged billions of people and the nations they inhabit into astronomical levels of debt. They are the controllers who live off the fat of the land, skimming the cream of science and industry through usury on money they create out of thin air through financial monopolies granted or at least tolerated by the politicians whose strings they pull. No longer leaders of the popular will, the political classes of all Western nations, most particularly the United States, are servants of private financial and corporate interests.

The controllers realize how tenuous stability has become. So they seem to have embarked on a worldwide consolidation of power, using every tool available from the fields of electronic surveillance and social engineering to enhance their dominance. Nations not entirely under their control, such as Russia and China, are tagged as adversaries and surrounded with military bases. The controllers are suspected of having vowed among themselves that the existing world population of almost seven billion human beings cannot be allowed to continue. A large portion of the human herd must be culled, an action that now appears to be underway with the world’s resources increasingly passing into the hands of centralized financial interests.

But this will not necessarily fend off the even larger disaster that threatens mankind. For the controllers themselves also inhabit the earth. No man is an island. What threatens the least of God’s creatures threatens them as well.

The perspective of the controllers is therefore incomplete. What it leaves out are human freedom, aspiration, and spirituality. It also leaves out nature and nature’s laws. Further, it leaves out God, whatever we mean by that word, still knowing that there is “something” or “someone” who is the ultimate creative force. Perhaps these most materialistic elements of humanity are not quite as sharp as they think they are in trying to erect a fortress against the universe in order to save themselves.

For instance, they have not yet found a way to negate the law of cause and effect: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” An example is the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico caused by negligence in addressing pre-existent problems in a manner reminiscent of the space shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986. Both events exposed the pride of man as mere dust. Disasters may also be lying in wait due to genetically-modified seeds laced with pesticides where crop failures or the appearance of super-resistant insects could lead to mass starvation.

The controllers desire to rule from their glitzy world capitals of glass and steel while maintaining “safe” suburban, rural, or island palaces and retreats. Many, though not all, are the physical or spiritual descendents of those who rejected God by rejecting Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, though according to some traditions their genealogy may be much older. Though the Christian churches offer many confusing and contradictory interpretations, it was Jesus Christ who prophesized the end of the age and sought to prepare mankind for it. Christianity is first and foremost an eschatological religion, especially as it hearkens back to such Old Testament prophets as Isaiah.

But in recognizing that the size of the human population is an overriding issue, shouldn’t we ask why are so many people alive on earth at this time? Where have they come from? Is it simply a result of improved sanitation, more productive farming methods, or the reduction in infant mortality? Or is there a hidden cause? The planet today resembles a train station at rush hour. Perhaps for the sake of discussion we should look at it from a somewhat mystical perspective. Should we consider, for instance, that the huge increase in the world’s population has taken place because all the human souls from the last several thousand years of history have been allowed to incarnate in order to give them one final chance to develop spiritually and move on to higher planes of being?

It could also be that a side-effect of the large earth population has been the emergence of the critical mass of information that has led in turn to exponential growth in science, technology, and economic productivity, the latest phase being the cybernetic revolution. Has man, in his vanity, attributed this apparent progress to his own stellar qualities, while failing to guard against the temptations deriving therefrom and their potential for binding him to the material plane? Perhaps man has surrendered his soul through a Faustian bargain based ultimately on the illusion which science promotes of someday attaining physical, as opposed to spiritual, immortality. In his delusion, man has viewed the earth as his true home rather than a place to reside temporarily for learning, experience, and eventual transcendence. The great parable of modern man may have been Goethe’s Faust, published in 1808 and prefiguring the spiritual crisis of the modern age.

We should note well the fact that due to social and political upheaval, combined with modern methods of communication, every person alive has been exposed to teachings of spiritual evolution, not just from Christianity, but from other religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, as well as spiritual teachings such as yoga that cross religious lines. All have taught that our true home is in the spiritual realms, not in the rounds of earthly life and death. (Judaism is excluded from this list, as there are so many different Jewish sects, including so-called “secular Judaism,” that it is difficult to isolate a specific teaching on spiritual development.)

Why else have we seen in the past century so many enlightened teachings coming from all parts of the world, existing side-by-side with organized political, financial, and military horror? Doesn’t it seem that each and every soul on the planet is being tested? As indicated above, perhaps each of us is being given one last opportunity to attain enlightenment before the curtain comes down and the theater is closed for the season. This may be one way to look at the concept of the “end times.”

So what are we waiting for? Shouldn’t we be coming together to work in every way possible for the furtherance of truth and the enhancement of being? Shouldn’t we be creating centers of light to prepare ourselves and each other whatever lies ahead? Indeed, some are. But are we doing enough?

Time appears to be running out, with dire changes having already begun. Who knows, maybe there is only a year or two remaining of relative freedom of movement before the controllers reveal their deep affinity with the dark side by setting up what seems to be their planned world dictatorship, world government, and world currency. They have learned how to manufacture crises and disasters, such as 9/11, as a means of seizing more power. The signs that they are springing the trap will be the increased bureaucratization of all aspects of life, wartime measures like rationing and transportation checkpoints, centralization of financial institutions, control of populations through un- and under-employment, elimination of freedom of speech on the internet, and continued growth of computerized systems containing personal identifying information. As has happened before, the majority of people will likely be so sick of the rising tide of chaos the controllers have helped engineer they will willingly trade their autonomy for the shackles of totalitarian order.

To accomplish their ends, won’t the controllers also try to stamp out the last vestiges of spirituality on earth? They have already attacked many spiritual teachers and movements since the epochal change of consciousness that emerged in the 1960s. The rebellious flower children were seduced by dangerous drugs developed and distributed by covert operatives. Other examples were the engineered reaction within the Catholic Church against Vatican II and the liberation theology movement, as well as the takeover of Protestant Christianity by Zionists among the Evangelicals. A friend points out that militant Zionists also took over and subverted the Reform movement within Judaism. And it has been the Western intelligence agencies, going back over a century, who helped create radical Islam in order to declare the Middle East a base of “terrorism” so that war against the Islamic world could be rationalized and their oil resources seized.

The controllers engineered these and other reactions because the only way they can rule is to eliminate the naturally-occurring hope of free individuals for a higher level of consciousness and a more humane world. Other methods include mind control through TV programming and the continued dumbing-down of the population through an educational system now based entirely on learning by rote and government-mandated standardized tests. As 1984 and Brave New World showed to previous generations and the cynical manipulation of political reporting by Murdoch-owned Fox News indicates today, the masses are easy to control. Fox News is doing it by co-opting the Tea Party movement and goading it into a phony rebellion that ignores the real issues of elite control. All these elements hide the fact that it is the controllers who are the real terrorists in the world today.

Now embedded microchips, along with automated administration of pharmaceuticals to individuals by nanotechnology, appear to be on the way. The first step toward the microchip in the U.S. could be the national ID card as proposed by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) in connection with immigration reform. According to published reports, the card Schumer proposes would contain a person’s social security number, along with biometric data such as retinal scans and fingerprints. Such a card could easily be expanded to include credit and criminal history, DNA sequences, and medical history, all linked to a central database.

As cited in Politico, Sen. Schumer has stated his belief that “Hashem”–Hebrew for “the Name”–has appointed him the guardian of the state of Israel within the U.S. Senate. He has also spoken of himself as a potential presidential candidate. As events move forward, particularly with politicians like Schumer on the rise, many seemingly innocent people will be faced with difficult decisions of whether, and how far, to “get along by going along.”

But whoever accepts the chip, it is said, will wear the “mark of the beast”—by choice, because the conscience within will have cried out against it. The post-World War II Nuremburg trials established that no one is innocent because they were simply following orders, a ruling that should apply to victims as well as perpetrators. Of course “the chip” can take many forms, making self-deception and rationalization easy.

Yet God is not mocked. Every human being on the planet has a God-given conscience which allows us to distinguish between right and wrong–if we listen to our conscience. Some say we have an individual guardian angel who is the guide to our conscience. How many of us seek the counsel of this guide?

And is the time also at hand that the “earth changes” which have been prophesied will manifest on an increasingly vast scale? How will the planet cleanse itself? It has been prophesied, for instance, by Edgar Cayce and others that as part of this cleansing, New York and Connecticut will one day be under water. Such predictions seem less preposterous today than 60 years ago, now that scientists are discussing the increased potential for extreme climatic events through alterations in the earth’s magnetic field or in connection with earth temperature changes.

Without a doubt, the time must also come when the United States will no longer exist in anything resembling its present form. How can a nation as heedless, violent, prurient, complacent, and materialistic as this one possibly continue on its present course when the earth is purged of falsehood? How can objective justice tolerate a nation that sadistically tortures prisoners of war and routinely kills civilians with unmanned drone strikes halfway around the world?

G.I. Gurdjieff was a spiritual master from the Caucasus who studied in the most remote parts of Asia and spent his mature years teaching pupils in France. In the 1920s he visited the U.S., spending most of his time in New York. He reportedly said, “America will rot before it ripens.” The causes, he intimated, would be America’s obsession with “dollar business,” its diet of processed foods, and its dissipated lifestyle. 

Gurdjieff was right. Regarding “dollar business,” today’s “Big Six”–J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley–are the most rotten and corrupt institutions on the globe. They have sold America down the river by creating and destroying gigantic investment bubbles, feasting on massive bailouts paid for by taxpayers, and spending the last two generations shipping workers’ jobs to low-paying foreign labor markets. Then they turn around and use America and its passive population as the world’s policeman to protect their investments.

Just as bad are international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of International Settlements, and the European Central Bank, as well as national central banks like the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Deutsche Bundesbank, etc. While Hitler allegedly killed millions, the world’s bankers make life or death decisions that affect billions. They do it through control of the money spigot, which gives them power over every business and industry in the world that utilizes any form of credit. And credit is as essential to most businesses as breathing is to a human being.

When the dust settles, will there still be communities of human survivors in America? That may depend on the Americans themselves and how successful they are at reclaiming their freedom. Whatever survivors there are may be spiritually-minded and will of necessity live close to nature. But the scale and appearance of any future civilization is an unknown. Europe’s future could be as tenuous. Maybe Russia, China, and selected locations in Latin America, Asia, or Africa will do better. We don’t yet know.

What we should know is that the time is up for humanity. We have had our chance to decide what we value, whether service to a false conception of a separate self or service to God and neighbor. Now we are likely to find out for certain what measure of truth we have imbibed and incorporated into our being during many lifetimes.

The testing has come, but it has been foreseen for a long time. The Master came two millennia ago and showed the way. Why do we think someone else is coming now to save us? We were given the tools and the time to learn how to use them. Now we have no more excuses.

Rather than promote war, conflict, and conquest, anyone with a genuine spiritual sense will do everything possible to encourage peace, justice, and harmony among peoples and nations. Nevertheless, the “end of the age” seems imminent. As the Shivapuri Baba said, as recorded in the book Long Pilgrimage by John Bennett (Dawn Horse Press, 1983), “We are at the end of a 6,000 year cycle.”

We should strive not to be confused or complacent. It is time now for individuals to make a decision on where they want to be for the challenges ahead, with whom they want to spend their time, and exactly how they intend to devote their energy and commitment. The best advice is to choose wisely and choose well but not to wait any longer.

Jesus said: “Ye know not the day or the hour.” So why do we wake up every morning still thinking we know what the day will bring? In fact we do not know. The processes we are looking at herein could take a day, a year, or a century. So what is to be done? Following are some suggestions:

• Find a teacher or group that can guide you to spiritual enlightenment and where you can help others do the same.
• Teach yourself to act considerately to all those around you, including people you consider “evil.”
• Start viewing the natural world as alive and conscious, not an inert mass of dead matter.
• Get out of debt, get off the grid, and learn to live with only what you really need of a material nature.
• Learn to love work and do that work with reverence and gratitude.
• Stop watching TV; instead watch your health and diet.
• Develop your mental, emotional, and manual skills.
• Be honest with yourself and others.
• Refuse the “chip,” no matter what.
• Never stop learning.
• Grow food.
• Laugh a lot.
• Be at peace.
• Be happy.

Richard C. Cook is a writer on public policy issues. His website is www.richardccook.com. Sources for this article include the teachings of Edgar Cayce, G.I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, Abdullah Dougan, Jon Peniel, Omna Last, and many others.